shown him; and he is all this, and, moreover, a hero who spurns at danger, a worthy leader of an army a faithful servant of the State; but the mere physical force of passion puts to flight in one momental his acquired and mere habitual virtues, and gives the upper hand to the savage over the moral m This tyranny of the blood over the will betrays itself even in the expression of his desire of reve upon Cassio. In his repentance, a genuine tenderness for his murdered wife, and in the presenc the damning evidence of his deed, the painful feeling of annihilated honour at last bursts forth; al in the midst of these painful emotions, he assails himself with the rage wherewith a despot punishes a runaway slave. He suffers as a double man; at once in the higher and the lower sphere into wh his being was divided. While the Moor bears the nightly colour of suspicion and deceit only on E visage, lago is black within. He haunts Othello like his evil genius, and with his light (and therefo the more dangerous) insinuations, he leaves him no rest; it is as if by means of an unfortunt affinity, founded however in nature, this influence was by necessity more powerful over him than th voice of his good angel Desdemona. A more artful villain than this Iago was never portrayed; he sprea his nets with a skill which nothing can escape. The repugnance inspired by his aims becomes tolera from the attention of the spectators being directed to his means: these furnish endless employment: the understanding. Cool, discontented, and morose, arrogant where he dares be so, but humble a. insinuating when it suits his purposes, he is a complete master in the art of dissimulation; acces!! only to selfish emotions, he is thoroughly skilled in rousing the passions of others, and of aval himself of every opening which they give him: he is as excellent an observer of men as any one of be who is unacquainted with higher motives of action from his own experience; there is always s truth in his malicious observations on them. He does not merely pretend an obdurate incredulity as: the virtue of women, he actuaily entertains it; and this, too, falls in with his whole way of think and makes him the more fit for the execution of his purpose. As in everything he sees merely t hateful side, he dissolves in the rudest manner the charm which the imagination casts over the relativ between the two sexes: he does so for the purpose of revolting Othello's senses, whose heart otherws might easily have convinced him of Desdemona's innocence. This must serve as an excuse for th numerous expressions in the speeches of Iago from which modesty shrinks. If Shakspeare had writt in our days he would not perhaps have dared to hazard them; and yet this must certainly have gread injured the truth of his picture. Desdemona is a sacrifice without blemish. She is not, it is true high ideal representation of sweetness and enthusiastic passion like Juliet; full of simplicity, softnes and humility, and so innocent, that she can hardly form to herself an idea of the possibility of infidelt she seems calculated to make the most yielding and tenderest of wives. The female propensity wh to resign itself to a foreign destiny has led her into the only fault of her life, that of marrying withe her father's consent. Her choice seems wrong; and yet she has been gained over to Othello by the which induces the female to honour in man her protector and guide,-admiration of his determinei heroism, and compassion for the sufferings which he had undergone. With great art it is so contrive that from the very circumstance that the possibility of a suspicion of her own purity of motive Lever once enters her mind, she is the less reserved in her solicitations for Cassio, and thereby does k heighten more and more the jealousy of Othello. To throw out still more clearly the angelic purity Desdemona, Shakspeare has in Emilia associated with her a companion of doubtful virtue. From t sinful levity of this woman, it is also conceivable that she should not confess the abstraction of handkerchief when Othello violently demands it back: this would otherwise be the circumstance in the whole piece the most difficult to justify. Cassio is portrayed exactly as he ought to be to exat suspicion without actual guilt, amiable and nobly disposed, but easily seduced. The public events the first two acts show us Othello in his most glorious aspect, as the support of Venice and the terr: of the Turks; they serve to withdraw the story from the mere domestic circle, just as this is done a 'Romeo and Juliet' by the dissensions between the houses of Montague and Capulet. No eloquence is capable of painting the overwhelming force of the catastrophe in 'Othello,'-the pressure of feelings which measure out in a moment the abysses of eternity."