every the slightest undulation of feeling is seen on the surface as it arises from the impulses of imagination or the different probabilities maliciously suggested by Iago. The progressive preparation for the catastrophe is wonderfully managed from the Moor's first gallant recital of the story of his love, of "the spells and witchcraft he had used," from his unlooked-for and romantic success, the fond satisfaction with which he dotes on his own happiness, the unreserved tenderness of Desdemona and her innocent importunities in favor of Cassio, irritating the suspicions. instilled into her husband's mind by the perfidy of Iago, and rankling there to poison, till he loses all command of himself, and his rage can only be appeased by blood. She is introduced, just before Iago begins to put his scheme in practice, pleading for Cassio with all the thoughtless gaiety of friendship and winning confidence in the love of Othello.

"What! Michael Cassio?

That came a wooing with you, and so many a time,

When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,

Hath ta'en your part, to have so much to do

To bring him in ?-Why this is not a boon:
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing meats, or keep you warm;
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit

To your person. Nay, when I have a suit,
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,

It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted."

Othello's confidence, at first only staggered by broken hints and insinuations, recovers itself at sight of Desdemona; and he exclaims,

"If she be false, O then Heav'n mocks itself;
I'll not believe it."

But presently after, on brooding over his suspicions by himself, and yielding to his apprehensions of the worst, his smothered jealousy breaks out into open fury, and he returns to demand satisfaction of Iago like a wild beast stung with the envenomed shaft of the hunters. "Look where he comes," &c. In this state of exasperation and violence, after the first paroxysms of

his grief and tenderness have had their vent in that passionate apostrophe, "I felt not Cassio's kisses on her lips," Iago by false aspersions, and by presenting the most revolting images to his mind,* easily turns the storm of passion from himself against Desdemona, and works him up into a trembling agony of doubt and fear, in which he abandons all his love and hopes in a breath.

"Now do I see 't is true. Look here, Iago,

All my fond love thus do I blow to Heav'n. 'Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell;

Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne

To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught;
For 't is of aspics' tongues."

From this time, his raging thoughts "never look back, ne'er ebb to humble love," till his revenge is sure of its object, the painful regrets and involuntary recollections of past circumstances which cross his mind amidst the dim trances of passion, aggravating the sense of his wrongs, but not shaking his purpose. Once, indeed, where Iago shows him Cassio with the handkerchief in his hand, and making sport (as he thinks) of his misfortunes, the intolerable bitterness of his feelings, the extreme sense of shame, makes him fall to praising her accom. plishments, and relapse into a momentary fit of weakness, "Yet the pity of it, Iago!-O, Iago, the pity of it!" But this returning fondness only serves, as it is managed by Iago, to whet his revenge, and set his heart more against her. In his conversations with Desdemona, the persuasion of her guilt, and the immediate proofs of her duplicity seem to irritate his resentment and aversion to her; but in the scene immediately preceding her death, the recollection of his love returns upon him in all its tenderness and force; and after her death, he all at once forgets his wrongs in the sudden and irreparable sense of his loss:

"My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.

Oh insupportable! oh heavy hour!"

* See the passage beginning, "It is impossible you should see this, were they as prime as goats," &c.

This happens before he is assured of her innocence; but afterwards his remorse is as dreadful as his revenge has been, and yields only to fixed and death-like despair. His farewell speech, before he kills himself, in which he conveys his reasons to the senate for the murder of his wife, is equal to the first speech, in which he gave them an account of his courtship of her, and "his whole course of love." Such an ending was alone worthy of such a commencement.

If anything could add to the force of our sympathy with Othello, or compassion for his fate, it would be the frankness and generosity of his nature, which so little deserve it. When Iago first begins to practise upon his unsuspecting friendship, he answers

""T is not to make me jealous,

To say-my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;

Where virtue is, these are most virtuous.

Nor from my own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me."

This character is beautifully (and with affecting simplicity) confirmed by what Desdemona herself says of him to Emilia after she has lost the handkerchief, the first pledge of his love to her.

DESDEMON A. Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
Drew all such humors from him."

In a short speech of Emilia's, there occurs one of those sideintimations of the fluctuations of passion which we seldom meet with but in Shakspeare. After Othello has resolved upon the death of his wife, and bids her dismiss her attendant for the night, she answers,

1

"I will, my Lord.

EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did."

Shakspeare has here put into half a line what some authors would have spun out into ten set speeches.

The character of Desdemona herself is inimitable both in itself, and as it contrasts with Othello's groundless jealousy, and with the foul conspiracy of which she is the innocent victim. Her beauty and external graces are only indirectly glanced at; we see "her visage in her mind;" her character everywhere predominates over her person.

"A maiden never bold:

Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion

Blushed at itself."

There is one fine compliment paid to her by Cassio, who exclaims triumphantly when she comes ashore at Cyprus after the storm,

Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,

As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting safe go by

The divine Desdemona."

In general, as is the case with most of Shakspeare's females, we lose sight of her personal charms in her attachment and devotedness to her husband. "She is subdued even to the very quality of her lord;" and to Othello's "honors and his valiant parts her soul and fortunes consecrates." The lady protests so much herself, and she is as good as her word. The truth of conception, with which timidity and boldness are united in the same character, is marvellous. The extravagance of her resolutions, the pertinacity of her affections, may be said to arise out of the gentleness of her nature. They imply an unreserved reliance on the purity of her own intentions, an entire surrender of her fears to her love, a knitting of herself (heart and soul) to the fate of another. Bating the commencement of her passion, which is a little fantastical and headstrong (though even that may perhaps be consistently accounted for from her ina

bility to resist a rising inclination *), her whole character consists in having no will of her own, no prompter but her obedience. Her romantic turn is only a consequence of the domestic and practical part of her disposition; and, instead of following Othello to the wars, she would gladly have "remained at home a moth of peace," if her husband could have stayed with her. Her resignation and angelic sweetness of temper do not desert her at the last. The scenes in which she laments and tries to account for Othello's estrangement from her are exquisitely beautiful. After he has struck her, and called her names, she

says,

"O good Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

Good friend, go to him; for by the light of heaven,

I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:

If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,

Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed,

Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense
Delighted them on any other form;
Or that I do not, and ever did,

And ever will, though he do shake me off

To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,

Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,
And his unkindness may defeat my life,

But never taint my love.

IAGO. I pray you be content; 't is but his humor.
The business of the state does him offence.

DESDEMONA. If 't were no other!"

The scene which follows with Emilia and the song of the Willow, are equally beautiful, and show the author's extreme power of varying the expression of passion, in all its moods and in all circumstances.

"EMILIA. Would you had never seen him!

DESDEMONA. So would not I: my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,

Have grace and favor in them," &c.

"IAGO. Ay, too gentle.

OTHELLO. Nay, that's certain."