is equally gratified in viewing their mutual co-operation towards the final result; the coalescence being so intimate as not only to preserve the necessary unity of action, but to constitute one of the greatest beauties of the piece. Such, indeed, is the interest excited by the structure and concate nation of the story, that the attention is not once suffered to flag. By a rapid succession of incidents, by sudden and overwhelming vicissitudes, by the most awful instances of misery and destitution, by the boldest contrariety of characters, are curiosity and anxiety kept progressively increasing, and with an impetus so strong as nearly to absorb every faculty of the mind and every feeling of the heart. Victims of frailty, of calamity, or of vice, in an age remote and barbarous the actors in this drama are brought forward with a strength of coloring which, had the scene been placed in a more civilized era, might have been justly deemed too dark and ferocious, but is not discordant with the earliest heathen age of Britain. The effect of this style of characterization is felt occasionally throughout the entire play, but is particularly visible in the delineation of the vicious personages of the drama; the parts of Goneril, Regan, Edmund, and Cornwall, being loaded not only with ingratitude of the deepest dye, but with cruelty of the most savage and diabolical nature. They are the criminals, in fact, of an age when vice may be supposed to reign with lawless and gigantic power, and in which the extrusion of Gloster's eyes might be such an event as not unfrequently occurred. Had this mode of casting his characters in the extreme applied to the remainder of the dramatis persona, we should have lost some of the finest lessons of humanity and wisdom that ever issued from the pen of an uninspired writer: but, with the exception of a few coarsenesses, which remind us of the barbarous period to which the story is referred, and of a few instances rather revolting to probability, but which could not be detached from the original narrative, the virtu ous agents of the play exhibit the manners and the feelings of civilization, and are of that mixed fabric which can alone display a just portraiture of the nature and composition of our species. The characteristics of Cordelia and Edgar, it is true, approach nearly to perfection; but the filial virtues of the former are combined with such exquisite tenderness of heart, and those of the latter with such bitter humiliation and suffering, that grief, indignation, and pity are instantly excited. Very striking representations are also given of the rough fidelity of Kent and of the hasty credulity of Gloster; but it is in delineating the passions, feelings, and afflictions of Lear that our poet has wrought up a picture of human misery which has never been surpassed and which agitates the soul with the most overpowering emotions of sympathy and compassion. on the impulses of sensibility, and not on any fixed principle or rule of action, no sooner has he discovered the baseness of those on whom he had relied, and the fatal mistake into which he had been hurried by the delusions of inordinate fondness and extravagant expectation, than he feels himself bereft of all consolation and resource. Those to whom he had given all, for whom he had stripped himself of dignity and honor, and on whom he had centered every hope of comfort and repose in his old age -his inhuman daughters-having not only treated him with utter coldness and contempt, but sought to deprive him of all the respectability and even of the very means of existencewhat, in a mind so constituted as Lear's the sport of intense and illregulated feeling, and tortured by the reflection of having deserted the only child who loved him — - what but madness could be expected as the result? It was, in fact, the necessary consequence of the reciprocal action of complicated distress and morbid sensibility: and, in describing the approach of this dreadful infliction, in tracing its progress, its height, and subsidence, our poet has displayed such an intimate knowledge of the workings of the human intellect, under all its aberrations, as would afford an admirable study for the inquirer into mental physiology. He has also in this play, as in that of "HAMLET," finely discrimi nated between real and assumed insanity,- Edgar, amidst all the wild imagery which his imagination has accumulated, never once touching on the true source of his misery; whilst Lear, on the contrary, finds it associated with every object and every thought, however distant or dissimilar. Not even the Orestes of Euripides, or the Clementina of Richardson, can, as pictures of disordered reason, be placed in competition with this of Lear. It may be pronounced, indeed, from its truth and completeness, beyond the reach of rivalry.DRAKE'S "SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES." THE tragedy of "LEAR" is deservedly celebrated among the dra mas of Shakspeare. There is, perhaps, no play which keeps the attention so strongly fixed; which so much agitates our passions and interests our curiosity. The artful involutions of distinct interests, the striking oppositions of contrary characters, the sudden changes of fortune, and the quick succession of events, fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope. There is no scene which does not contribute to the aggravation of the distress or conduct of the action, and scarce a line which does not conduce to the progress of the scene. So powerful is the current of the poet's imagination that the mind which once ventures within it is hurried ir The conduct of the unhappy monarch having been founded merely resistibly along.