"Emil. Shall I go fetch your night-gown? "Desde. No; unpin me here. This Ludovico is a proper man. "Emil. A very handsome man. "Desde. He speaks well. "Emil. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip. "Desde. (singing). The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree, Sing all a green willow! Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow! willow! willow! The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans ; Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones; [Lay by these.] Willow! willow! [Pr'ythee, hie thee! - he'll come anon.] Nay, that's not next-hark! who is it that knocks? "Emil. It is the wind." No! it is the bloody Othello! -the abused, misguided, friend-betrayed, but still the blood-bereaving, murderous Othello! With glaring eyes-with mouth, as of a wild beast raging in parched thirst, and fingers that clutch the poniard, and are ready to be tangled in the knot-twisted hair, moist with horror,- he comes !comes to destroy the loving and the innocent, -justified by passion only, in the abstract judgment of our passionate imaginations. The scene of Desdemona's death is harrowing to every thought and feeling. How do the frightful deeds of war, the combats of gladiators, the duels of the aggrieved, sink into mere physical energies and shudders, when compared with the remorseless murder, by an infuriate husband's hand, of a most loving and gentle being, who has not the strength to resist the sanguinary law he has taken into his own purblind execution (himself, it is an hundred to one, more criminal in the very respect wherein he conceives her so guilty), and who is certain to fall a victim, through her bodily inequality, be her mind, or her "cause," as strong as possible in nature. But what, then, was the predominant and passionate "cause" in Othello's soul? Did the despotic influence of his Eastern blood propel him, being exasperated, to some vague notion of the several relations of master and slave? Was it a more modern idea of the outrage of marital legalities and rights over his female "property?" did he murder his wife because he believed she loved Cassio? and was his hand nerved by a deadly revenge, his cause being the maddened vanity of mere jealousy? Certainly not: these things show small and common beside the vast passion and anguish that filled Othello's breast. But that one, to whom he had devoted his soul, in the fixed assurance that she was the paragon of all that was fair in nature, should, in a few weeks, in the very ripeness of his joy, prove to be all that was gross in nature and foul in art, whose affection had appeared to be so strong, that unsolicited it did bestow itself, and yet it was all a lie, to use him for a means and blind, by and behind which she could the better carry on her intercourse with another, and this other his most trusted friend; - these feelings, added to the "extreme perplexity" of her most innocent, and therefore, maddening face, these were the "causes" why Othello destroyed her. His deep love for her nothing could erase, or even injure, beyond the moment of rage. He could not bear the abstract idea of murdering so sweet a creature her in whom he had " his heart." garnered up He contemplates her death as a severe and necessary act of justice, "else she'll -- 246 Studies of Undeveloped Characters in Shakspeare. betray more men." He would on no account injure her beyond the corporeal tenement of beauty, whereby she had abused and frightfully deformed the supreme idea of perfection with which she had possessed and enchanted him to rapture. He "would not kill her soul; " he would have her live again, and for ever but not here. - The convulsive reaction of Othello's mind on discovering that all his passion, and its casuistry, had been founded upon a delusion-while the consequences were beyond recal is so extreme as to be of brief duration. His very heart and spirit both sink back into the past. He makes a thrust at Iago, but is not sorry to have missed his blow, and is glad to find himself disarmed. He feels death too sweet and simple a consummation for so wicked and complex a thing as Iago. He returns to where he had "garnered up his heart," and again he is with his murdered love. His hand - he believes so, though he is confused with the dreadful dreaminess of the thought had destroyed her yes, he had done it. He compares himself to Herod, who slew Mariamne from jealousy: was "Othello. Like the base Judæan, threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe." He does not make this comparison on account of the mere jealousy; he "not easily jealous; but, being wrought upon, perplexed in the extreme." The association in his feelings is that of the cruelty of Herod; and instantly, the cruel thought melts him to the very soul, and his eyes