THE character of Hermione is addressed more to the imagination;-that of Desdemona to the feelings. All that can render sorrow majestic is gathered round Hermione; all that can render misery heartbreaking is assembled round Desdemona. The wronged but self-sustained virtue of Hermione commands our veneration; the

injured and defenceless innocence of Desdemona so wrings the soul, "that all for pity we could die."

Desdemona, as a character, comes nearest to Miranda, both in herself as a woman, and in the perfect simplicity and unity of the delineation; the figures are differently draped the proportions are the same. There is the same modesty, tenderness, and grace; the same artless devotion in the affections, the same predisposition to wonder, to pity, to admire; the same almost ethereal refinement and delicacy; but all is pure poetic nature within Miranda and around her: Desdemona is more associated with the palpable realities of every-day existence, and we see the forms and habits of society tinting her language and deportment; no two beings can be more alike in character-nor more distinct as individuals.

The love of Desdemona for Othello

appears at first such a violation of all probabilities, that her father at once imputes it to magic, "to spells and mixtures powerful o'er the blood."

She, in spite of nature,

Of years, of country, credit, every thing,

To fall in love with what she feared to look on!

And the devilish malignity of Iago, whose coarse mind cannot conceive an affection founded purely in sentiment, derives from her love itself a strong argument against her.

Ay, there's the point, as to be bold with you,
Not to affect many proposed matches

Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends,1 &c.

Notwithstanding this disparity of age, character, country, complexion, we, who are admitted into the secret, see her love rise naturally and necessarily out of the leading propensities of her nature.

At the period of the story a spirit of wild adventure had seized all Europe. The discovery of both Indies was yet recent; over the shores of the western hemisphere still fable and mystery hung, with all their dim enchantments, visionary terrors, and golden

VOL. II.

1 Act iii., scene 3.

D

promises! perilous expeditions and distant voyages were every day undertaken from hope of plunder, or mere love of enterprise; and from these the adventurers returned with tales of "Antres vast and desarts wild -of cannibals that did each other eat-of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads did. grow beneath their shoulders." With just such stories did Raleigh and Clifford, and their followers return from the New World: and thus by their splendid or fearful exaggerations, which the imperfect knowledge of those times could not refute, was the passion for the romantic and marvellous nourished at home, particularly among the women. A cavalier of those days had no nearer, no surer way to his mistress's heart, than by entertaining her with these wondrous narratives. What was a general feature of his time, Shakspeare seized and adapted to his purpose with the most exquisite felicity of effect. Desdemona, leaving her household cares in haste, to hang breathless on Othello's tales, was doubtless a picture from the life; and her inex

perience and her quick imagination lend it an added propriety: then her compassionate disposition is interested by all the disastrous chances, hair-breadth 'scapes, and moving accidents by flood and field, of which he has to tell; and her exceeding gentleness and timidity, and her domestic turn of mind, render her more easily captivated by the military renown, the valour, and lofty bearing of the noble Moor

And to his honours and his valiant parts
Does she her soul and fortunes consecrate.

The confession and the excuse for her love is well placed in the mouth of Desdemona, while the history of the rise of that love, and of his course of wooing, is, with the most graceful propriety, as far as she is concerned, spoken by Othello, and in her absence. The last two lines summing up the whole

She loved me for the dangers I had passed,

And I loved her that she did pity them—

comprise whole volumes of sentiment and metaphysics.