has some fine remarks on Iago; and the essence of the character has been
described, first in some of the best lines Hazlitt ever wrote, and then
rather more fully by Mr. Swinburne,--so admirably described that I am
tempted merely to read and illustrate these two criticisms. This plan,
however, would make it difficult to introduce all that I wish to say. I
propose, therefore, to approach the subject directly, and, first, to
consider how Iago appeared to those who knew him, and what inferences
may be drawn from their illusions; and then to ask what, if we judge
from the play, his character really was. And I will indicate the points
where I am directly indebted to the criticisms just mentioned.

But two warnings are first required. One of these concerns Iago's
nationality. It has been held that he is a study of that peculiarly
Italian form of villainy which is considered both too clever and too
diabolical for an Englishman. I doubt if there is much more to be said
for this idea than for the notion that Othello is a study of Moorish
character. No doubt the belief in that Italian villainy was prevalent in
Shakespeare's time, and it may perhaps have influenced him in some
slight degree both here and in drawing the character of Iachimo in
_Cymbeline_. But even this slight influence seems to me doubtful. If Don
John in _Much Ado_ had been an Englishman, critics would have admired
Shakespeare's discernment in making his English villain sulky and
stupid. If Edmund's father had been Duke of Ferrara instead of Earl of
Gloster, they would have said that Edmund could have been nothing but an
Italian. Change the name and country of Richard III., and he would be
called a typical despot of the Italian Renaissance. Change those of
Juliet, and we should find her wholesome English nature contrasted with
the southern dreaminess of Romeo. But this way of interpreting
Shakespeare is not Shakespearean. With him the differences of period,
race, nationality and locality have little bearing on the inward
character, though they sometimes have a good deal on the total
imaginative effect, of his figures. When he does lay stress on such
differences his intention is at once obvious, as in characters like
Fluellen or Sir Hugh Evans, or in the talk of the French princes before
the battle of Agincourt. I may add that Iago certainly cannot be taken
to exemplify the popular Elizabethan idea of a disciple of Macchiavelli.
There is no sign that he is in theor