Picture-Notes. — The Royal Academy, 359 



his podgy, wooden-faced girl not a single lineament by which 

 Shakespeare's Juliet should be recognized at a glance. The 

 real Julie b seeks the aid of the Friar to save her from the 

 marriage to which her family condemn her, at any risk. Love 

 has made her bold. She will be " chained with roaring bears ;" 

 will be 



n Shut in a charnel -house, 

 O'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones." 



She will do the direst thing 



" Without fear or doubt, 

 " To live an unstained life to her sweet love." 



Not one glimpse or glimmer of such a Juliet is to be seen 

 on Mr. Ward's canvass. He depicts an affrighted female who 

 might be a provoker of melancholy, but would be a most 

 decided antidote to love. 



Mr. D. Maclise, K.A., is another artist who has maltreated 

 Shakespeare in this exhibition. He has chosen a scene with 

 Othello, Desdemona, and Emilia. 



" Des. Why is your speech so faint ? Are you not well ? 

 " Oth. I have a pain upon my forehead here." 



Just before this scene Iago has succeeded with his vile 

 slanders in raising the jealousy of Othello, and his " pain upon 

 the forehead" is the symptom of his mingled rage and grief. 

 Desdemona binds his brow with the handkerchief he had pre- 

 sented to her. He lets it drop, and Emilia steals it, as her 

 husband Iago had requested. This scene might, one should 

 fancy, inspire an artist to pourtray the deep, half-raging, half- 

 doubting passion of Othello, the tender fear of Desdemona, 

 and the vulgar deceit of Emilia. There is some expression in 

 Desdemona' s face as depicted by Mr. Maclise — none in Othello's 

 half-hidden countenance that is appropriate to the man or the 

 occasion. The noble Moor might be dark, " black/' as he 

 calls himself, but he was a chivalrous gentleman, full of fine 

 feeling, and poetic fancy. In all his chief speeches there is a 

 blending of tenderness and imagination with the rougher nature 

 of the warrior accustomed to " feats of broil and battle;" but 

 none of these qualities are visible in the Othello of Mr. Maclise. 

 He might be a street porter with some commonplace and 

 vulgar grief, certainly not Shakespeare's Othello, whose un- 

 affected narrative of ' ' moving incidents by field and flood," 

 made the high-born Venetian lady " love him for the dangers 

 he had passed." 



This picture is not only deplorably wanting in true con- 

 ception of the characters, but its composition is unpleasing. 

 The figures are uncomfortably huddled together, and an em- 



