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as dirt." He may have "looked gentler," but the poison has done its work; and nothing but the life's blood of his victim can, as he says, remove nor choke the strong conception which I do groan withal.” The very serenity of her guileless soul makes against her. "She must die, or she'll betray more men." What a scene is this! The powers of good and evil have met in mortal strife!

My friends used to say, as Mr. Macready did, that in Desdemona I was "very hard to kill." How could I be otherwise? I would not die dishonored in Othello's esteem. This was bitterer than fifty thousand deaths. Then I thought of all his after-suffering, when he should come to know how he had mistaken me! The agony for him which filled my heart, as well as the mortal agony of death, which I felt in imagination, made my cries and struggles no doubt very vehement and very real. My whole soul was flung into the entreaty, but for "half an hour!" "but while I say one prayer!"-which prayer would have been for him. Then, when she hears, for the first time, that Cassio is the supposed accomplice in her guilt, it was as though I spoke for myself in the swift rejoinder-" Send for the man and ask him !''*

Oh that Othello had been so true a friend and husband as to do this before! But no; the poison still works, and all she says only serves to augment his fury. When Desdemona hears that Cassio has already lost his life, and that "his mouth is stopped," she naturally weeps the loss of the innocent man, both for his own sake, and because he could alone, she thinks, prove her guiltless. All things conspire against her-her very tears, her prayers, her asseverations, give countenance to her guilt. She is hurled

headlong down the precipice, but, alas ! not killed at once. The strong young life will not leave its tenement-the mortal agony is prolonged; even the dagger's thrust, which is meant in mercy that she may not " linger in her pain, is not enough. The soul will not away until it asserts the purity of the sweet casket in which it has been set. It lingers on in pain until the poor body can speak, not, as before, to deaf ears that will not listen, but to those of a sympathizing woman. Then, with bitter moans and broken breath, she stammers out with her last gasp of life-" A guiltless death I die !"

When asked who has done this deed, she says, "Nobody-I myself." As in the Senate-house, before the Council, she took all the blame upon herself, so here, once more, and with her dying breath, she does the same. I did it all "I myself.” Blame no one else. "Commend me to my kind lord. Farewell!"

Commend me to my brave warrior! of what higher heroism than this-of what nobler love-has history or romance any record?

Mr. Macready was very fine in this There was an impressive grandeur, an elevation even, in his ravings: "Whip me, ye devils, From the possession of this heavenly sight! Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur !

Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire '— O Desdemona! Desdemona !-dead! dead! dead !''

As I lay there and I listened, he seemed to me to be like a soul in hell, whirling in the Second Circle of the Inferno. And there was a piteousness and a pathos in his reiteration of the loved one's name that went to my very heart. Oh, how it ached, too, for Othello, when his eyes were opened, and he could see and trace the paltry threads by which his soul and body had been ensnared, and when I heard the broken accents of his shame at having sunk so low as to conspire in

Cassio's death!

And now the worst is past. The play begins in night with hurry and turmoil; in night, and what a night, it ends! There are glorious days of perfect happiness between, but they are few, and the last of them overshadowed with clouds

"consulting for foul weather," and giving portentous presage of a terrible catastrophe. But not with storm and turmoil does the last night come. The deep blue sky is studded with "chaste stars," not a breath is stirring, and the lapping of the Levant against the castle rock is alone heard through the stillness; while the sweetest innocent that e'er did lift up eye" is cruelly done to death by him that loved her best.

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As we look upon the tragic loading of that bed," we are not without comfort. Truly it is best so. The wrench which had been given to the bond by which these two noble lovers were united could never be repaired on earth. Life could never again have been to them the same as in their brief days of happiness. The delusion which made Othello mad has been rent from his eyes. He must rejoin her who died with a message for him on her lips. No fear that when they meet at compt" her look will "hurl his soul from heaven." Her infinite love and pity will think but of his sufferings, and will plead for the forgiveness he dares not ask for himself.

