mouths of villains.

_Ib._--

"_Des._ I am not merry; but I do beguile," &c.

The struggle of courtesy in Desdemona to abstract her attention.

_Ib._--

"(_Iago aside_). He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper;
with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as
Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do," &c.

The importance given to trifles, and made fertile by the villany of the
observer.

_Ib._ Iago's dialogue with Roderigo.

This is the rehearsal on the dupe of the traitor's intentions on Othello.

_Ib._ Iago's soliloquy:--

"But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap'd into my seat."

This thought, originally by Iago's own confession a mere suspicion, is now
ripening, and gnaws his base nature as his own "poisonous mineral" is
about to gnaw the noble heart of his general.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Othello's speech:--

"I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio."

Honesty and love! Ay, and who but the reader of the play could think
otherwise?

_Ib._ Iago's soliloquy:--

"And what's he then that says--I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give, and honest,
Provable to thinking, and, indeed, the course
To win the Moor again."

He is not, you see, an absolute fiend; or, at least, he wishes to think
himself not so.

Act iii. sc. 3.--

"_Des._ Before AEmilia here,
I give thee warrant of thy place."

The over-zeal of innocence in Desdemona.

_Ib._--

"_Enter Desdemona and AEmilia._

_Oth._ If she be false, O, then, heaven mocks itself!
I'll not believe't."

Divine! The effect of innocence and the better genius!

Act iv. sc. 3.--

"_AEmil._ Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and
having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world,
and you might quickly make it right."

Warburton's note.

What any other man, who had learning enough, might have quoted as a
playful and witty illustration of his remarks against the Calvinistic
_thesis_, Warburton gravely attributes to Shakespeare as intentional; and
this, too, in the mouth of a lady's woman!

Act v. last scene. Othello's speech:--

... "Of one, whose hand,
Like the base _Indian_, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe," &c.

Theobald's note from Warburton.

Thus it is for no-poets to comment on the greatest of poets! To make
Othello say that he, who had killed his wife, was like Herod who killed