LITMIR.BIZ

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sight of her endearments is nearly as horrid as those of Titania to Bottom are absurd. They are not paired, and all through the play you never can get quit of the disagreeable idea of the blubber lips. If he could be made into a noble statue in mahogany, (not ebony,) a Christianized Abdel Kader – a real Moor and not a blackâmoor– the matter would be infinitely better; but no – Shakspeare meant him for a true specimen of the nigger, or why all the taunts about his colour, and the surprise that was evidently excited among the gossips of Venice by the match? The very refinement bestowed on Desdemona makes us have greater horror at her fault, and less sorrow at her griefs. If she had been a mere domestic piece of furniture, without any delicacy or sentiment, we should not have been more revolted at her wedding than at the nuptials of Dyce Sombre. But Desdemona, a gentle lady, married to a Sambo! – impossible! She was either not the fair and simple creature she is painted to us, or she did not outrage humanity so abominably as to follow the example of the brewer's maid in the charming song you favoured us with in the skittle-ground, of which the burden is —

      "She ran away with a black man."

      If she did, choking with a pillow is too good for her; she ought rather to have been done to death in a bag of soot.

      But passing over the incongruity of the lovers, is not the whole play filled with convulsive energies and unhealthy bursts of passion? For my part – but in this, my dear Smith, I will willingly yield to your better judgment – I think Iago was intended for the hero of the play. He is the mainspring of the whole plot; he pulls all the wires; and, to use an elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb. Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of the trusting, hood-winked pigeon, Othello —

      "That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

      And will as tenderly be led by the nose

      As asses are."

      The only fault is, that, for a clever fellow, Iago takes too much pains to show his cleverness. If he does not wear his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at, it must be for two reasons; first, that no gentleman wears his heart any where but inside of his chest; and secondly, that hearts are not the favourite food of the bird mentioned; but he lets slip no opportunity of displaying his wit, ingenuity, and powers of acting – for Iago is a part in which the actor acts an actor – and precisely in proportion as he shows he is acting, is he successful in the character. The usual error is in showing too little of the actor in his interviews with Cassio and Othello; his friendliness, sycophancy, and good humour become too real, as if it were the performer's cue to enact those qualities, whereas he is only to assume them for the nonce – the real presentment of the man being a malicious, revengeful, and astute villain. I think, also, my dear fellow, that our friend Iago is too communicative, not only to such a noodle-pate as Roderigo, but to the many-headed monster the Pit. He comes forward, and exactly in the same way as M. Philippe informs his audience – "Now I vill show you a ver' vonderful trick. I vill put de tea into dis canister – I vill put de sugar into dat; and I vill put de cream into dis leetle jug, and den you shall see dat you shall have de excellent cup of tea vidout any vater." And, by shaking first one canister and then another, out comes some capital tea, as hot as if you had seen the kettle boiling. So does the insinuating Iago, and says – "You shall see what you shall see. I will make Othello jealous of Cassio – I will make Cassio drunk, and get him into a quarrel on guard – and I will make him apply to Desdemona for her interest with her husband on his behalf;" and, presto! first one scene, and then another – Othello gets jealous – Cassio gets drunk – and Desdemona pleads most innocently for his forgiveness. It strikes me to be letting an audience too much into the secret. I prefer such a scene as that in which the Demon of the Blood-red Glen creates an effect by springing over the foot-lights, and landing (quite unexpected by boxes, pit, or gallery) on the back of the flying Arabian, completely apparelled as the American Apollo. I have seen the Kentucky voltigeur introduce a fancy-dance on two wild steeds, and jump through a fiery hoop in the character of Shylock; and I confess I liked him better in those happy days at New York, than since he has proclaimed himself as the great transatlantic tragedian, and has set up as an infallible critic because he has proved himself a fallible actor.

      And then the death of Desdemona! My dear Smith – I appeal to your own noble feelings, as a husband and a Christian, – if you thought Mrs Smith a little too fond of Cassio – or any other lieutenant, – if you even found she had given him one of your best handkerchiefs to make him a nightcap – nay, if you had determined even to achieve widowerhood with your own hands, would you take the instrument Othello uses for the purpose? I ask you as a man and a gentleman. You would borrow a pistol – you would take up a knife – you would purchase arsenic – but you would not undergo the personal fatigue of Burking her in her bed! But it is not with you I have to do just now. I go back to Shakspeare and his times – and I maintain that the manner of Desdemona's murder could only be tolerable in the state of society at the time it was presented. I suspect the very appliances of the modern stage bring the repulsiveness of the incident more prominently forward. There is a beautifully furnished room – a dressing-table beside the bed – nice curtains drawn all round it – snow-white sheets, and a pair of very handsome bed-room candles. The bed-room is brought too prominently forward; and when Desdemona is discovered asleep, it needs all the magic of Shakspeare's name, and the reverence that his genius has created and maintains, even upon the shilling gallery, to prevent the tragic interest from turning into another channel. The contrast is too great between the truthfulness of the bed-curtains and easy-chair, and the horrid purpose – which ought to be idealized, and not realized – for which the Moor enters the room. It is a frightful, blackfaced murderer – designed in the seventeenth century, and considered true to nature then, coming into the open daylight of the nineteenth, casting his Elizabethan energies into forms repulsive to the sentiments of our Victorian time; and we should also feel, if the play were presented to us for the first time, that an Othello created by Shakspeare – if he had been left for these latter times – would not have murdered his wife with a pillow – if he had murdered her at all – and would not have brought forward on the stage the bed-room of a jealous husband, with his wife expecting his approach. The barrenness of the stage in Shakspeare's time was an advantage in a scene like this; – when people were told to fancy that old bench was a bed, and that the close-shaved stripling reclining on it was a woman – the imagination was set down to a feast of its own: the scanty scenery became an accessory – not a realization – all that was palpable was the innocence and sacrifice of the heroine – and the awful and inexpressible struggles of the man.

      Do you see what I mean? Do you agree with me that it was a misfortune to the British drama that the summit of its glory was reached by Shakspeare so long ago; – a Shakspeare that knew the whole secrets of the human heart, as the human heart existed before his time – or at least as it was supposed in his time to exist; – a Shakspeare who was ignorant of the Great Rebellion – of the Restoration – of the Revolution – of the glorious First of June – of the Guillotine – of Napoleon – of Trafalgar – of Waterloo; – a Shakspeare who had never seen a telegraph – a mail-coach – a steam-boat – a railway. What sort of a man must this have been, that still maintains possession of the stage – that keeps (as I maintain) the British taste in a state of almost mediæval roughness, and chains the dramatic art itself to the slab over his grave? Perhaps, my dear Smith, the immortal Bunn is right after all. Perhaps, if all managers were to follow his example for forty years – if for forty years mankind were condemned to the wilderness of operas, and divertisements, and farces – we should forget the flavour of the flesh-pots (furnished by Shakspeare) which has so completely mastered our taste; – some Joshua would lead us into a chosen land, and feed us with all manner of delights; – the stage, I mean, would come, like the aloe, to a second flower, only resembling its ancient crown in its life and beauty, but smelling of the present time.

      For no beer, you will grant, is so pleasant as that which has the froth on. Its freshness even compensates for its want of strength. But if, in addition to being fresher by two hundred years than the tap of William Shakspeare of Stratford, it were as strong – as cunningly mixed of malt and hops – and had as beautiful a flavour as his had when it was first

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