These lines stand in the old edition thus:
—though some cast again;
And, by that destiny, to perform an act,
Whereof what's past, is prologue; what to come,
In your and my discharge.
The reading in the later editions is without authority. The old text may very well stand, except that in the last line in should be is. and perhaps we might better say—and that by destiny. It being a common plea of wickedness to call temptation destiny.
II.i.259 (45,6) [Keep in Tunis] There is in this passage a propriety lost, which a slight alteration will restore:
—Sleep in Tunis,
And let Sebastian wake!
II.i.278 (45,7) [Twenty consciences, That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candy'd be they, Or melt e'er they molest] I had rather read,
Would melt e'er they molest.
i.e. Twenty consciences, such as stand between me and my hopes, though they were congealed, would melt before they could molest one, or prevent the execution of my purposes. (see 1765, I,40,7)
II.i.286 (46,8) [This ancient morsel] For morsel Dr. Warburton reads ancient moral, very elegantly and judiciously, yet I know not whether the author might not write morsel, as we say a piece of a man.
II.i.288 (46,9) [take suggestion] i.e. Receive any hint of villainy, (1773)