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To win the Moor again.”

He is not, you see, an absolute fiend; or, at least, he wishes to think himself not so.

Act iii. sc. 3.—

“Des. Before Æmilia here,

I give thee warrant of thy place.”

The over-zeal of innocence in Desdemona.

Ib.—

“Enter Desdemona and Æmilia.

Oth. If she be false, O, then, heaven mocks itself!

I'll not believe't.”

Divine! The effect of innocence and the better genius!

Act iv. sc. 3.—

“Æmil. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and

having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world,

and you might quickly make it right.”

Warburton's note.

What any other man, who had learning enough, might have quoted as a playful and witty illustration of his remarks against the Calvinistic thesis, Warburton gravely attributes to Shakespeare as intentional; and this, too, in the mouth of a lady's woman!

Act v. last scene. Othello's speech:—

... “Of one, whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe,” &c.

Theobald's note from Warburton.

Thus it is for no-poets to comment on the greatest of poets! To make Othello say that he, who had killed his wife, was like Herod who killed Mariamne!—O, how many beauties, in this one line, were impenetrable to the ever thought-swarming, but idealess, Warburton! Othello wishes to excuse himself on the score of ignorance, and yet not to excuse himself,—to excuse himself by accusing. This struggle of feeling is finely conveyed in the word “base,” which is applied to the rude Indian, not in his own character, but as the momentary representative of Othello's. “Indian”—for I retain the old reading—means American, a savage in genere.

Finally, let me repeat 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 Shakespearian Othello, we must perseveringly place ourselves in his situation, and under his circumstances. Then we shall immediately feel the fundamental difference between the solemn agony of the noble Moor, and the wretched fishing jealousies of Leontes, and the morbid suspiciousness of Leonatus, who is, in other respects, a fine character. Othello had no life but in Desdemona:—the belief that she, his angel, had fallen from the heaven of her native innocence, wrought a civil war in his heart. She is his counterpart; and, like him, is almost sanctified in our eyes by her absolute unsuspiciousness, and holy entireness of love. As the curtain drops, which do we pity the most?

Extremum hunc——. There are three powers:—Wit, which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity; subtlety, which discovers the diversity concealed in general apparent sameness;—and profundity, which discovers an essential unity under all the semblances of difference.

Give to a subtle man fancy, and he is a wit; to a deep man imagination, and he is a philosopher. Add, again, pleasurable sensibility in the threefold form of sympathy with the interesting in morals, the impressive in form, and the harmonious in sound,—and you have the poet.

But combine all,—wit, subtlety, and fancy, with profundity, imagination, and moral and physical susceptibility of the pleasurable,—and let the object of action be man universal; and we shall have—O, rash prophecy! say, rather, we have—a Shakespeare!

CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS by William Hazlitt

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

CYMBELINE

MACBETH

JULIUS CASESAR

OTHELLO

TIMON OF ATHENS

CORIOLANUS

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

HAMLET

THE TEMPEST.

THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

ROMEO AND JULIET

LEAR

RICHARD II

HENRY IV

IN TWO PARTS

HENRY V

HENRY VI

IN THREE PARTS

RICHARD III

HENRY VIII

KING JOHN

TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

THE WINTER'S TALE

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST