consent, they run away with blackamoors. | Secondly, this may be a warning to all good wives, that they look well to their linen. Thirdly, this may be a lesson to husbands, that before their jealousy be tragical, the proofs may be mathematical." Our author then proceeds happily to satirize Othello's colour. He observes, that "Shakspeare was accountable both to the eyes and to the ears." On this point we think his objection is not without reason. We agree with an excellent modern critic in the opinion, that though a reader may sink Othello's colour in his mind, a spectator can scarcely avoid losing the mind in the colour. But Mr. Rymer proceeds thus to characterize Othello's noble account to the Senate of his whole course of love. "This was the charm, this was the philtre, the love-powder that took the daughter of this noble Venetian. This was sufficient to make the Blackamoor white, and reconcile all, though there had been a cloven foot into the bargain. A meaner woman might as soon be taken by Aqua Tetrachymagogon." The idea of Othello's elevation to the rank of a general, stings Mr. Rymer almost to madness. He regards the poet's offence as a kind of misprision of treason. "Horace describes a soldier otherwise,Impyger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer. "Shakspeare knew his character of Iago was inconsistent. In this very play he pronounces, 'If thou deliver more or less than truth, Thou art no soldier.' "This he knew, but to entertain the audience with something new and surprising against common sense and nature, he would pass upon us a close, dissembling, false, insinuating rascal, instead of an open-hearted, frank, plaindealing soldier, a character constantly worn by them for some thousands of years in the world.” Against "the gentle lady married to the Moor," Mr. Rymer cherishes a most exemplary hatred. He seems to labour for terms strong enough to express the antipathy and scorn he bears her. The following are some of the daintiest: "There is nothing in the noble Desdemona, that is not below any country kitchen-maid with us."-"No woman bred out of a pig-stye could talk so meanly." Yet is Mr. Rymer no less enraged at her death than at her life. "Here (he exclaims in an agony of passion) a noble Venetian lady is to be murdered by our poet, in sober sadness, purely for being "The character of the state (of Venice) is a fool. No pagan poet but would have found to employ strangers in their wars; but shall a some machine for her deliverance. Pegasus poet thence fancy that they will set a negro to would have strained hard to have brought old be their general; or trust a Moor to defend Perseus on his back, time enough to rescue them against the Turk? With us, a Blacka- this Andromeda from so foul a monster. Has moor might rise to be a trumpeter, but Shaks-our Christian poetry no generosity, no bowels? peare would not have him less than a lieutenant-general. With us, a Moor might marry some little drab or small-coal wench; Shakspeare would provide him the daughter and heir of some great lord, or privy-counsellor; and all the town should reckon it a very suitable match: yet the English are not bred up with that hatred and aversion to the Moors as the Venetians, who suffer by a perpetual hostility from them, 'Littora littoribus contraria.'" Our author is as severe on Othello's character, as on his exaltation and colour. "Othello is made a Venetian general. We see nothing done by him, nor related concerning him, that comports with the condition of a general, or, indeed, of a man, unless the killing himself to avoid a death the law was about to inflict upon him. When his jealousy had wrought him up to a resolution of his taking revenge for the supposed injury, he sets Iago to the fighting part to kill Cassio, and chooses himself to murder the silly woman, his wife, that was like to make no resistance." Mr. Rymer next undertakes to resent the affront put on the army by the making Iago a soldier. Ha, ha, Sir Launcelot! Ha, Sir George! Will no ghost leave the shades for us in extremity, to save a distressed damsel?" On the "expression," that is, we presume, the poetry of the work, Mr. Rymer does not think it necessary to dwell; though he admits that the verses rumbling in our ears, are of good use to help off the action." On those of Shakspeare he passes this summary judgment: "In the neighing of a horse, or in the growling of a mastiff, there is a meaning, there is as lively expression, and may I say more humanity, than many times in the tragical flights of Shakspeare. Having settled this trivial point, he invites the reader" to step among the scenes, to observe the conduct on this tragedy." In examining the first scene of Othello, our critic weightily reprehends the sudden and startling manner in which Iago and Roderigo inform Brabantio of his daughter's elopement with the Moor. He regards their abruptness as an unpardonable violation of decorum, and, by way of contrast to its rudeness, informs us, that "In former days there wont to be kept at the courts of princes somebody in a fool's coat, that in pure simplicity might let slip something, which made way for the ill news, and blunted the shock, which otherwise might have come too violent on the party." "But what is most intolerable is Iago. He is no Blackamoor soldier, so we may be sure he should be like other soldiers of our acquaintance; yet never in tragedy, nor in comedy, nor Mr. Rymer shows the council of Venice no in nature, was a soldier with his character;-quarter. He thus daringly scrutinizes their take it in the author's own words: proceedings. -some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office. 