brook, according to his own expression, to study all the qualities of human dealings, the artifices of interest, and the meanness of servile attentions. To a man constituted' like Iago himself, the affected interest which he takes in the welfare of his master, profound as it was, must have been very suspicious; but to Othello it is the effect of exceeding honesty! His enlarged affections were used to diffuse happiness in a wide circle, to be pained with misery, and displeased with injustice, if within his view; but he did not consider the small proportion of mankind that was inspired by similar sentiments, and therefore the parade of

Iago was in his eyes unbounded generosity.

With so much nature and dignity does he always act, that, even when distorted with angry passions, he appears amiable.

EMIL. I would you had never seen him.

DESD. So would not I; my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubborness, his checks, and frowns,
Have grace and favour in them.

A character of this kind commands respect; and in his actions we naturally interest ourselves.

Iago, who is the prime mover of the events of this tragedy, is a character of no simple kind: he possesses uncommon sagacity in judging of the actions of men good and bad; he discerns the merit of Cassio to lie more in the theory than in the practice of war. Roderigo he comprehended completely; the amiable nature of Desdemona he

was not ignorant of; he often praises the free and noble nature of Othello; the beauty of Cassio's life he felt with much regret; and he is sensible of the intrinsic value of virtue, as well as its estimation among men; he knew well that, without virtue, no solid or lasting reputation could be acquired; and without doubt he understood the force of Cassio's feeling reflections on this subject, though he makes an appearance of despising them. Iago, it must be observed, artfully assumes the character rather of strong than of high and refined benevolence: in the second scene of the first act he says,

With the little godliness I have,

I did full hard forbear him.

a character which he knew would be more easily supported, which would render him less liable of being supposed acting from pride, and consequently create no envy. Content for the present with the humble appellation of honest creature, he found sufficient amends in the prospect of being recompensed with double interest in the accomplishment of his plans.

In his first interview with Othello, Iago begins his deep schemes very successfully, by labouring, with bold and masterly cunning, to impress him with a strong sense of his fidelity and attachment to his interests; he represents himself as sustaining a difficult conflict between two of the best principles, regard to his master, and a fear of seeming to act with a malicious cruelty. He speaks like a

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person fired with anger that he cannot contain; he does not give a detail of Brabantio's proceedings like an unconcerned spectator, but in that confused and interrupted manner worthy of the truest passion; his reflections, which, according to calm reason, ought to come last, according to passion come first. The scene which occasioned his passion is over; he then resolves in his thoughts the nature of it; and lastly, the part which he ought to have acted takes possession of his mind. In this last state he finds himself when he meets Othello, perplexed in deliberating whether he ought in conscience to do contrived murder. Having disburdened himself of this, the subject opens in his mind; he goes backward, and describes what were his sensations in a very striking manner :

-Nine or ten times

I thought to have jerked him under the ribs.

The fumes of passion are now supposed to be dissipating; and the cause of his anger and reflections he unfolds more clearly, but in the same enraged and animated strain:

Nay, but he prated,

And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms.
Against your honour,

That with the little godliness I have,

I did full hard forbear him.

Having fully vented himself, he begins now coolly to urge some prudential arguments with regard to Othello's conduct in this critical affair:

Are

you

-But I pray, Sir,

fast married? For be sure of this,

That the Magnifico is much belov'd,

And hath in his effect a voice potential,
As double as the Duke's; he will divorce you,
Or put upon you what restraint or grievance
The law, (with all his might to inforce it on,)
Will give him cable.

Having managed his part in the succeeding transactions of this scene with the same kind of propriety, the busy rascal makes haste to act in a very different character with Roderigo.

Hitherto Iago seems not to have formed any determined plan of action. A bait is laid for him in the simplicity of Roderigo, and how to get possession of his treasures seems to be the only object he had at first in view. He informs him that, having received many injuries from the Moor, he has reason to concur in schemes against him; and in order to amuse Roderigo, to bring matters into some ferment, and at the same time to have an opportunity of showing his zeal to Othello, he advises him, as the most likely means to obtain Desdemona, to inflame her father by giving him an account of her marriage with the Moor; though Iago himself, it is probable, expected no success from this device. However, while his orders are executing, he has leisure to consider what he is about; for Iago, at his first setting out, seems to have no intention of dipping so deep in wickedness as 'to bring about' the dreadful event which closes this tragedy.' Finding no method to gratify

Roderigo, he dexterously makes him a tool for promoting his own interests. The suit of Roderigo, and the active hand he had taken in it, had brought him to think of a scheme of which the same persons were to be the subject. To render Cassio odious to Othello by scandalous aspersions, and by these means to be preferred in his place, are the objects which he now has in view; a pursuit which he did not perhaps think would be attended with such a fatal train of consequences, though his sagacious mind discerns something that strikes him with horror.

Hell and night

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

Shakspeare has shown great judgment in the darkness which he makes to prevail in the first counsels of Iago. To the poet himself, all the succeeding events must have been clear and determined; but to bring himself again into the situation of one who sees them in embryo, to draw a mist over that which he had already cleared, must have required an exertion of genius peculiar to this author alone. In so lively a manner does he make Iago show his perplexity about the future management of his conduct, that one is almost tempted to think that the poet had determined as little himself about some of the particulars of Iago's destruction. When with much reasoning about their propriety, he is by himself digesting his schemes, he says,