the Moor had given her, employing the agency of his own child. He contrives with the Moor to murder the captain of Cyprus, after he has made the credulous husband listen to a conversation to which he gives a false colour and direction; and, finally, the Moor and the guilty officer destroy Desdemona together, under circumstances of great brutality. The crime is, however, concealed, and the Moor is finally betrayed by his accomplice. Mr. Dunlop, in his 'History of Fiction,' has pointed out the material differences between the novel and the tragedy. He adds, "In all these important variations, Shakspere has improved on his original. In a few other particulars he has deviated from it with less judgment; in most respects he has adhered with close imitation. The characters of Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio are taken from Cinthio with scarcely a shade of difference. The obscure hints and various artifices of the villain to raise suspicion in the Moor are the same in the novel and the drama." M. Guizot, with the eye of real criticism, has seen somewhat further than Mr. Dunlop. "There was wanting in the narrative of Cinthio the poetical genius which furnished the actors—which created the individuals—which imposed upon each a figure and a character-which made us see their actions, and listen to their words which presented their thoughts and penetrated their sentiments:— that vivifying power which summons events to arise, to progress, to expand, to be completed :—that creative breath which, breathing over the past, calls it again into being, and fills it with a present and imperishable life :-this was the power which Shakspere alone possessed, and by which, out of a forgotten novel, he has made 'Othello." " Before we can be said to understand the idea of Shakspere in the composition of 'Othello,' we must disabuse ourselves of some of the commonplace principles upon which he has been interpreted. The novel, be it observed, is a very intelligible and consistent story, of wedded happiness, of unlawful and unrequited attachment, of revenge growing out of disappointment, of jealousy too easily abused, of confederacy with the abuser, of most brutal and guilty violence, of equally base falsehood and concealment. This is a story in which we see nothing out of the common course of wickedness; nothing which licentious craft might not prompt, and frenzied passion adopt. The Iago of the tragedy, it is said, has not sufficient motives for his crimes. Mr. Skottowe tells us that in the novel, except as a means of vengeance on Desdemona, the infliction of pain upon the Moor forms no part of the treacherous officer's design. But, with regard to the play, he informs us, that it is surely straining the matter beyond the limits of probability to attribute Iago's detestation of Othello to causes so inadequate and vague as the dramatist has assigned*. We have here the two principles upon which the novelist and the dramatist worked thoroughly at issue; and the one is to be called natural, and the other unnatural. The one would have produced such an 'Othello' as is cleverly described in the introduction to a French translation of the play recently published: in which the nature of jealousy and all its cruel effects would have been explained, with great pomp of language, by a confidante in an introductory monologue ; and the same subject would have served for a continued theme, until the fatal conclusion, which was long foreseen, of an amiable wife becoming the victim of a cruel oppressor. This is the Zaire of Voltaire. Upon the other principle, we have no explanations, no regular progress of what is most palpable in human action. We have the "motiveless malignity" of Iago,—" a being next to devil, and only not quite devil, and yet a character which Shakspeare has attempted and executed without scandal," as the main spring of all the fearful events which issue out of the unequal contest between the powers of grossness and purity, of falsehood and truth. This is the Othello of Shakspere. If it had been within the compass of *The Life of Shakspeare.' By Augustine Skottowe. Vol. ii. p. 76. + 'Chefs-d'Euvre de Shakspeare. Tomeii. Paris, 1839. Coleridge. their victims through their affections, and each is successful in the attempt. If Shakspere had made Iago actually exhibit the vulgar attributes of the fiend, when Othello exclaims Shakspere's great scheme of the exposition | mon, also, that they each seek to destroy of human actions and the springs of action, to have made Iago a supernatural incarnation of the principle of evil, he would not have drawn him very differently from what he is. In all essentials he is "only not quite devil." He is very much less "than archangel ruined." Milton, when he paints his Satan as about to plunge our first parents in irretrievable misery, makes him exhibit signs of remorse :" 66 cence "I look down towards his feet "would the character have been a particle more real? Fiends painted by men are but reflections of the baser principles of humanity. Shakspere embodied those prin"Should I at your harmless inno- ciples in Iago; and, it being granted that Melt, as I do, yet public reason just, But there is another great poetical creation to which Iago bears more resemblance-the