66 "By their conduct and manner of talk, a body must strain hard to fancy the scene at Venice, and not rather at some of our Cinque ports, where the baily and his fishermen are knocking their heads together on account of some whale; or some terrible broil on the coast. But to show them true Venetians, the maritime affairs stick not on their hand; the public may sink or swim. They will sit up all night to hear a Doctors' Commons matrimonial cause; and have the merits of the cause laid open to 'em, that they may decide it before they stir. What can be pleaded to keep awake their attention so wonderfully?" Here the critic enters into a fitting abuse of Othello's defence to the senate; expresses his disgust at the "eloquence which kept them up all night," and his amaze at their apathy, notwithstanding the strangeness of the marriage. He complains, that "Instead of starting at the prodigy, every one is familiar with Desdemona, as if he were her own natural father; they rejoice in her good fortune, and wish their own daughters as hopefully married. Should the poet (he continues) have provided such a husband for an only daughter of any peer in England, the Blackamoor must have changed his skin to look our House of Lords in the face." scenes as this have made all the world run after Harlequin and Scaramoucio. "The several degrees of action were amongst the ancients distinguished by the cothurnus, the soccus, and the planipes. Had this scene been represented at Old Rome, Othello and Iago must have quitted their buskins; they must have played barefoot; for the spectators would not have been content without seeing their podometry, and the jealousy work out at the very toes of them. Words, be they Spanish or Polish, or any inarticulate sound, have the same effect: they can only serve to distinguish, and, as it were, beat time to the action. But here we see a known language does wofully encumber and clog the operation; as either forced, or heavy, or trifling, or incoherent, or improper, or most improbable. When no words interpose to spoil the conceit, every one interprets, as he likes best; so in that memorable dispute between Panurge and our English philosopher in Rabelais, performed without a word speaking, the theologians, physicians, and surgeons, made one inference; the lawyers, civilians, and canonists, drew another conclusion more to their mind." Mr. Rymer thus objects to the superlative villany of Iago, on his advising Desdemona's Our critic next complains, that, in the second act, the poet shows the action (he "knows not how many leagues off") in the island of Cy-murder. prus, without " our Bayes" (as he pleasantly denominates Shakspeare) having made any provision of transport ships for the audience. The first scene in Cyprus is then "cut up" in a way which might make the most skilful of modern reviewers turn pale with envy. After noticing the preliminary dialogue, Mr. Rymer observes, "now follows a long rabble of Jack Pudden farce between Iago and Desdemona, that runs on with all the little plays, jingle, and trash, below the patience of any country kitchen maid with her sweetheart. The Venetian Donna is hard put to it for pastime; and this is all when they are newly got on shore from a dismal tempest, and when every moment she might expect to hear her Lord, (as she calls him,) that she runs so mad after, is arrived or lost." Our author, therefore, accuses Shakspeare of unhallowing the theatre, profaning the name of tragedy, and instead of representing men and manners, turning all morality, good-sense, and humanity, into mockery and derision." 