- JOHNSON. ntroductory Remarko OTHELLO-noble, generous, and commanding-appeals to the imagination as some grand, elevated tower, overlooking a perturbed and dangerous sea; a fortress indestructible by fair and open arts, but still not proof against the machinations of the subtle, sly, embosomed engineer, who, under pretense of strengthening its defenses, labors incessantly to undermine its base. That Iago, "the demi-devil," the "cursed slave," who works the ruin of the high-minded Moor and his gentle, hapless Bride, can be at all endured, in reading or in scenic show, constitutes a higher compliment to intellectual gifts, than even Desdemona's ill-starred passion. Yet, horrible as is the vengeance of the disappointed and malignant Ancient, it is not altogether motiveless: he has the slight excuse of supercession by a junior, and (if his own word is to be taken) less skilful and deserving officer. His denunciation of "the curse of service," where "preferment goes by letter and affection," has been uttered in bitterness by many a better man, and its instructive tendency should never be neglected by superiors, unless with ample cause. The bland and cordial manners of Iago's successful rival, and intended minor victim, denote the favorite both of intimates and of general society. Nor is Cassio's merit that of mere good-nature simply. His devoted attachment to his General and to Desdemona, seems wholly unpolluted by views of interest on the one hand, or of sensual passion on the other: and his eloquent anathemas against the immediate agent of his disgrace, the "invisible spirit of wine," have anticipated the substance of many a hundred lengthened essays, lectures, and exhortations. The pithy exclamation, "O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains!" has passed into a proverb. Desdemona is felt by all to rank among the loveliest of the many lovely female emanations from the Poet's pure and fertile mind. She seems a dew-drop in the traveler's path, glittering and delightful in its little sphere and transient hour, but too ethereal in its texture to endure. Even while he stands to gaze upon its heavenly beauty, the unknowing sun's first fiery glance drinks up its sweet existence! The first edition of this great drama was published by Thomas Walkley, in 1622, as "The Tragedy of Othello, the Moore of Venice. As it hath been diverse times acted at the Globe and at the Blackfriars, by his Majesties Servants. Written by William Shakespeare." To this copy is prefixed a brief address from "The Stationer to the Reader," in terms which serve to shew that the Poet was highly appreciated both by the writer and by the public whom he addressed and sought to gratify:-"To set forth a book without an epistle, were like to the old English proverb, a blue coat without a badge: and the author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of work upon me. To commend it, I will not; for that which is good, I hope every man will commend without entreaty and I am the bolder, because the author's name is sufficient to vent his work. Thus leaving every one to the liberty of judgment, I have ventured to print this play, and leave it to the general censure."- In the following year appeared the first folio collection, of which "THE TRAGEDIE OF OTHELLO, THE MOORE OF VENICE," forms the last part but two in that division of the work. The differences in the copies are for the most part slight. One of Cinthio's novels, called in the original, "IL MORO DI VENEZIA," furnished a ground-work for the admirable plot of Othello. The incidents of the narrative are generally followed; but its characters are, of course, mere shadows compared with the vital beings of Shakspeare's glowing page. Further mention of the original story will be found in the Notes. The time of the supposed action of the drama is determined with sufficient accuracy. Cyprus was taken from the Venetians by the Turks in 1571. The Republic had then been masters of the island for about a hundred years; and no hostile movement had been made against them previously to that which proved successful. The junction of the Turkish fleets at Rhodes, in order to proceed to the attack, actually occurred in 1570: that year may, therefore, be considered as the era of Othello's fancied government. In August, 1602, Queen Elizabeth was for three days entertained at Harefield, by Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Ellesmere. Among the expenses (accounts of which are preserved at Bridgewater House), mention is made of "£10. to Burbidge's players of Othello." Mr. Collier, who furnishes the fact, reasonably presumes that the play was then both new and popular: no previous allusion to it has been hitherto discovered. Shakspeare was then in his thirty-ninth year: he was born in April, 1564. |