(You know those names are theirs); and, in the midst, A heart divided in two halves was placed :

Now if the rivets of those rings enclosed
Fit not each other, I have forged this lie:

But if they join, you must forever part."

"Pry thee, Emilia,

Go know of Cassio where he supped to-night."

Act V., Scene 1. In the last scene of the preceding Act, Iago informs Roderigo that Cassio was to sup with Bianca; that he would accompany him to her house, and would take care to bring him away from thence between twelve and one. Cassio, too, had informed Iago that he would sup with Bianca, and Iago had indirectly promised to meet him at her house. The villain, however, thought it safest to waylay his victim, and in the passage quoted professes a politic ignorance of Cassio's motions during the evening.

"Put out the light, and then put out the light." The present regulation of the passage, by which so much beauty and spirit are added to it, was proposed by Mr. Upton; but it is to be found in Ayres's "LIFE OF POPE:" it may therefore have originated with Warburton, who thus explains it:-The meaning is, “I will put out the light, and then proceed to the execution of my purpose." But the expression of putting out the light, bringing to mind the effects of the extinction of the light of life, he breaks short, and questions himself about the effects of this metaphorical extinction, introduced by a repetition of his first words; as much as to say,"But hold, let me first weigh the reflection which this expression naturally excites."-SINGER.

"O perjured woman! thou dost stone my heart, And mak'st me call what I intend to do

A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.”

Act V., Scene 2.

That is, "Thou hast hardened my heart, and mak'st me kill thee with the rage of a murderer, when I thought to have sacrificed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking a victim."-JOHNSON.

"O mistress, villany hath made mocks with love!"

Act V., Scene 2. That is, villany hath taken advantage to play upon the weakness of love.

"Go to, charm your tongue."-Act V., Scene 2.

To charm is to conjure, to enchant, to lay or still as with an incantation. So in "KING HENRY V.:"

"Charming the narrow seas

To give you a gentle pass."

"It was a handkerchief ; an antique token
My father gave my mother."-Act V., Scene 2.

In the third Act, Othello states that this fatal handkerchief was given by his mother to his father. The transposition of giver and receiver, in the passage above quoted, was probably a mere inadvertence either of the poet or the transcriber.

"Of one whose hand,

Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe."-Act V., Scene 2.

It has been a point much disputed whether" Indian " or " Judean " is the proper reading of the text in this place. The earliest quarto gives "Indian," and two passages are quoted from other writers which strongly support this version. The first is from Habington ("To Castara weeping"):

["OTHELLO" furnishes one of the very few instances in which Dr. Johnson has spoken of Shakspeare's plays in anything like adequate terms of eulogy. In justice to him, therefore, as well as the poet, we willingly avail ourselves on this occasion of the critic's cogent summary remarks."]

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THE beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; -the cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance;-the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit and conscious of innocence; her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected; - are such proofs of Shakspeare's skill in human nature as, I suppose, it is in vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that though it will not, perhaps, be said of him, as he says of himself, that he is a man "not easily jealous," yet we cannot but pity him when at last we find him "perplexed in the extreme."-There is always danger lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation: but the character of Iago is so conducted that he is, from the first scene to the last, hated and despised.

Even the inferior characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent and honest; ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insiduous invitation.-Roderigo's suspicious credulity and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees prac tised upon him (and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated), exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend :—and the virtue of Emilia is such as we often find, -worn loosely, but not cast off; easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villanies.

The scenes, from the beginning to the end, are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progress of the story: and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello. Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.

ALL the passions, all the mind of the play, are Shakspeare's. He was indebted to Cinthio for the circumstances of his plot, and some individual traits of Othello's and Iago's characters, particularly of that of the latter. Desdemona he chastened into beauty; and the Captain (Cassio), whose character in the novel is scarcely distinguishable, he invested with qualities exactly correspondent to the purpose be was intended to fulfill. The wife of the Lieutenant (Iago) perhaps the poet had better have left as he found her; for in raising Emilia above insignificance, he unfortunately rendered her inexplicable. Roderigo is his own absolute creation.- SKOTTOWE.