iar to him; whose heads are as acute and active as
their hearts are hard and callous. Iago is to be sure an extreme instance
of the kind; that is to say, of diseased intellectual activity, with the
most perfect indifference to moral good or evil, or rather with a decided
preference of the latter, because it falls more readily in with his
favourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts and scope to his
actions. He is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fate as to that
of others; he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtful advantage; and is
himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion--an insatiable craving
after action of the most difficult and dangerous kind. "Our ancient" is a
philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has more point in it than
an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the
peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the
heart of a flea in a microscope; who plots the ruin of his friends as an
exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent _ennui_.
His gaiety, such as it is, arises from the success of his treachery; his
ease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateur of
tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention on imaginary
characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more
desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts
among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright
earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. We will just give an
illustration or two.

One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately after the
marriage of Othello.

"_Roderigo._ What a full fortune does the thick lips owe.
If he can carry her thus!

_Iago._ Call up her father:
Rouse him (_Othello_) make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,
And tho' he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: tho' that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on it,
As it may lose some colour."

In the next passage, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he is
plotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of real
enthusiasm.

"_Roderigo._ Here is her father's house: I'll call aloud.

_Iago._ Do, with like timourous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities."

One of his