66 Mr. Rymer contends, that Desdemona's solicitations for Cassio were in themselves more than enough to rouse Othello's jealousy. "Iago can now (he observes) only actum agere, and vex the audience with a nauseous repetition." This remark introduces the following criticism on the celebrated scene in the third act, between Othello and Iago, which is curious, not only as an instance of perverted reasoning, but as it shows that, in the performance, some great histrionic power must have been formerly exerted, not unlike the energy of which we, in witnessing this tragedy, have been spectators. "Whence comes it, then, that this is the top scene; the scene that raises Othello above all other tragedies at our theatres? it is purely from the action; from the mops and the mows, the grimace, the grins, and gesticulation. Such "Iago had some pretence to be discontent with Othello and Cassio, and what passed hitherto was the operation of revenge. Desdemona had never done him any harm; always kind to him, and to his wife; was his countrywoman, a dame of quality. For him to abet her murder, shows nothing of a soldier, nothing of a man, nothing of nature in it. The ordinary of Newgate never had the like® monster to pass under his examination. Can it be any diversion to see a rogue beyond what the devil ever finished? or would it be any instruction to an audience? Iago could desire no better than to set Cassio and Othello, his two enemies, by the ears together, so that he might have been revenged on them both at once; and choosing for his own share the murder of Desdemona, he had the opportunity to play booty, and save the poor harmless wretch. But the poet must do every thing by contraries; to surprise the audience still with something horrible and prodigious, beyond any human imagination. At this rate, he must outdo the devil, to be a poet in the rank with Shakspeare." 66 Mr. Rymer is decorously enraged, to think that the tragedy should turn on a handkerchief. Why," ," he asks in virtuous indignation, "was not this called the tragedy of the handkerchief? what can be more absurd than (as Quintilian expresses it) in parvibus (sic) litibus has tragedias movere? We have heard of Fortunatus, his purse, and of the invisible cloak long ago worn thread-bare, and stowed up in the wardrobe of obsolete romances; one might think that were a fitter place for this handkerchief than that it, at this time of day, be worn on the stage, to raise everywhere all this clutter and turmoil." And again, "the handkerchief is so remote a trifle, no booby on this side Mauritania could make any consequence from it." Our author suggests a felicitous alteration of the catastrophe of Othello. He proposes, that the handkerchief, when lost, should have been folded in the bridal couch; and when Othello was stifling Desdemona, "The fairy napkin might have started up to disarm his fury, and stop his ungracious mouth. Then might she (in a trance for fear) have lain as dead. Then might he, (believing her dead,) touched with remorse, have honestly cut his own throat, by the good leave, and with the applause, of all the spectators; who might thereupon have gone home with a quiet mind, admiring the beauty of providence, fairly and truly represented on the theatre." The following is the summing up and catastrophe of this marvellous criticism: and swaggering like two drunken Hectors of a two-penny reckoning." And finally, alluding to the epilogue of Laberius, forced by the emperor to become an actor, he thus sums up his charges: "This may show with what indignity our poet treats the noblest Romans. But there is no other cloth in his wardrobe. Every one must wear a fool's coat that comes to be dressed by him; nor is he more civil to the ladies-Portia, in good manners, might have challenged more respect; she that shines a glory of the first magnitude in the gallery of heroic dames, is with our poet scarce one re move from a natural; she is the own cousin. german of one piece, the very same impertinent silly flesh and blood with Desdemona. Shakspeare's genius lay for comedy and hu mour. In tragedy he appears quite out of his element; his brains are turned-he raves and rambles without any coherence, any spark of reason, or any rule to control him, to set bounds to his phrensy." What can remain with the audience to carry home with them from this sort of poetry, for their use and edification? How can it work, unless (instead of settling the mind and purging our passions) to delude our senses, disorder our thoughts, addle our brain, pervert our affections, hair our imaginations, corrupt our appetite-and fill our head with vanity, One truth, though the author did not underconfusion, tintamarra, and jingle-jangle, be- stand it, is told in this critic on Julius Cæsar; yond what all the parish clerks of London, that Shakspeare's "senators and his orators with their Old Testament farces and interludes, had their learning and education at the same in Richard the Second's time, could ever pre-school, be they Venetians, Ottamites, or noble tend to? Our only hopes, for the good of their Romans." They drew, in their golden urns, souls, can be that these people go to the play- from the deep fountain of humanity, those livhouse as they do to church-to sit still, looking waters which lose not their sweetness in on one another, make no reflection, nor mind the play more than they would a sermon. "There is in this play some burlesque, some humour, and ramble of comical wit, some show, and some mimicry to divert the spectators; but the tragical part is clearly none other than a bloody farce, without salt or