260 shakspeare's writings. 



breadth of light and shade. We see the noble Moor 

 enter with a bosom, calm, under the full confidence 

 of his wife's love ; and we mark with encreasing 

 interest, the swellings of that bosom under the suc- 

 cessive influence of thought, doubt, suspicion and 

 jealousy, till — at length — like the Volcano — it hea- 

 ves with its "fraught of wretchedness,'' and, with the 

 fury of an eruption, hurls forth " all its fond love," 

 and becomes as a womb teeming with immeasurable 

 hate and bloody vengeance. In the midst of this, 

 it will be observed, with what happy art the poet 

 relieves the fearful blackness of his purpose with 

 occasional gleams of hesitating tenderness, and soft 

 relen tings, which might have ripened into mercy, 

 but for the blasting vigilence of lago ; and which, 

 together with some passages of the most exquisite 

 pathos, act like bonds upon our sympathy. Shaks- 

 peare, evidently desired that Othello, like Macbeth, 

 should never entirely forfeit the esteem of the reader. 

 It will be observed, that Othello is made to fulfil 

 his bloody resolve under the momentary impulse of 

 renovated exasperation : — Desdemona laments the 

 death of him, whom Othello imagines to have been 

 adulterate with her; and, in a fit of fury, the Moor, 

 denying her even time for " one prayer," extinguishes 

 the life of one, whom, in the assurance of her truth, 

 he had not sold for a " world 



/ Of one entire and perfect Chrysolite ! '* — 



There is a hornble grandeur in Othello's exclam- 

 ation on hearing the last words of Desdemona who 

 denies the guilt of her husband ; — 



" She 's like a liar gone to burning liell ! 



' t was I that killed her I " — 



This sounds impious : but when we study Othello's 

 part as we should the mind of an existing and pal- 

 pable man — and not as a piece of declamatory 

 writing of so many hundred lines — when we regard 

 it as a piece of the individual Othello we acknow- 

 ledge its consistency and admire its nobleness. 

 Feeling convinced of Desdemona's guilt, and with 



