Aye, let them rot and perifh.Let her be damn'd to night;

She fhall not live;-my heart is turn'd to ftone.

he immediately melts again, and adds,

-Oh! the world has not a fweeter creature ; She might lie by an emperor's fide, and command him tasks:

Oh! fhe will fing the favagenefs out of a bear,And then of fo gentle a condition.The pity of it, lago,

O! the pity of it!—

The poet gloriously contrives to make even the natural temper of his heroe affift in the taking off from the brutality of the action he is to be guilty of.

What can we expect of a worthy man, convinc'd of his belov'd wife's pretended adultery, but death as the punishment?

When we hear the impetuofity of rage burft forth against the fuppofed adulterer,

O that the flave had forty thousand lives;
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.

what are we to expect but the vows of vengeance against the other criminal, as we find them follow,

Now do I fee it's true; look here, Iago, All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven. Arife, black vengeance, from the hollow hell! Yield up, oh love, thy crown, and hearted throne Totyrannous hate! fwell, bofom, with the fraught, "For 'tis of afpicks' tongues.-O! blood, blood, blood! When

When the fubtle accufer of the lady works thedeluded man up to a refolution of never ftoping till he has done the fuppos'd juftice he intends, by hinting to him that his mind may change, how nobly is the character kept up by the answer,

Never, Iago. Like to the Pontick fea,
Whofe icy current and compulfive force,
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on,
To the Propontick and the Hellefpont:
Even fo my bloody thoughts with violent pace
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
'Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.

How natural, nay, how excufable does all this fury appear, under the circumstances in which the author has reprefented it; and how artful is his conduct in binding him immediately after by a folemn vow to do what must be done, tho' it was fo very improper for the character of a heroe to perform it. We fee Shakespear in this noble instance throwing the cruelty of the action that was to be committed, upon the provok❜d and artfullyrais'd vengeance of the husband; and this fo judiciously, that we could fcarce have accufed him of finking into brutality, had Desdemona fallen by his hand at that inftant: But this was not enough for Shakespear; how gloriously has he reconciled us to the heroe's acting it, by making him even tender and affectionate in the inftant he is about to do it, representing it to himself as an act of justice, not a brutal revenge,

She muft die, elfe fhe'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then

H

Put

Put out the light !-if I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

I can again thy former light restore,

Should I repent me:-but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning't pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relumine.
When I have pluck'd the rofe

I cannot give it vital growth again,

It needs muft wither: I'll fmell it on the

tree;

O balmy breath, that doft almost persuade
Juftice to break her fword.

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee
And love thee after.

I muft weep, -but they are cruel tears; This forrow's heavenly,-it ftrikes where it does love.

Whatever horror and brutality there may be in the act itself of killing an innocent wife, the author has here perfectly reconciled it to the character of a heroe, by his conduct of the circumstances that occafion it, and that lead to it. It is evidently against the inclination of his heart that Othello does it; and even while we fee him about it, we do not know whether he or Defdemona be most to be pitied.

We have dwelt the longer on this instance, as fingly fufficient to give rules to all future writers in this critical circumftance; and we shall add, that this fort of conduct is neceffary in the player as well as in the author, that where the one omits it in his looks, the other has in vain put it into his words, and that where the author has been too negligent in his prepara

tions for, and alleviations of it, it is in the power of fuch an actor as the man we most admire in this part, to be of infinite affistance to him in fupplying all by the help of his deportment. All this however is not enough for our fatisfaction on this subject; we are never content with heroes, unless we can fancy to ourselves that we read it in their faces that they were born to fee all their defires, all their inclinations fatisfy'd; and unless the right which we perfuade ourselves, from their appearance, they have to be happy, excufes them in the attempting to triumph over every obftacle to their fuccefs, whatever means it may be neceffary to use in accomplishing it.

CHA P. III.

Of the real or apparent conformity there ought to be between the age of the actor, and that of the perfon reprefented.

A

Portrait, tho' ever fo valuable for the correctness of the defign and the ftrength and beauty of the colouring, will always be cenfur❜d, and that with reafon, if it represents the perfon it is done for as older than he really is; and in the fame manner the player, tho' a perfect mafter of his profeffion, will in many cafes only give us a half pleasure if he appears too old for the character he affumes for the night, even tho' he reprefents it ever fo accurately. It is not fufficient that the managers of a play-house do not give us a wrinkled Eudofia or a Varanes with grey hairs, we expect that they fhould represent thofe characters to us with all the advantages of youth and beauty.

This obfervation is not however of univerfal force the actor who has many years more upon his head than the author has chofen to bestow upon the character he reprefents, may under fome circumstances give us even more pleasure than if he were exactly at the fame period of life this is moft happily done in comedy by means of that addrefs which we have feen in fome of our modern players (at the fame time that they play with great elegance, force, and juftice) of finking the disparity between their age and that of the character, and giving us the pleasure of what we are fenfible is a double elufion. There is scarce a greater merit in a player than thismafterly artifice well apply'd; but when any imperfection appears in it, when the countenance of the performer does not throughout keep date, inftead of his own time of life, with that of the character he acts, we feel no pleasure in the reprefentation, and the best playing is thrown away upon us. The English ftage has fhewn us players who many years before we have had occafion to quarrel with them for remaining upon it, have fhock'd our fathers with playing the parts of young princes, and beardlefs lovers.

Tho' we in general are more willing that men fhould continue on the ftage after the bloom of life than that women fhould, yet we have met with inftances even of perfons of the tenderer fex who have had the art of borrowing the graces of their earlier years, even when they grew towards old women, nay and that much beyond what the men have ever been able to do. We have feen an actress of fifty, who, whenever fhe pleas'd, was to all appearance barely fixteen. The men have but very feldom been known to