savor." the changes of man's external condition. These attacks on Shakspeare are very curious, as evincing how gradual has been the increase of his fame. Their whole tone shows that the author was not advancing what he thought the world would regard as paradoxical or strange. He speaks as one with authority to decide. We look now on his work amazedly; Our author's criticism on Julius Cæsar is very and were it put forth by a writer of our times, scanty, compared with that of Othello, but it is should regard it as "the very ecstasy of madnot less decisive. Indeed, his classical zealness." Such is the lot of genius. However here sharpens his critical rage; and he is in- small the circle of cotemporary admirers, it censed against Shakspeare, not only as offend- must "gather fame" as time rolls on. It aping the dignity of the tragic muse, but the peals to feelings which cannot alter. The minds memory of the noblest Romans. "He might," who once have deeply felt it, can never lose exclaims the indignant critic," be familiar with the impression at first made upon them-they Othello and Iago, as his own natural acquaint- transmit it to others, by whom it is extended ance, but Cæsar and Brutus were above his to those who are worthy to treasure it. Its conversation; to put them in fools' coats, and stability and duration at length awaken the atmake them Jack Puddens in the Shakspeare tention of the world, which thus acknowledges dress, is a sacrilege beyond any thing in Spel- the sanction of time, and professes an admiraman. The truth is, this author's head was tion for the author, which it only feels for his full of villanous, unnatural images-and his- name. We should not, however, have thus tory has furnished him with great names, dwelt on the attacks of Rymer, had we rethereby to recommend them to the world, by garded them merely as objects of wonder, or writing over them-This is Brutus, this is Cicero, as proofs of the partial influence of Shaksthis is Cæsar." He affirms, "that the language peare's genius. They are far from deserving Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Brutus unmingled scorn. They display, at least, an would not suit or be convenient, unless from honest, unsophisticated hatred, which is better some son of the shambles, or some natural than the maudlin admiration of Shakspeare, offspring of the butchery." He abuses the expressed by those who were deluded by Irepoet for making the conspirators dispute about land's forgeries. Their author has a hearti day-break-seriously chides him for not allow-ness, an earnestness almost romantic, which ing the noble Brutus a watch-candle in his chamber on this important night, rather than puzzling his man, Lucius, to grope in the dark for a flint and tinder-box to get the taper lighted-speaks of the quarrel scene between Brutus and Cassius, as that in which "they are to play a prize, a trial of skill in huffing we cannot despise, though directed against our idol. With a singular obtuseness to poetry, he has a chivalric devotion to all that he regards as excellent and grand. He looks on the supposed errors of the poet as moral crimes. He confounds fiction with fact-grows warm in defence of shadows-feels a violation of poetical justice, as a wrong conviction by a | Thus does he lay down the rules of life and jury-moves a habeas corpus for all damsels death for his regal domain of tragedy: "If I imprisoned in romance-and, if the bard kills mistake not, in poetry no woman is to kill a those of his characters who deserve to live, man, except her quality gives her the advanpronounces judgment on him as in case of tage above him; nor is a servant to kill the felony, without benefit of clergy. He is the master, nor a private man, much less a subDon Quixote of criticism. Like the hero of ject to kill a king, nor on the contrary. PoetiCervantes, he is roused to avenge fictitious cal decency will not suffer death to be dealt to injuries, and would demolish the scenic exhi- each other, by such persons whom the laws bition in his disinterested rage. In one sense of duel allow not to enter the lists together." he does more honour to the poet than any He admits, however, that "there may be cirother writer, for he seems to regard him as an cumstances that alter the case: as where there arbiter of life and death-responsible only to is sufficient ground of partiality in an authe critic for the administration of his powers. dience, either upon the account of religion (as Mr. Rymer has his own stately notions of Rinaldo or Riccardo, in Tasso, might kill Soliwhat is proper for tragedy. He is zealous for man, or any other Turkish king or great Sulpoetical justice; and as he thinks that vice tan) or else in favour of our country, for then cannot be punished too severely, and yet that a private English hero might overcome a king the poet ought to leave his victims objects of of some rival nation." How pleasant a maspity, he protests against the introduction