most favourite topics, on which he is rich indeed, and in
descanting on which his spleen serves him for a Muse, is the
disproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is a clue to
the character of the lady which he is by no means ready to part with. It
is brought forward in the first scene, and he recurs to it, when in answer
to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says,

"I cannot believe that in her--she's full of most blest conditions.

_Iago._ Bless'd fig's end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes.
If she had been blest, she would never have married the Moor."

And again with still more spirit and fatal effect afterwards, when he
turns this very suggestion arising in Othello's own breast to her
prejudice.

"_Othello._ And yet how nature erring from itself--

_Iago._ Ay, there's the point;--as to be bold with you,
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree," etc.

This is probing to the quick. Iago here turns the character of poor
Desdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing but the
genius of Shakspeare could have preserved the entire interest and delicacy
of the part, and have even drawn an additional elegance and dignity from
the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed.--The habitual
licentiousness of Iago's conversation is not to be traced to the pleasure
he takes in gross or lascivious images, but to his desire of finding out
the worst side of everything, and of proving himself an over-match for
appearances. He has none of "the milk of human kindness" in his
composition. His imagination rejects everything that has not a strong
infusion of the most unpalatable ingredients; his mind digests only
poisons. Virtue or goodness or whatever has the least "relish of salvation
in it," is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid: and he even
resents the good opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were
an affront cast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus
at the meeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims--"Oh, you are
well tuned now: but I'll set down the pegs that make this music, _as
honest as I am_"--his character of _bonhommie_ not sitting at all easy
upon him. In the scenes, where he tries to work Othello to his purpose,
he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark, and deliberate. We believe
nothing ever came up to the profound dissimulation and dextrous artifice
of the well-