Venice being the only conveyers of persons, and of a large proportion of the property of the city, they are thus cognisant of all intrigues, and the fittest agents in them; and are under perpetual and strong temptation to make profit of the secrets of society."

Shakespeare is remarkable, also, for the oaths that he puts into the mouths of his characters. They always suit both the persons and their country. That they should be appropriate in his English plays was to be expected from his familiarity with our traditions and national chronicles; for the oaths and exclamations of many of our kings have come down to us. Rufus used to swear by "the face of Luke!" Richard III., by "Holy Paul!" Henry VIII. adjured the same patron saint; and even the "virgin queen" had her distinctive and characteristic oath, and a tremendous one it was. In Venice, Shakespeare has more than once made his characters swear "by Janus!" Now, it is familiar to every traveller, that even in the present day the Italians retain their old Roman mythological adjuration, “Per Bacco!" or "Corpo di Bacco!" and which may be heard quite as often as our "by George!" or any other the commonest exclamation. His friars exclaim, “Jesu Maria!" an expression perfectly appropriate to the character, and never heard but in a purely Catholic country. I make no apology for dwelling upon these minutiæ of circumstance. The very sweepings of his genius are virgin gold.

The character of Cassio is a remarkable specimen of variety in the class of Shakespeare's military men. He displays the same frank, unsuspicious, and generous nature, but without their usual perception and appreciation of character. Cassio is a sensualist, quickly excited by stimulants, and, from their combined effects, is infirm of purpose; also, from geniality of disposition, swayed against his better reason. The very

vices in Cassio's character would have made Iago a better

man, who envies him for his social nature as much as for his having been advanced in rank above him. He says: "Cassio hath a daily beauty in his life that doth make me ugly." Nothing in the whole range of dramatic portraiture can be finer than the delineation of these two men. Cassio, from his excessive demonstrativeness-his sudden burst of piety in his drunken fit; and the bitterness of his self-reproach in his sobriety: his utter prostration "upon the knees of his heart" (as Essex would say) to his offended and noble-minded friend and commander, are all the inevitable, and therefore natural results of his open and generous nature. But Cassio was the last man of the whole company who was fitted to supersede Othello in the government of Cyprus. His indiscriminate confidence was not the quality best adapted to sway a garrison-town, and would surely be his "rock a-head." No, no! with his constitutional infirmities, poor Cassio did not long succeed his general in the governorship ; he was sure to commit some folly which would occasion his being recalled to Venice.

Another of the thousand instances which might be quoted of Shakespeare's regard to consistency of conduct in his delineations of character, occurs in the simple circumstance of Othello's deportment towards Cassio. Through the first two Acts, and before their estrangement, he uniformly calls him by the familiar and brotherly name of "Michael;" afterwards, when the poison of jealousy has entered his soul, he speaks of him always as "Cassio." It may appear trivial to notice these minutiæ; but in estimating character, "Trifles, light as air, are confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ."

Iago is the direct antipodes to Michael Cassio. Iago may be deemed the strongest of immoral philosophers-for he has a philosophy: its code is, that "Evil" is "Power;" that Good is a nonentity—that Vice is an acquisition—and that Virtue is a thing to be avoided, or to be taken advantage of,-in

either case a weakness.

Iago has no faith but in the intel

lectual supremacy arising from Will. He has no faith in mutual Love. Here is his confession: "I have looked upon the world for four times seven years; and since I could distinguish a benefit from an injury, I never found a man who knew how to love himself." No one among Shakespeare's men of intellect utters stronger axioms of social and moral philosophy than this remarkable character. The career which he had chalked out for himself furnished him the motive for this, and his mental power and energy were stimulants to his motive. That Iago's is a voluntary system-a deliberate choice and pursuit of wickedness-his own words prove in glaring and marvellous strength :—

"Virtue?-a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which our wills are gardeners: so that, if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills."

Iago is essentially a self-lover-a self-worshipper. The poor fool Roderigo has more belief in good than he. In answer to Iago's disgusting calumny against Desdemona, he says: "I cannot believe that in her; she is full of most blest conditions." "Blest fig's-end!" is his reply. The loathsome opinions he entertains of human nature, arising out of his self-love and absorbing conceit in his own power, vent themselves in language more gross than is to be met in any character in all Shakespeare; and how frequently do we find this in our commerce with the world, that the self-lover and self-worshipper are prone to gross implications by reason of their utter obtuseness in perception of what is beautiful and good and true out of their own dark circle. I confess that I

have rarely known a thoroughly selfish person who did not betray a beastly opinion of his species. And Iago's language and allusions are not merely gross, they are hard, and unfeelingly obscene. They do not even hint at a manifestation ; they have not the redemption of self-enjoyment in their utterance; but are the vile fungus-growth of his malignant misanthropy. They are the rampant off-shoots of his hatred.

Iago's ambition partakes of his revengful nature. He ministers to the gratification of his malignant and resentful passions to the full as much as he does to the promptings of his ambition in the steps he takes to bring about his purposes. His character is true to the baser and coarser part of Italian nature-it is subtle and unforgiving; but it is also peculiarly his own individual character. It is based upon a firm conviction of his own intellectual superiority. That is the only thing in which he has faith-his commanding genius, his mastery of mind. It is that he may obtain what he conceives to be the due of that superiority, which makes him ambitious. The object of his ambition is military promotion. His ambition is that of his profession; it is that ambition which is almost a virtue-certainly the master-ingredient in making a soldier. It is that quality which Lord Bacon declares essential to the character, when he says, "To take a soldier without ambition is to pull off his spurs." His first speech of importance shows the quality of Iago's ambitioncompounded of several ingredients. There is the conviction of his own merit; the hatred of Othello; and the envy of Cassio, while affecting to disparage him because of his having been promoted to the post which he himself covets. a specimen of his paramount self-worship:

"If I were the Moor, I would not be Iago;
In following him I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love or duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end."

Here is

Iago is essentially self-reliant. He has no accomplices; Roderigo is his mere puppet-his machine; his own brain is his sole resource; he needs no other; he feels that to be all-adequate to the compassing of his ends. He has thorough confidence in the force of Will, and in his own powers to carry out the dictates of his Will. The merest thread of circumstance will suffice to string his devices on. He never doubts the capacity of his wit to disturb and destroy matters, however seeming smooth; and to direct his crooked ends, events however straightly progressing. While watching the full content and the conjugal endearments of Othello and Desdemona, when they meet at Cyprus, he says, with the malignant confidence in future evil of the archfiend himself, contemplating the joy of our first parents :

"Oh, you are well tun'd now!

But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,
As honest as I am."

It is a substantive part of his craft to gain this reputation for "honesty." It is strongly insisted on; and, as a soldier, he cultivates bluntness, as harmonising best with his professional character; and this character is asserted in his behalf through the whole play. He is a magnificent illustration of the superficial advantage that the man of intellect merelyintellect without moral feeling, mind without soul-gains over the man of noble nature. The unsuspecting, generous Moor gives Iago implicit credit for the qualities he lays claim to. The man whose heart interferes nothing with the hard, cold action of his intellectual faculties, sways at will the man of fervour and impulse: the man who has no faith in goodness-neither himself inspired by goodness nor believing in its existence in others has yet the power to impress his victim with the idea of his integrity of heart and clearness of judgment. At times my brain has been in a whirl of wonder