been more revolted at _her_ wedding than
at the nuptials of Dyce Sombre. But Desdemona, a gentle lady, married to
a Sambo!--impossible! She was either not the fair and simple creature
she is painted to us, or she did not outrage humanity so abominably as
to follow the example of the brewer's maid in the charming song you
favoured us with in the skittle-ground, of which the burden is--

"She ran away with a black man."

If she did, choking with a pillow is too good for her; she ought rather
to have been done to death in a bag of soot.

But passing over the incongruity of the lovers, is not the whole play
filled with convulsive energies and unhealthy bursts of passion? For my
part--but in this, my dear Smith, I will willingly yield to your better
judgment--I think Iago was intended for the hero of the play. He is the
mainspring of the whole plot; he pulls all the wires; and, to use an
elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb.
Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or
even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the
clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of
the trusting, hood-winked pigeon, Othello--

"That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are."

The only fault is, that, for a clever fellow, Iago takes too much pains
to _show_ his cleverness. If he does not wear his heart upon his sleeve
for daws to peck at, it must be for two reasons; first, that no
gentleman wears his heart any where but inside of his chest; and
secondly, that hearts are not the favourite food of the bird mentioned;
but he lets slip no opportunity of displaying his wit, ingenuity, and
powers of acting--for Iago is a part in which the actor acts an
actor--and precisely in proportion as he shows he is acting, is he
successful in the character. The usual error is in showing too little of
the actor in his interviews with Cassio and Othello; his friendliness,
sycophancy, and good humour become too real, as if it were the
performer's cue to enact those qualities, whereas he is only to assume
them for the nonce--the real presentment of the man being a malicious,
revengeful, and astute villain. I think, also, my dear fellow, that our
friend Iago is too communicative, not only to such a noodle-pate as
Roderigo, but to the many-headed monster the Pit. He comes forward, and
exactly in the same way a