These tears afford some "medicine" to his anguish, and he feels it. His heavy and half-suffocated heart is relieved—and with relief comes strength. His renovated strength he instantly turns upon himself. The idea of Herod's cruelty is not enough for the sense of his self-reproach and self-abasement; there must be self-revenge, which is justice. He feels that Othello has acted like a malignant infidel : — in imagination he again grasps the throat of the malignant Turkish "dog" who "beat a Venetian, and traduced the state;" and, in his last moments yet once more the lofty-minded Othello, he stabs to the core of his own base crime, through the memory of that unbeliever's baseness. The Sketches and Suggestions of character in this tragedy are the following: Three Great Ones. The Gondolier. The Pilot. Othello's Brothers. Barbara's Lover. 247 THE SOCRATIC IRONY. Καὶ αὐτὸς ἔφασκον ταῦτα πρὸς αὐτούς· οἱδὲ εἰρωνείαν φοντο τὸ πρᾶγμα εἶναι. — “ I told them so myself; but they supposed that the whole matter was mere Irony.' THE man knows nothing whatever, being equally and utterly ignorant on all subjects; moreover it is impossible to believe a word he says, or to tell whether he be in jest or in earnest; perhaps it may rather be said that he is never in earnest! There is no office so trifling, no employment so humble, which would be accessible, in the present wise or unwise, learned or unlearned, refined or unrefined age, to a candidate, who had no other recommendation than the description, that was accounted the most admirable and excellent in the wise or unwise, learned or unlearned, refined or unrefined age of Pericles, and in his renowned city of Athens. The fullest attestation of constant, universal ignorance, and of perpetual, undeviating falsehood, would not conciliate regard, or provoke envy; it would serve only to secure neglect and contempt for one, of whom it might be truly affirmed, that he knows nothing, and never speaks what he thinks. Yet such was the character of the wisest of the wise- of the best of the good men of antiquity. Who was the wisest man? Solomon. Who was the most ignorant? Socrates. Who was the least veracious, and the most insincere? Pater Sophorum, magnus ille Socrates. The son of a stone-cutter and a midwife, a man of humble station, scanty fortune, and mean aspect, came to be highly esteemed on account of his natural talents and extensive acquirements. His reputation accords with the ordinary course of events; the well-born and the wealthy possess certain advantages, which aid them in the pursuit of knowledge and of fame, and they are often retarded by the favours of fortune; on the other hand, a person of low origin and indigent is at once urged forward, and held back, by his meanness and poverty; consequently the success of the rich or of the poor aspirant is seldom surprising in the eyes of those, who form a right estimate of difficulties and facilities. Inasmuch as it is necessary, that some one should be first amongst the first, as well as amongst the last, it is easy to conceive, that some one philosopher must, or may be preferred to the rest; but it is hard rightly to understand the reasons and grounds of preference. The pre-eminence of Socrates is well known and generally acknowledged; to bring together proofs and illustrations from the writings of historians and of philosophers, would be only to do again what has been done already and often: one argument, however, of his transcendant greatness, to which no common authority was ascribed in his own time, merits more consideration and notice, than it has hitherto received. The priestess of Apollo at Delphi returned for answer to Charepho, who consulted the god on this subject, the celebrated response, which conferred a distinction at once so glorious and so invidious: ̓Ανδρῶν ἁπάντων Σωκράτης σοφώτατος. "Of all mankind Socrates is the wisest." And it would not, perhaps, be wholly unprofitable to discourse, or to speculate, concerning this very remarkable oracle, and to speak of men, who were styled TéG101, and who had been the subjects of prophecy, of oracles, and divine predictions; about whom the gods themselves had spoken; but it is necessary to look another way, towards the Socratic Ignorance and the Socratic Irony, to the peculiar causes of recognised superiority. Socrates knew nothing whatever, being equally and utterly ignorant on all subjects; moreover it was impossible to believe a word he said, or to tell, whether he were in jest, or in earnest; perhaps it might rather be said, that he was never in earnest. If this character were literally and exactly true, it would paint a porter, a lighterman, a labourer, too despicable by far to be employed by any prudent master about the coarsest offices of manual occupation. It is evident, therefore, that it