espeare only through the libretto in our hands (of which, however,
we must forbear to speak slightingly, for from it, we are told,
Salvini himself has gained his knowledge of the part),--putting
ourselves in this mental attitude, the performance may safely be said
to defy criticism, or rather to be above it, except such criticism
as accords with enthusiastic admiration. It is absolutely without
a shortcoming, seen from this standpoint. His majestic bearing,
his beautiful elocution, his pure voice, his graceful, expressive
gestures, and above all his perfect freedom from affectation or
self-consciousness, delight us throughout; and when to these qualities
are added the marvelous vigor of expression and force of passion with
which he shakes his audience from the middle of the play on, one feels
as if there were nothing more to ask of acting. No description, in
fact, can do justice to the perfect consistency and harmony of his
conception, or to the marvelous delicacy of his points, which are
yet as penetrating as they are subtle, and which never fail of their
effect, whether rendered by a gesture whose power of expression seems
to make words superfluous, as when in reply to Iago's hypocritically
sympathetic "I see this has a little dashed your spirits," which
is answered in the play by "Not a jot, not a jot," Salvini tries to
speak, but chokes with the words, and lifting his hand with a motion
of denial and deprecation, tells us what he would fain say, but
cannot; or by an intonation of voice, as when in answer to Iago's
"You would be satisfied?" he replies, marking the difference between
conditional and imperative with a tone that would of itself betray him
born to command--

Vorrei, che dico--io voglio
(Would?--Nay, I _will_).

And when in his desperate pain and fury, maddened by the poison
working within, he drags Iago to the front of the stage, and holding
him by the throat speaks Shakespeare's meaning, if not Shakespeare's
words, thick and fast, as if he were not an actor, but Othello
himself, and while his audience listen with bated breath and
quick-beating hearts, he hurls him to the ground, and in the uncurbed
fury of his mood raises his foot to spurn him like a dog,--then he
rises far above ordinary dramatic effect: his art does "hold the
mirror up to Nature." We feel that we have seen Othello.

Again, in the fourth act, when Iago brings home to him the realization
of his wife's infidelity, what can be fin