Mephistophiles of Goethe. Take away the supernatural power in Mephistophiles, and the sense of the supernatural power in Faust, and the actions of the human fiend and of the real fiend are reduced to pretty much the same standard. It could not be otherwise. Goethe, to make the incarnation of the evil principle intelligible in its dealing with human affairs, could only paint what Shakspere has painted-a being passionless, self-possessed, unsympathizing, sceptical of all truth and purity, intellectually gross and sensual,-of a will uncontrolled by fear for himself or respect for others,—the abstract of the reasoning power in the highest state of activity, but without love, without veneration, without hope, unspiritualized, earthy. Mephistophiles and Iago have this in com great talent combined with an utter destitution of principle, and a complete denudation of sympathy, has produced the monsters which history has described, who shall say that the character is exaggerated? The list of "persons represented,” affixed to the folio edition of Othello, and called "the names of the actors," is as little wanted for the information of the reader of this tragedy as any preparatory scenic description of the characters. In this list we have "Iago, a villain,"—" Roderigo, a gull'd gentleman." But Shakspere has given us very clear indications by which to know the gull from the rogue. We have not read a dozen sentences before we feel the intellectual vigour of Iago, and the utter want of honour, which he is not ashamed to avow. He parries in an instant the complaint of Roderigo, "That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse,"and commands a sympathy with his own complaints against the Moor. He is not nice in the avowal of his principles of ac tion: "In following him I follow but myself." He lays bare, without the slightest apprehension, the selfish motives upon which he habitually acts. And is not this nature? Roderigo, blinded by his passion and vanity, overlooks, as all men do under similar circumstances, the risk which he himself runs from such a confederate; and Iago knows that he will overlook it. He never makes a similar exposition of himself directly to persons of nice honour and sensitive morality. To Othello he is the hypocrite : "I lack iniquity, Sometime to do me service." And therefore, in Othello's opinion, "A man he is of honesty and trust." And even to the “gull'd gentleman," while If I would time expend with such a snipe, 66 To Desdemona, in the first scene at Cyprus, he is nothing if not critical," according to his own account, but retailing "old fond paradoxes," to conceal his real opinions. When he tasks his understanding to meet Desdemona's demand of "What praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed?" he exhibits the very perfection of satirical verse, the precise model of the poetry of smartness and antithesis, the light without warmth of cleverness without feeling. To Cassio, a frank and generous soldier, somewhat easily tempted to folly, and with morals loose enough, but not so loose as to destroy his native love of truth and purity, he ventures to exhibit himself more openly. The dialogue in the third scene of the second act, where they discourse of Desdemona, is a key to the habitual grossness of his imagination. His sarcasm to Cassio after the anger of Othello, "As I am an honest man, I had thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation,"-discloses the utter absence from his mind of the principle of honour. And then, again, he can accommodate himself to all the demands of the frankest joviality : "And let me the canakin clink, clink." Other dramatists would have made him gloomy and morose, but Shakspere knew that the boon companion, and the cheat and traitor, are not essentially distinct characters. In these lighter demonstrations of his real nature we have seen the clever scoundrel and the passionless sensualist tainted with impurity to the extremest depth of his will and his understanding. We have seen, too, at the very commencement of the play, his hatred to Othello exhibited in the rousing up of Desdemona's father. We have learned something, also, of the motive of this hatred —the preferment of Cassio : "Now, sir, be judge yourself, Whether I in any just term am affined To love the Moor." But it remained for Iago himself, thinking aloud, or, as we call it, soliloquizing, to disclose the entire scope of his villainy. He is to get Cassio's place, and "to abuse Othello's ear." To justify even to himself this second fiendish determination, he shows us, as Coleridge has beautifully expressed it, "the motive hunting of a motiveless malignity." We may well add with Coleridge, "how awful it is!" To understand the confidence with which Iago exclaims, "I have it, it is engender'd," we must examine the elements of Othello's character. It is his dependence upon this constant, | But when the meeting comes at Cyprus, loving, noble nature, it is upon Othello's after their separation and their danger, the freedom from all low suspicion, that Iago depth of his affection bursts forth in irrerelies for his power to pressible words : "Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me, For making him egregiously an ass, But let Othello speak