-SCHLEGEL. "Admirable is the preparation, so truly and peculiarly Shakesperian, in the introduction of Roderigo, as the dupe on whom Iago shall first exercise his art, and in doing so display his o character. Roderigo, without any fixed principle, but not without the moral notions and sympathies with honour which his rank and connexions had hung upon him, is already well fitted and predispose for the purpose; for very want of character and strength of passion, like wind loudest in an emp house, constitute his character. The first three lines happily state the nature and foundation of the friendship between him and Iago,—the purse,- -as also the contrast of Roderigo's intemperance of mind with Iago's coolness, the coolness of a preconceiving experimenter. The mere language of protestation 'If ever I did dream of such a matter, which, falling in with the associative link, determines Roderigo's continuation of complaint,— Thou told'st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate,' elicits at length a true feeling of Iago's mind, the dread of contempt habitual to those who encourage in themselves, and have their keenest pleasure in, the expression of contempt for others. Observe Iago's high self-opinion, and the moral, that a wicked man will employ real feelings, as well as assume those most alien from his own, as instruments of his purposes : 11 and by the faith of man I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.' In what follows, let the reader feel how by and through the glass of two passions, disappointed vanity and envy, the very vices of which he is complaining are made to act upon him as if they were so many excellences, and the more appropriately because cunning is always admired and wished for by minds conscious of inward weakness: but they act only by half, like music on an inattentive auditor, swelling the thoughts which prevent him from listening to it. ROD. What a full fortune does the thick lips owe Roderigo turns off to Othello; and here comes one, if not the only, seeming justification of our blackamoor or negro Othello. Even if we supposed this an uninterrupted tradition of the theatre, and that Shakespear himself, from want of scenes, and the experience that nothing could be too marked for the senses of his audience, had practically sanctioned it, would this prove aught concerning his own intention as a poet for all ages? Can we imagine him so utterly ignorant as to make a barbarous negro plead royal birth-at a time too when negroes were not known except as slaves? As for Iago's language to Brabantio, it implies merely that Othello was a Moor, that is, black. Though I think the rivalry of Roderigo sufficient to account for his wilful confusion of Moor and negro, yet, even if compelled to give this up, I should think it only adapted for the acting of the day, and should complain of an enormity built on a single word, in direct contradiction to Iago's 'Barbary Horse.' Besides, if we could in good earnest believe Shakespear ignorant of the distinction, still why should we adopt one disagreeable possibility instead of a ten times greater and more pleasing probability? It is a common error to mistake the epithets applied by the dramatis persone to each other as truly descriptive of what the audience ought to see or know. No doubt Desdemona saw Othello's visage in his mind; yet, as we are constituted, and most surely as an English audience was disposed in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it would be something monstrous to conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with a veritable negro. It would argue a disproportionateness, a want of balance in Desdemona, which Shakespear does not appear to have in the least contemplated. "Iago's speech-'Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus,' &c.-comprises the passionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect; and therefore he is here a bold partisan of the truth, but yet of a truth converted into a falsehood by the absence of all the necessary modifications caused by the frail nature of man. And then comes the last sentiment- Our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this, that you call-love, to be a sect or scion!' Here is the true Iagoism of alas! how many! Note Iago's pride of mastery in the repetition of 'Go, make money!' to his anticipated dupe, even stronger than his love of lucre: and when Roderigo is completely won, when the effect has been fully produced, the repetition of triumph- Go to; farewell; put money enough in your purse!' The remainder-Iago's soliloquy—the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity-how awful it is! Yea, whilst he is still allowed to bear the divine image, it is too fiendish for his own steady view, for the lonely gaze of a being next to devil, and not quite devil,— and yet a character which Shakespear has attempted and executed, without disgust and without scandal ! Dr. Johnson has remarked that little or nothing is wanting to render the 'Othello' a regular tragi but to have opened the play with the arrival of Othello in Cyprus, and to have thrown the ! preced act into the form of narration. Here then is the place to determine whether such a change would would not be an improvement: nay (to throw down the glove with a full challenge), whether i 1 tragedy would or not by such an arrangement become more regular-that is, more consonant with th rules dictated by universal reason, or the