Another victim lies near them, and one who has become almost hallowed by her death.

Whatever may have been Emilia's life before, one cannot but feel for her now. She has truly loved and honored Desdemona, all the more that to her common nature, and with her rough experience of the world, her mistress reveals a purity and elevation of spirit which she had never before so much as dreamed of. We cannot forgive the part she plays in giving the dropped handkerchief to her husband, instead of returning it to her lady, knowing how she values it-how she keeps it "always by her to kiss and talk to." Although she Although she has misgivings as to the use her husband means to make of it, yet she gives it to "please his fantasy. She hears Desdemona deplore its loss “Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia ?" Yet she can answer, "I know not, madam." She hears the Moor's wild burst of passion when Desdemona owns she has it not about her;" she sees that its absence has made him jealous; she sees her mistress plunged in grief for its loss-and yet

keeps silence. Nothing can excuse that silence, not even her dread of her husband, brutal as she knew him to be—this "honest, honest Iago!" She could have told them of what metal he was made.

Still, she expiates her wrong-doing with her life. With that last interview of an hour back in her thoughts, the old ballad still sounding in her ears, when she next sees her sweet mistress it is to find her breathless-dying from a violent and most unnatural death. Well may she say, "Oh, this grief will kill me!" But she has yet to learn what hand she herself has had in this dismal tragedyto learn that the handkerchief she stole and gave to her husband, Desdemona had been accused of giving to Cassio. At last she speaks. Though late, she will make what reparation she can, and she does it unflinchingly. Her husband's threats and his commands that she shall go home do not stop her. She entreats of the others leave to speak. "It is right that I obey him, but not Perchance, Iago, I shall ne'er go home.' No! there is no more home for any of them. What has she more to live for? Better die, as she does by Iago's sword, than drag out a life of remorse for disloyalty to her mistress. That mistress is to her the one sole creature of whom she can now think, and with her dying breath she reiterates to Othello the asseverations of her innocence.

now.

"She loved thee, cruel Moor

. . . so speaking as I think, I die, I die;" and her last words are a prayer that she may be laid by her mistress's side.

We have learned from Gratiano that Brabantio is dead. No doubt when he returned to his desolate home, Brabantio would become alive to the reality that his daughter had been its very light and life. Self-reproaches would rise to fill her place and embitter his loneliness, reminding him of all he might have been, but had not been, to her. The maiden, so tender, so unobtrusive, had a magic in her presence not consciously known or felt until lost, but which filled his home and life with blessings, and without which their charm was gone, and so the old senator died quickly-pure grief shore his old thread in twain.'

Of Cassio what shall be said? The

two creatures he most admired and loved have been brought to ruin, and chiefly through him! By his own folly in the brawl with Roderigo he will be apt to think he laid the ground-work for Iago's plot. He will remember that it was Iago who first urged him to appeal to Desdemona to get him reinstated. Nor can he fail to learn how his importunity and her kindness-" Your solicitor shall rather die than give your cause away!" -helped to bring about the woeful catastrophe. If so, what unhappiness is before him! It will take long years to deaden the thought that, but for his fatal weakness, no intercession would have been necessary, and all might have gone well. A great gap has been made in his life.

He will never be quite the same man again, though he may be a better and a wiser one. Neither Cyprus nor Venice will hold him long. He will get back, I think, to the books and studies of his youth. Ever present with him will be the image of the victims of the "misadventured piteous overthrow" in which he had unwittingly played so prominent a part. But for him there

METAPHOR is perhaps at once the most seductive and the most misleading form of speech. To the average orator it has the same attraction that edged tools have for children, and its use is as frequently followed by lamentable results. It is the earliest language of mankind, and it is one which the average modern man least successfully manages. When at the earliest epoch of our development, metaphor was the ordinary form of speech, this maladroitness was not observable. In the Bible, for example, where metaphor is constantly employed, it invariably adorns speech, and often lifts it to the loftiest heights possible for prose. It is a lost art and not a new accomplishment we grapple with in these degenerate days when we venture on metaphor.