for himself. Not vain, but proud;-relying upon himself, his birth, his actions, he is calm at the prospect of any injury that Brabantio can do him. He is bold when he has to confront those who come as his enemies : "I must be found; My parts, my title, and my perfect soul, When the old senator exclaims, " down with him-thief!" how beautiful is his self-command! "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them." It was his forbearance and self-restraint, bottomed upon the most enthusiastic energy, "If it were now to die, "T were now to be most happy; for, I fear Such are the materials upon which Iago has Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion Blush'd at herself." Yet upon her first appearance very she does not shrink from avowing the strength of her affections: "That I love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world." that made him a hero. When he is wrought But she immediately adds the reason for into frenzy, Iago himself is surprised at the storm which he has produced; and he looks upon the tempest of passion as a child does upon some machine which he has mischievously set in motion for damage and destruction, but which under guidance is a beautiful instrument of usefulness. "Can : he be angry ?" Ludovico, in the same way, does justice to his habitual equanimity :"Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate Call all-in-all sufficient? Is this the nature Whom passion could not shake?" The senate scene is the triumph of Othello's perfect simplicity and fearless enthusiasm:"I think this tale would win my daughter too." And then his affection for Desdemona. Before the assembled senators he puts on no show of violence-no reality, and, unquestionably, no affectation, of warmth and tenderness : this: 66 My heart's subdued Even to the very quality of my lord.” The impressibility of Desdemona is her distinguishing characteristic. With this key, the tale of Othello's wooing is a most consistent one. The timid girl is brought into immediate contact with the earnest warrior. She hears of wonders most remote from her experience;-caves and deserts, rocks and hills, in themselves marvels to an inhabitant of the city of the sea,― "Of most disastrous chances; Of moving accidents by flood and field." How exquisite is the domestic picture which follows: "But still the house affairs would draw her thence; Which ever as she could with haste despatch, She'd come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse." But this impressibility, this exceeding sym Understanding, then, the native characters of Othello and Desdemona, we shall appreciate the marvellous skill with which Shakspere has conducted the machinations of Iago. If the novel of Cinthio had fallen into common hands to be dramatized, and the dramatist had chosen to depart from the motive of revenge against Desdemona which there actuates the villain, the plot would probably have taken this course: -The Desdemona would have been somewhat less pure than our Desdemona; the Cassio would have been somewhat more presumptuous than our Cassio, and have not felt for Desdemona the religious veneration which he feels; the Othello would have been “easily jealous," and would have done something "in hate," but not "all in honour," as our Othello. It is a part of the admirable knowledge of human nature possessed by Shakspere, that Iago does not, even for a moment, entertain the thought of tampering with the virtue of Desdemona, either through Cassio, or Roderigo, or any other instrument. Coleridge has boldly and truly said that "Othello 'does not kill Desdemona in jealousy, but in a conviction forced upon him by the almost superhuman art of Iago-such a conviction as any man would and must have entertained who had believed Iago's honesty as Othello did. We, the audience, know that Iago is a villain from the beginning; but, in considering the essence of the Shaksperean Othello, we must perseveringly place ourselves in his situation, and under his circumstances." But Othello was not only betrayed by his reliance on 66 Iago's honesty," but also by his confidence in Iago's wisdom :"This fellow's of exceeding honesty, And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, Of human dealings." Again, O thou art wise; 't is certain." When Othello thus bows his own lofty nature before the grovelling but most acute worldly intellect of Iago, his habitual view of "all qualities" had been clouded by the breath of the slanderer. His confidence in purity and innocence had been destroyed. The sensual judgment of "human dealings had taken the place of the spiritual. The enthusiastic love and veneration of his wife had been painted to him as the result of gross passion:— "Not to affect many proposed matches," &c. His belief in the general prevalence of virtuous motives and actions had been degraded to a reliance on the libertine's creed that all are impure: "there's millions now alive," &c. When the innocent and the high-minded submit themselves to the tutelage of the man of the world, as he is called, the process of mental change is precisely that produced in the mind of Othello. The poetry of life is gone. On them never more "The freshness of the heart can fall like dew." They abandon themselves to the betrayer, |