of ter of the ceremonies is he in the regions of very wicked characters. "Therefore," says fiction-regulating the niceties of murder like he, "among the ancients we find no malefac- the decorums of a dance-with an amiable tors of this kind; a wilful murderer is, with preference for his own religion and country! them, as strange and unknown as a parricide to the old Romans. Yet need we not fancy that they were squeamish, or unacquainted with many of those great lumping crimes in that age; when we remember their dipus, Orestes, or Medea. But they took care to wash the viper, to cleanse away the venom, and with such art to prepare the morsel; they made it all junket to the taste, and all physic in the operation." Our author understands exactly the balance of power in the affections. He would dispose of all the poet's characters to a hair, according to his own rules of fitness. He would marshal them in array as in a procession, and mark out exactly what each ought to do or suffer. According to him, so much of presage and no more should be given-such a degree of sorrow, and no more ought a character endure; vengeance should rise precisely to a given height, and be executed by a certain appointed hand. He would regulate the conduct of fictitious heroes as accurately as of real beings, and often reasons well on his own poetic decalogue. "Amintor," says he, (speaking of a character in the Maid's Tragedy) "should have begged the king's pardon; should have suffered all the racks and tortures a tyrant could inflict; and from Perillus's bull should have still bellowed out that eternal truth, that his promise was to be kept that he is true to Aspatia, that he dies for his mistress! Then would his memory have been precious and sweet to after ages; and the midsummer maidens would have of fered their garlands all at his grave." Mr. Rymer is an enthusiastic champion for the poetical prerogatives of kings. No courtier ever contended more strenuously for their divine right in real life, than he for their preeminence in tragedy. "We are to presume," observes he gravely, "the greatest virtues, where we find the highest rewards; and though it is not necessary that all heroes should be kings, yet undoubtedly all crowned heads, by poetical right, are heroes. This character is a flower, a prerogative, so certain, so indispensably annexed to the crown, as by no poet, or parliament of poets, ever to be invaded." These notions, however absurd, result from an indistinct sense of a peculiar dignity and grandeur essential to tragedy-and surely this feeling was not altogether deceptive. Some there are, indeed, who trace the emotions of strange delight which tragedy awakens, entirely to the love of strong excitement, which is gratified by spectacles of anguish. According to their doctrine, the more nearly the representation of sorrow approaches reality, the more intense will be the gratification of the spectator. Thus Barke has gravely asserted, that if the audience at a tragedy were informed of an execution about to take place in the neighbourhood, they would leave the theatre to witness it. We believe that experience does not warrant a speculation so dishonourable to our nature. How few, except those of the grossest minds, are ever attracted by the punishment of capital offenders! Even of those whom the dreadful infliction draws together, how many are excited merely by curiosity, and a desire to view the last mortal agony, which in a form more or less terrible all must endure! We think that if, during the representation of a tragedy, the audience were compelled to feel vividly that a fellow-creature was struggling in the agonies of a violent death, many of them would retire but not to the scene of horror. The reality of human suffering would come too closely home to their hearts, to permit their enjoyment of the fiction. How often, during the scenic exhibition of intolerable agony-unconsecrated and unredeemed-have we been compelled to relieve our hearts from a weight too heavy for endurance, by calling to mind that the woes are fictitious! It cannot be the highest triumph of an author, whose aim is to heighten the enjoyments of life, that he forces us, in our own defence, to escape from his power. If the pleasure derived from tragedy were merely occasioned by the love of excitement, the pleasure would be in proportion to the depth and the reality of the sorrow. Then would The Gamester be more pathetic than Othello, and Isabella call forth deeper admiration than Macbeth or Lear. Then would George Barnwell be the loftiest tragedy, and the New-which power has achieved over its earthly gate Calendar the sweetest collection of pathetic frame. In short, it is the high duty of the tales. To name those instances, is sufficiently tragic poet to exhibit humanity sublimest to refute the position on which they are founded. Equally false is the opinion, that the pleasure derived from tragedy arises from a source of individual