true common-sense of mankind, in its application to t particular case. For in all acts of judgment, it can never be too often recollected, and scarcely often repeated, that rules are means to ends, and, consequently, that the end must be determined a understood before it can be known what the rules are or ought to be. Now, from a certain species drama, proposing to itself the accomplishment of certain ends--these partly arising from the idea the species itself, but in part, likewise, forced upon the dramatist by accidental circumstances beyo his power to remove or control-three rules have been abstracted;-in other words, the me most conducive to the attainment of the proposed ends have been generalized, and prescribed the names of the three unities-the unity of time, the unity of place, and the unity of action, wh last would, perhaps, have been as appropriately, as well as more intelligibly, entitled the unity interest. With this last the present question has no immediate concern: in fact, its conjunction w the former two is a mere delusion of words. It is not properly a rule, but in itself the great end only of the drama, but of the epic poem, the lyric ode, of all poetry, down to the candle-flame come an epigram, nay, of poesy in general, as the proper generic term inclusive of all the fine arts as t species. But of the unities of time and place, which alone are entitled to the name of rules, 121 history of their origin will be their best criterion. You might take the Greek chorus to a place. you could not bring a place to them without as palpable an equivoque as bringing Birnam Wood Macbeth at Dunsinane. It was the same, though in a less degree, with regard to the unity of timethe positive fact, not for a moment removed from the senses, the presence, I mean, of the su identical chorus, was a continued measure of time; and although the imagination may superse perception, yet it must be granted to be an imperfection, however easily tolerated, to place the two broad contradiction to each other. In truth, it is a mere accident of terms; for the Trilogy of Greek theatre was a drama in three acts, and notwithstanding this, what strange contrivances as place there are in the Aristophanic Frogs. Besides, if the law of mere actual perception is violated, as it is repeatedly even in the Greek tragedies, why is it more difficult to imagine three ho to be three years than to be a whole day and night ? "Observe in how many ways Othello is made, first our acquaintance, then our friend, then the de of our anxiety, before the duper is to be approached! And Cassio's warm-hearted, yet perfe disengaged, praise of Desdemona 'that paragons description and wild fame,' and sympathy with 'most fortunately' wived Othello ;—and yet Cassio is an enthusiastic admirer, almost a worshipp Desdemona. O, that detestable code, that excellence cannot be loved in any form that is female, b must needs be selfish! Observe Othello's 'honest' and Cassio's 'bold' Iago, and Cassio's full guikbshearted wishes for the safety and love-raptures of Othello and 'the divine Desdemona. And also" || the exquisite circumstance of Cassio's kissing Iago's wife, as if it ought to be impossible that dullest auditor should not feel Cassio's religious love of Desdemona's purity. Iago's answers are #! sheers which a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and expresses to a wife. Surely it ought! be considered a very exalted compliment to women, that all the sarcasms on them in Shakespear put in the mouths of villains. 66 Finally, Othello does not kill Desdemona in jealousy, but in a conviction forced upon him by almost superhuman art of Iago, such a conviction as any man would and must have entertained had believed Iago's honesty as Othello did. We, the audience, know that Iago is a villain from beginning but in considering the essence of the Shakesperian Othello, we must perseveringly pa ourselves in his situation, and under his circumstances. Then we shall immediately feel the fu mental difference between the solemn agony of the noble Moor, and the wretched fishing jealousies Leontes, and the morbid suspiciousness of Leonatus, who is in other respects a fine character. Othe had no life but in Desdemona :-the belief that she, his angel, had fallen from the heaven of her nati innocence, wrought a civil war in his heart. She is his counterpart; and like him, is almost sanctie in our eyes by her absolute unsuspiciousness, and holy entireness of love. As the curtain drops, whic do we pity the most?"-COLERIDGE. 1 TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY, EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD. RIGHT HONOURABLE, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden: only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish, and the world's hopeful expectation. Your honour's in all duty, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. aand never after ear so barren a land,-] To ear is to plough or till: So in "All's Well That Ends Well," Act I. Sc. 3,-"He that ears my land, spares my team," &c. Again in "King Richard II." Act III. Sc. 2, " and let them go |