et
that ever was cast; but miserable is it for men who have not such "prave
'ords," to be forced to bellow their little ones through the portentous
instrument which they have not breath enough to fill.

Let me point out, my dear Smith, to your particular notice, a play which
I think you will agree with me illustrates all that I have said. In
_Othello_ you will find the nature of the seventeenth century still
forced upon us in this prodigious power--with which, unless by the magic
of the author's name, we should have no sympathy; and a decided proof of
how nearly allied his genius, like that of every body else worth
mentioning of his day, was to madness.

First, No man of the nineteenth century who knew the noble position in
which civilization and religion have placed woman, would have fixed on
such a subject. In the closet, when you only see the courage, fame, and
dignity of the hero, you can find some excuses for the girl who is won
by these attributes, and bestows her love on the possessor of them,
albeit he is fallen into the sere and yellow leaf. But look at him on
the stage--though the best and most intellectual of our actors represent
him, and this I can answer for, as the last I saw in the character was
Macready--your sympathy with Desdemona is at once at an end. The woolly
hair spoils all--the black face separates him as much from the pure and
trusting love of a girl of eighteen, as if he were an ourangoutang. We
agree at once with the sensible old gentleman her father, that no maid

"So tender, fair, and happy,
Would ever have to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as he."

The sight of her endearments is nearly as horrid as those of Titania to
Bottom are absurd. They are not paired, and all through the play you
never can get quit of the disagreeable idea of the blubber lips. If he
could be made into a noble statue in mahogany, (not ebony,) a
Christianized Abdel Kader--a _real Moor_ and not a _blackamoor_--the
matter would be infinitely better; but no--Shakspeare meant him for a
true specimen of the nigger, or why all the taunts about his colour, and
the surprise that was evidently excited among the gossips of Venice by
the match? The very refinement bestowed on Desdemona makes us have
greater horror at her fault, and less sorrow at her griefs. If she had
been a mere domestic piece of furniture, without any delicacy or
sentiment, we should not have