Here, delight is apparently used for the return of light, and the prefix de is probably only intensive. Now, presuming that Shakspeare also used delighted for lighted, illuminated the passage in Measure for Measure would bear this interpretation: "the delighted spirit, i.e., the spirit restored to light," freed from "that dark house in which it long was pent." In Othello, "if virtue lack no delighted beauty," i.e. "want not the light of beauty, your son-in-law shows far more fair than black." Here the opposition between light and black is much in its favour. In Cymbeline, I must confess it is not quite so clear: "to make my gifts, by the dark uncertainty attendant upon delay, more lustrous (delighted), more radiant when given," is not more satisfactory than Mr. HICKSON'S interpretation of this passage. But is it necessary that delighted should have the same signification in all the three passages? I think not.
These are only suggestions, of course, but the passage from Sidney is certainly curious, and, from the correct and careful manner in which the book is printed, does not appear to be a corruption. I have not seen the earlier editions. I have only further to remark, that none of our old authorities favour DR. KENNEDY'S suggestion, "that the word represents the Latin participle delectus."
Since the above was written, Mr. HICKSON'S reply to MR. HALLIWELL has reached me, upon which I have only to observe that he will find to guile was used as a verb. Thus in Gower, Confessio Amantis, fo. 135. ed. 1532:
"For often he that will begyle,
Is gyled with the same gyle,
And thus the gyler is begyled."
We most probably had the word from the old French Guiller=tromper, and the proverb is to the purpose:—
"Qui croit de Guiller Guillot, Guillot le Guile."
Horne Tooke's fanciful etymology cannot be sustained. MR. HICKSON'S explanation of "guiled shore," is, however, countenanced by the following passage in Tarquin and Lucrece:—
"To me came Tarquin armed, so beguil'd