security, while others are suffering. There are no feelings more distantly removed from the selfish, than those which genuine tragedy awakens. We are carried at its representation out of ourselves, and "the ignorant present time,”—by earnest sympathy with the passions and the sorrows, not of our selves, but of our nature. We feel our community with the general heart of man. The encrustments of selfishness and low passion are rent asunder, and the warm tide of human sympathies gushes triumphantly from its secret and divine sources. in its distresses-to dignify or to sweeten sorrow-to exhibit eternal energies wrestling with each other, or with the accidents of the worldand to disclose the depth and the immortality of the affections. He must represent humanity as a rock, beaten, and sometimes overspread, with the mighty waters of anguish, but still unshaken. We look to him for hopes, principles, resting places of the soul-for emotions which dignify our passions, and consecrate our sorrows. A brief retrospect of tragedy will show, that in every age when it has triumphed, it has appealed not to the mere love of excitement, but to the perceptions of beauty in the soul-to the yearnings of the deepest affections-to the aspirations after grandeur and permanence, which never leave man even in his errors and afflictions. Nothing could be more dignified than the old tragedy of the Greeks. Its characters were demi-gods, or heroes; its subjects were often the destinies of those lines of the mighty, which had their beginning among the eldest deities. So far, in the development of their plots, were the poets from appealing to mere sensibility, that they scarcely deigned to awaken an anxious throb, or draw forth a human tear. In their works, we see the catastrophe from the beginning, and feel its influence at every step, as we advance majestically along the solemn avenue which it closes. There is little struggle; the doom of the heroes is fixed on high, and they pass, in sublime composure, to fulfil their destiny. Their sorrows are awful, their deaths religious sacrifices to the power of Heaven. The glory that plays about their heads is the prognostic of their fate. A con career, which takes away all the ordinary feelings of suffering. Their afflictions are sacred, their passions inspired by the gods, their fates prophesied in elder time, their deaths almost festal. All things are tinged with sanc It is not, then, in bringing sorrow home in its dreadful realities to our bosoms, nor in painting it so as to make us cling to our selfish gratifications with more earnest joy, that the tragic poet moves and enchants us. Grief is but the means-the necessary means indeedby which he accomplishes his lofty purposes. The grander qualities of the soul cannot be developed the deepest resources of comfort within it cannot be unveiled-the solemnities of its destiny cannot be shadowed forth-except in peril and in suffering. Hence peril and suffering become instruments of the Tragic Muse. But these are not, in themselves, those things which we delight to contemplate. Various, indeed, yet most distinct from these, are the sources of that deep joy that tragedy produces. Sometimes we are filled with a delight not dissimilar to that which the Laocoon excites-an admiration of the more than mortal beauty of the attitudes and of the finishing-secration is shed over their brief and sad and even of the terrific sublimity of the folds in which the links of fate involve the characters. When we look at that inimitable group, we do not merely rejoice in a sympathy with extreme suffering-but are enchanted with tender loveliness, and feel that the sense of dis-tity or with beauty in the Greek tragedies. tress is softened by the exquisite touches of genius. Often, in tragedy, our hearts are elevated by thoughts "informed with nobleness" -by the view of heroic greatness of soul-by the contemplation of affections which death cannot conquer. It is not the depth of anguish which calls forth delicious tears-it is some sweet piece of self-denial-some touch of human gentleness, in the midst of sorrow-stances attendant on the death of Edipus! some "glorious triumph of exceeding love," which suffuses our “subdued eyes," and mellows our hearts. Death itself often becomes the source of sublime consolations: seen through the poetical medium, it often seems to fall on the wretched "softly and lightly, as a passing cloud." It is felt as the blessed means of re-uniting faithful and ill-fated lovers-it is the pillow on whic the long struggling patriot rests. Often it exhibits the noblest triumph of the spiritual over the material part of man. The intense ardour of a spirit that "o'er-inform'd its tenement of clay"—yet more quenchless in the last conflict, is felt to survive the straggle, and to triumph even in the victory Bodily pain is made sublime; destitution and And how rich a poetic atmosphere do the The Romans failed in tragedy, because their |