The class of people who most frequently use it claim kinship to past masters in the art, inasmuch as they are lacking in what we call education. The

negro, and above all the negro preacher, wallows in metaphor, invariably more or less mixed. It was one of these who, confessing his faults before his congregation, cried aloud: "Brethren, the muddy pool of politics was the rock on which I split." It was another who fervently exclaimed: "We thank Thee for this spark of grace; water it, good Lord." Another prayed for grace that we might gird up the loins of our minds, so that we shall receive the latter rain." Mixed metaphors grow luxuriantly on the fertile soil of the United States. Only the other day I read an article from the eloquent pen of Colonel John Forney, in which, speaking eulogistically of the mother of John Quincy Adams, he said, "She was a public woman all her life. Hence the remarkably mixed character of her posterity." This unhappy phrase is rather a muddling of expression than a mixing of metaphor.

Ireland has so long been looked upon as the home of mixed metaphor, that a good deal of the fun has been rubbed out by the suspicion that specimens are made to order. Of this class is doubtless the peroration attributed to an Irish. barrister.Gentlemen of the jury," he is reported to have said, "it will be for you to say whether this defendant should be allowed to come into court with unblushing footstep, with the cloak of hypocrisy in his mouth, and draw three bullocks out of my client's pocket with impunity." In this connection I will quote a single illustration, which has at least the advantage of being authentic. Early in last year, before the general election, Mr. Shaw, Member for the County Cork, and at that time leader of the Home Rule party, was addressing a meeting held one Sunday at Cork, with the object of discussing the land question. Mr. Shaw is a sober-minded man, who, on ordinary occasions, finds plain speech serve his purpose. At this, time, however, the spirit of metaphor came upon him, and this is what it made him say: "They tell us that we violate the Sabbath by being here to-day. Yet, if the ass or the ox fall into the pit, we can take him out on the Sabbath. Our brother is in the pit to-day-the farmer and the landlord are both in it-and we are come here to try if we can lift them out." This similitude of the Irish landlord to an animal predestined to slaughter was bold but timely. The other half of the analogy seemed calculated to get Mr. Shaw into trouble with his constituency.

In Germany, metaphors are evolved from the inner conscience with great success. There are one or two famous in the literary history of the country. Every one has heard of the speech of Justice-Minister Hye, who, addressing the Vienna students in the troublous time of 1848, declared, "the chariot of the revolution is rolling along, and gnashing its teeth as it rolls." On the other side, a democrat came very near to this success by announcing that will burn all our ships, and, with every sail unfurled, steer boldly out into the ocean of freedom." Less known is the address by the mayor of a Rhineland corporation, spoken to the Emperor William shortly after he was crowned at

we

Versailles. "No Austria, no Prussia!"' said the inspired mayor; one only Germany! Such were the words the mouth of your Imperial Majesty has always had in its eye.' Essentially German is a sentence from a learned criticism on a book of lyrics which carries the signature of Professor Johannes Sheer. "Out of the dark regions of philosophical problems," says the professor, the poet suddenly lets swarms of songs dive up, carrying far-flashing pearls of thought in their beaks." A song with a pearl in its beak would be a great attraction in the programme of a popular concert.

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We need not go far abroad in search of mixed metaphors. This is a supremacy in which the House of Commons holds its own, as it claims to do in every other contest of life. It has been my lot to hear a good many speeches in the House of Commons, and I have from time to time jotted down a few of the gems of metaphor strewed on this historic floor. Mr. Shaw's chef-d'œuvre will find a fitting parallel in the remark made by Mr. O'Conor Power, another able speaker, who caught Sir Stafford Northcote, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, tripping in the matter of his resolutions in respect to the business of the House. In his ingenuous manner, the Rt. Hon. Baronet had too plainly disclosed the notorious fact that the resolutions, while professing to deal with the general conduct of business, were aimed directly at obstruction. Whereupon, up jumped Mr. O'Conor Power, and with triumphant manner exclaimed: "Mr. Speaker, sir, since the Government has let the cat out of the bag, there is nothing to be done but to take the bull by the horns," which he forthwith did, debating the matter as especially dealing with obstructionists. It was in a similar access of passionate emotion that, during a debate on the foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield's Government, Mr. Alderman Cotton solemnly declared that "at one stage of the negotiations a great European struggle was so imminent that it only required a spark to let slip the dogs of war. It was on the same night, and during the same debate, that Mr. Forster observed: "I will, Mr. Speaker, sit down by saying,"

