ing promised them a little before to carry them to the first play of Shakespeare's which should be acted. Mrs. Cornelia, who is a great reader, and never fails to peruse the play-bills, which are brought to her every day, gave me notice of it early in the morning. When I came to my lady Lizard's at dinner, I found the young folks all drest, and expecting the performance of my promise. I went with them at the proper time, placed them together in the boxes, and myself by them in a corner seat. As I have the chief

scenes of the play by heart, I did not look much on the stage, but formed to myself a new satisfaction in keeping an eye on the faces of my little audience, and observing, as it were by reflection, the different passions of the play represented in their countenances. Mrs. Betty told us the names of several persons of distinction, as they took their places in their boxes, and entertained us with the history of a new marriage or two, till the curtain drew up. I soon perceived that Mrs. Jane was touched with the love of Desdemona, and in a concern to see how she would come off with her parents. Annabella had a rambling eye, and for some time was more taken up with observing what gentlemen looked at her, and with criticising the dress of the ladies, than with any thing that passed on the stage. Mrs. Cornelia, who I have often said is addicted to the study of Romances, commended that speech in the play in which Othello mentions his hair-breadth scapes in th' imminent deadly breach,' and recites his travels and adventures with which he had captivated the heart of Desdemona The Sparkler looked several times frighted: and as th distress of the play was heightened, their differen attention was collected, and fixed wholly on the stage, 'till I saw them all, with a secret satisfaction, betray-, ed into tears.

I have often considered this play as a noble, but irregular, production of a genius, who had the power of animating the theatre beyond any writer we have ever known. The touches of nature in it are strong and masterly; but the economy of the fable, and in some particulars the probability, are too much neglected. If I would speak of it in the most severe terms, I should say as Waller does of the Maid's Tragedy,

Great are its faults, but glorious is its flame.'

But it would be a poor employment in a critic to observe upon the faults, and shew no taste for the beauties, in a work that has always struck the most sensible part of our audiences in a very forcible

manner.

The chief subject of this piece is the passion of jealousy, which the poet hath represented at large, in its birth, its various workings and agonies, and its horrid consequences. From this passion, and the innocence and simplicity of the person suspected, arises a very moving distress.

It is a remark, as I remember, of a modern writer, who is thought to have penetrated deeply into the nature of the passions, that the most extravagant love is nearest to the strongest hatred.' The Moor is furious in both these extremes. His love is tempestuous, and mingled with a wildness peculiar to his character, which seems very artfully to prepare for the change which is to follow.

How savage, yet how ardent is that expression of the raptures of his heart, when, looking after Desdemona as she withdraws, he breaks out,

1

'Excellent wench! Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee; and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.'

The deep and subtle villainy of Iago, in working this change from love to jealousy, in so tumultuous a mind as that of Othello, prepossessed with a confidence in the disinterested affection of the man who is leading him on insensibly to his ruin, is likewise drawn with a masterly hand. Iago's broken hints, questions, and seeming care to hide the reason of them; his obscure suggestions to raise the curiosity of the Moor; his personated confusion, and refusing to explain himself while Othello is drawn on, and held in suspence till he grows impatient and angry; then his throwing in the poison, and naming to him in a caution the passion he would raise,

O beware of jealousy!

are inimitable strokes of art, in that scene which has always been justly esteemed one of the best which was ever represented on the theatre.

To return to the character of Othello; his strife of passions, his starts, his returns of love, and threatenings to lago, who puts his mind on the rack, his relapses afterwards to jealousy, his rage against his wife, and his asking pardon of Iago, whom he thinks he had abused for his fidelity to him, are touches which no one can overlook that has the sentiments of human nature, or has considered the heart of man in its frailties, its penances, and all the variety of its agitations. The torments which the Moor suffers are so exquisitely drawn, as to render him as much an object of compassion, even in the barbarous action of murdering Desdemona, as the innocent person herself who falls under his hand.

But there is nothing in which the poet has more shewn his judgment in this play, than in the cir

cumstance of the handkerchief, which is employed as a confirmation to the jealousy of Othello already raised. What I would here observe is, that the very slightness of this circumstance is the beauty it. How finely has Shakespeare expressed the nature of jealousy in those lines, which, on this occasion, he puts into the mouth of Iago,

'Trifles light as air

Are to the jealous, confirmation strong
As proofs of holy writ.'

It would be easy for a tasteless critic to turn any of the beauties 1 have here mentioned into ridicule; but such an one would only betray a mechanical judgment, formed out of borrowed rules and common-place reading, and not arising from any true discernment in human nature, and its passions.

As the moral of this tragedy is an admirable caution against hasty suspicions, and the giving way to the first transports of rage and jealousy, which may plunge a man in a few minutes into all the horrors of guilt, distraction and ruin, I shall further enforce it, by relating a scene of misfortunes of the like kind, which really happened some years ago in Spain; and is an instance of the most tragical hurricane of passion I have ever met with in history. It may be easily conceived that a heart ever big with resentments of its own dignity, and never allayed by reflections which make us honour ourselves for acting with reason and equality, will take fire precipitantly. It will on a sudden flame too high to be extinguished. The short story I am going to tell is a lively instance of the truth of this observation, and a just warning to those of jealous honour, to look about them, and begin to

possess their souls as they ought, for no man of spirit knows how terrible a creature he is, till he comes to be provoked.

Don Alonzo, a Spanish nobleman, had a beautiful and virtuous wife, with whom he had lived for some years in great tranquillity. The gentleman, however, was not free from the faults usually imputed to his nation; he was proud, suspicious, and impetuous. He kept a Moor in his house, whom, on a complaint from his lady, he had punished for a small offence with the utmost severity. The slave vowed revenge, and communicated his resolution to one of the lady's women with whom he lived in a criminal way. This creature also hated her mistress, for she feared she was observed by her; she therefore undertook to make Don Alonzo jealous, by insinuating that the gardener was often admitted to his lady in private, and promising to make him an eye-witness of it. At a proper time agreed on between her and the Morisco, she sent a message to the gardener, that his lady, having some hasty orders to give him, would have him come that moment to her in her chamber. In the mean time she had placed Alonzo privately in an outer room, that he might observe who passed that way. It was not long before he saw the gardener appear. Alonzo had not patience, but, following him into the apartment, struck him at one blow with a dagger to the heart; then dragging his lady by the hair without inquiring farther, he instantly killed her.

Here he paused, looked on the dead bodies with all the agitations of a dæmon of revenge; when the wench who had occasioned these terrors, distracted with remorse, threw herself at his feet, and in a voice of lamentation, without sense of the consequence, repeated all her guilt. Alonzo was overwhelmed with

VOL. XVI.