d and wished for by minds conscious of inward
weakness;--but they act only by half, like music on an inattentive auditor,
swelling the thoughts which prevent him from listening to it.

_Ib._--

"_Rod._ What a full fortune does the _thick-lips_ owe,
If he can carry 't thus."

Roderigo turns off to Othello; and here comes one, if not the only,
seeming justification of our blackamoor or negro Othello. Even if we
supposed this an uninterrupted tradition of the theatre, and that
Shakespeare himself, from want of scenes, and the experience that nothing
could be made too marked for the senses of his audience, had practically
sanctioned it,--would this prove aught concerning his own intention as a
poet for all ages? Can we imagine him so utterly ignorant as to make a
barbarous negro plead royal birth,--at a time, too, when negroes were not
known except as slaves? As for Iago's language to Brabantio, it implies
merely that Othello was a Moor,--that is, black. Though I think the rivalry
of Roderigo sufficient to account for his wilful confusion of Moor and
Negro,--yet, even if compelled to give this up, I should think it only
adapted for the acting of the day, and should complain of an enormity
built on a single word, in direct contradiction to Iago's "Barbary horse."
Besides, if we could in good earnest believe Shakespeare ignorant of the
distinction, still why should we adopt one disagreeable possibility
instead of a ten times greater and more pleasing probability? It is a
common error to mistake the epithets applied by the _dramatis personae_ to
each other, as truly descriptive of what the audience ought to see or
know. No doubt Desdemona saw Othello's visage in his mind; yet, as we are
constituted, and most surely as an English audience was disposed in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, it would be something monstrous to
conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with a veritable
negro. It would argue a disproportionateness, a want of balance, in
Desdemona, which Shakespeare does not appear to have in the least
contemplated.

_Ib._ Brabantio's speech:--

"This accident is not unlike my dream."

The old careful senator, being caught careless, transfers his caution to
his dreaming power at least.

_Ib._ Iago's speech:--

... "For their souls,
Another of his fathom they have not,
To lead their business."

The forced praise of Othello, followed by the bitter hatred of him in this
speech! A