"Pr'y thee, Emilia, Go know of Cassio where he supped to-night." Act V., Scene 1. In the last scene of the preceding Act, Iago informs Roderigo that Cassio was to sup with Bianca; that he would accompany him to her house, and would take care to bring him away from thence between twelve and one. Cassio, too, had informed Iago that he would sup with Bianca, and Iago had indirectly promised to meet him at her house. The villain, however, thought it safest to waylay his victim, and in the passage quoted professes a politic ignorance of Cassio's motions during the evening. "Put out the light, and then-Put out the light!" Act V., Scene 2. The old copy gives the line thus: "Put out the light, and then put out the light." The present regulation of the passage, by which so much beauty and spirit are added to it, was proposed by Mr. Upton; but it is to be found in Ayres's "LIFE OF POPE:" it may therefore have originated with Warburton, who thus explains it:-The meaning is, "I will put out the light, and then proceed to the execution of my purpose." But the expression of putting out the light, bringing to mind the effects of the extinction of the light of life, he breaks short, and questions himself about the effects of this metaphorical extinction, introduced by a repetition of his first words; as much as to say," But hold, let me first weigh the reflection which this expression naturally excites."-SINGER. "Of one whose hand, Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe."-Act V., Scene 2. It has been a point much disputed whether "Indian" or "Júdean" is the proper reading of the text in this place. The earliest quarto gives "Indian," and two passages are quoted from other writers which strongly support this version. The first is from Habington ("To Castara weeping"): "So the unskilful Indian those bright gems The second quotation is from Sir R. Howard's "WOMAN'S CONQUEST:" "Behold my queen, Who with no more concern I'll cast away Than Indians do a pearl-that ne'er did know "Judean" (or rather Iudean) is the reading of the first folio; and, being now generally received, we have not thought it advisable to make a doubtful alteration, the effect of the passage being, in either case, precisely the same. Those who support this last version suppose the allusion in the text is to Herod and his savage sacrifice of Mariamne. ["OTHELLO" furnishes one of the very few instances in which Dr. Johnson has spoken of Shakspere's plays in anything like adequate terms of eulogy. In justice to him, therefore, as well as to the poet, we willingly avail ourselves on this occasion of the critic's cogent summary remarks."] THE beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge ;-the cool malignity of lago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance;-the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit and conscious of innocence; her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected;-are such proofs of Shakspere's skill in human nature as, I suppose, it is in vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that though it will not, perhaps, be said of him, as he says of himself, that he is a man "not easily jealous," yet we cannot but pity him when at last we find him "perplexed in the extreme."-There is always danger lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation but the character of Iago is so conducted that he is, from the first scene to the last, hated and despised. : Even the inferior characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness but their strength.-Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest; ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation.-Roderigo's suspicious credulity and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him (and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated), exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend :-and the virtue of Emilia is such as we often find,-worn loosely, but not cast off; easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villanies. The scenes, from the beginning to the end, are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progress of the story: and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello. Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity. ALL the passions, all the mind of the play, are Shakspere's. He was indebted to Cinthio for the circumstances of his plot, and some individual traits of Othello's and Iago's characters, particularly of that of the latter. Desdemona he chastened into beauty; and the Captain (Cassio), whose character in the novel is scarcely distinguishable, he invested with qualities exactly correspondent to the purpose he was intended to fulfil. The wife of the Lieutenant (Iago) perhaps the poet had better have left as he found her; for in raising Emilia above insignificance, he unfortunately rendered her inexplicable. Roderigo is his own absolute creation.-SKOTTOWE. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS OMING fresh from the perusal of such of Shakspere's plays as exhibit the sparkling treasures of his rare wit, glowing fancy, and surpassing poetry,-the creative power of his farreaching imagination,-or the convulsive throes, the moral earthquakes and volcanoes, of human passion,-the Drama before us produces an effect almost startling, from the stern, unadorned, and somewhat rugged strength which is its prevailing characteristic. We soon, however, acknowledge the peculiar fitness of the style to the time, the action, and the characters: we recognise in its massive simplicity a grandeur which ornament would injure; in its ruggedness, a power which polish would destroy. In this fitness consists a portion of the value of the Play; a still greater portion in the striking specimen it affords of that "infinite variety" of the writer, which 66 age cannot wither, nor custom stale ;"-and, greatest of all, in its subtle and powerful delineation of human character; that high and extraordinary quality in which all his contemporaries and followers halt so far behind him. In "CORIOLANUS," as in " MACBETH," the Poet has taken an historical character, belonging to a remote and rude age, the records of whose actions, and of the events that gave birth to them, history borrows from tradition, and perhaps assists by conjecture. From the plain and simple relation of those actions and events, he at once judges of the motives, feelings, and circumstances which actuated and produced them ;— and conjures up before the "mind's eye" the very man, a living sentient being, with his moral structure as clearly developed as his outward form would be, were he presented bodily to our senses. Amongst the many truthful delineations of the human mind which have sprung from Shakspere's teeming brain, none are more exquisitely natural, more nicely discriminated, than the Hero of this stirring Play. Superficially viewed, his character appears repulsive and disagreeable; but study it minutely, and it becomes deeply interesting. Born in a state of society which admitted of no gradual connecting links between the lower and higher classes, no channels to conduct the kindly sympathies of each to the other, Coriolanus naturally inherited the prejudices of his order. But this is not all. He is rendered vain-glorious not alone by the pride of place and ancestry, but likewise by that nobler pridethe consciousness of high desert, of natural nobleness of mind, and of indomitable courage. Viewing all this, and beholding also the selfish, sordid natures, the utter and unredeemed baseness and perfidy of the leaders of that populace with which he is brought into hostile contact;-recollecting, moreover, that he is the spoilt child of success, the boy-warrior, who "at sixteen years"-"fought beyond the mark of others;" -who has thrice won the oaken garland; who has been borne aloft on the shields of a conquering army; greeted by the acclamations of the very populace which afterwards revolts against him;-can we, ought we to feel wonder or disgust at the mingled scorn and rage which, with such heaped measure, he hurls upon the "trades" and "occupations" of Rome? No. His conduct may be somewhat unamiable, but it is perfectly natural. His very faults are but the excesses of his virtues: he sets up a standard of moral perfection derived from the consciousness of his own high qualities, and in his inexperience of the world, its sufferings, mistakes, and accidents, he is indignant that the mass of the community should fall short of that standard. The character of Volumnia is just what "the honoured mould of Marcius" might be supposed to be : towering grandly above most of the ordinary weaknesses of her sex, but possessing the rest of them in more than ordinary perfection. What an exquisitely natural specimen of the absence of self-knowledge is conveyed in the declaration, "Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me; but owe thy pride thyself!" Now the feeling of pride is to the full as strong in the mother as in her wayward son; but age, experience, and expediency, have modified and checked the free exhibition of it.—Amidst the stir, the turmoil, and the turbulence of this Play, how melodionsly the sweet voice of the gentler affections makes itself heard! as though, in the din of arms, the clangour of martial music, and the roar of battle, an occasional pause enabled us to catch the soft breathing of flutes. Around the bold and lofty nature of Marcius, the shoots and tendrils of love are permitted to spring and to twine, shedding a lovely grace, like the clinging leaves of the acanthus round the capital of a Corinthian column; which, while they adorn it with their beauty, rob it not of the least portion of its grandeur or its strength. "CORIOLANUS" was first published in the original folio. The incidents are derived from Plutarch. |