etc. Mr. Forster has always been an adroit politician; but what new sort of manœuvre this is that enables a man to "sit down by saying" remains unexplained.

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Of the same class of mixed idea was Sir Drummond Wolff's declaration during the debate on Mr. Bradlaugh's admission, that "if the member for Northampton were to be admitted, he would vote with a millstone round his neck"-an awkward appanage to a man in walking through the lobby, more especially on nights when the Obstructionists resort to the practice of repeatedly challenging divisions. A weighty argument somewhat akin to this was used by Mr. Hopwood, in the Session of 1879, when talking in Committee of Supply on the subject of vaccination. 'Don't' said Mr. Hopwood impressively, addressing himself personally to the lamented Admiral, who hap. pened at that moment to be the only occupant of the ministerial benches-"Don't drive the steam-engine of the law over people's consciences." This illustrates a fatal association of ideas which often leads even practised speakers into misfortune with metaphor. Mr. Hopwood on his way down to the House had probably seen a steam-roller in operation, and had watched its levelling effect upon the broken granite. Hence the too ready allusion. In the same session, during a discussion on the Municipal Officers Superannuation Bill, an Hon. Gentleman opposed the measure on the ground that it was opening the door for the insertion of the thin end of the wedge," a preliminary process which should at least tend to make the work of the wedge easy. It was the same member who paid a compliment to the Chambers of Commerce as "the intelligent pioneers who feel the pulse of the commercial community." Here we have vividly summoned before the mind's eye a picture of a man-probably in the uniform of the guides, certainly with a pickaxe on his shoulder-going about on the 'Change feeling the pulses of the merchants and brokers. On the fifth night of the debate on the Address in the current session, Sir Patrick O'Brien in a luminous speech declared that the sus

pension of the Habeas Corpus Act would merely leave the rotting sword festering in the wound.

Politics, like all engagements that heat the blood, lead largely to indulgence in metaphor. During the general election Sir John Hardy, addressing the East Staffordshire electors, assured them that, if they sent him to Parliament, “it would be a pledge against the dismemberment of the empire." This was not nearly so good as the elaborate and deliberate metaphor with which Mr. Thwaites, one of the Conservative candidates for Blackburn, sought to recommend himself to that electors. He was speaking of the condition of the national finances, at that time in the hands of Sir Stafford Northcote. tunately," he said, "the Government is on the wrong side of the book; but, however, you have had a prudent Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he has done his best. He has done what I would like you, my friends, to do. When you have laid an egg, put it by for a rainy day. Why electors of Blackburn should be expected to lay eggs is a question that disappears before the greater importance of the query, why they should save them for a rainy day.

"Unfor

In a different way, but quite in the same spirit, is this sentence from a recent article by the Rev. Mr. Haweis on an American poet. "Sublime singleness of purpose! divine simplicity of heartthe little child is again set in the midst of us by the dear Lord, and presently he overcomes the mailed Goliath with a sling and a stone." This does not mean anything in particular; but surely such a mixing up of the Old and the New Testament was never before perpetrated by a gentleman who must of necessity have read both. A friend of the late George Eliot, writing to one of the daily papers on the private character of the great novelist, tripped only less grievously in attempting to adorn his text with scriptural imagery. "She possessed," he writes, to a marvellous degree, the divine gift of charity, and of attracting moral outcasts to herself, whose devils she cast out by shutting her eyes to their existence." Belgravia Magazine.