And worthy shameful check it were to stand
On more mechanic compliment."
"Belarius. . . . O, this life
Is nobler, than attending for a check."
"Iago. However, this may gall him with some check.
"Desdemona. And yet his trespass, in our common reason
. . . . is not almost a fault
To incur a private check."
These instances may show that the word in question was a favourite expression of the poet. It is true there was a translation of the Ethics of Aristotle in his time, The Ethiques of Aristotle. If he spelt it ethiques, no printer would have blundered and substituted checks.
Judge Blackstone suggested ethicks, but Johnson and Steevens kept to checks. And Johnson, in his Dictionary, sub voce Devote, quotes the passage, but which, by a strange printer's misreading, is referred to "Tim. of Ath." instead of Tam. of Sh. in Todd's edit. of Johnson's Dictionary (1818).