did not refer to the son of Sophroniscus and Phænarete, in his private and insignificant capacity, as a humble citizen of Athens, of the ward of Alopece. Notwithstanding his ignorance, he knew enough to perform the ordinary business of life, to the trifling extent in which he engaged in it, sufficiently well; and notwithstanding his disingenuousness, he might be implicitly believed and trusted in the small transactions, in which he embarked. He was conversant in the denominations of money, and he had no misgivings, no doubts, or scepticism, as to the bearings of the streets, the names of his acquaintances, and the like. Whenever he gave a small order to a tradesman it might be executed with safety; he really desired that the firewood, the flour, the flannel, which he ordered, should be sent to his lodgings; no hoax was intended, no fraud designed. In these minute matters he was ever in earnest and sincere. But it was far otherwise, we are told, in his public and most exalted station, as master and prince of the philosophers; when he treated for the purchase of some pounds of bread, an affair in which a brother freeman, a master baker, was alone interested to the extent of a few pence, he was quite serious; but the wisest of mankind jested, dissembled, feigned, and deceived, from first to last, in discoursing of eternal verities of perpetual concernment to the whole human race. To cheat a baker is a venial offence, which may be expiated in one hour, provided that one hour be spent in the stocks; but if there be a bad pleasantry, a thoroughly illnatured joke, which is sport to one, and death to all the rest, it is, that he, who has been set above all men as the wisest, by divine authority and sanction, should mislead his disciples and hearers in those things, which it greatly behoves them to understand rightly. What weight or duration of punishment is adequate to the most heinous offence? If any were really led astray by the habitual simulation and dissimulation of the king of philosophers, he would seem to be less reprehensible, had he only been such a person as the literal apprehension of his character would make him,namely, one not to be trusted or believed in buying and selling, but tricky and dishonest in mundane affairs, like a common rogue or thief. We are not permitted to believe, that any were so led astray or deceived; how hard, then, is it to seize the force and meaning of the Socratic Irony! The Socratic Ignorance is less incomprehensible, to a certain extent at least. The assertion, that the wisest of men knew nothing, although at first it may seem startling and paradoxical, appears, upon further reflection, generous and noble. How much the doctrine exalts our notion of knowledge! What encouragement does it afford the student; it is the best assurance, that his beloved studies will never fail him; that after years upon years of unwearied application he will still be far, very far from the end of his pleasant journey; that of him, who seeks only, that he may seek again, the occupation will never be gone! To attain fully to the Socratic Ignorance is to be as wise as Socrates himself, a result rather to be earnestly desired than confidently anticipated. Some progress, however, towards the acqui sition of a general conception of its nature and properties may certainly be effected by the careful and continued perusal of the precious writings of the divine Plato. In order that he may venture to say, that he is ignorant of its contents, it is necessary for a student to read a work throughout very diligently, from the beginning to the end, twelve times at the least. It is the sentence of a rabbi; and whoever sought to explain the Socratic Ignorance, and was conversant with rabbinical literature, might draw many illustrations, and might derive much aid from these hidden stores. For it was truly remarked many ages ago of a learned Jew, either Plato talks after Philo, or Philo after Plato; and continually, for many ages, have the Jewish doctors been wet, often very wet, with the Socratic discourses : "Non ille, quanquam Socraticis madet After the third reading, says the rabbi, you just begin to feel your ignorance a little, to catch faint glimpses of it, and to discern something, which you do not quite understand; the gradual development of negative knowledge is the consequence of each successive perusal; and after the twelfth, if the reader be in truth a man of competent learning, good abilities, and strenuous industry, he understands what there is in the book, that he does not understand; and is now in a fit state to begin to study his author with delight and advantage. To follow the erudite Hebrew, step by step, in his careful and minute dissection and demonstration of the anatomy of ignorance, and of its exterior integument, and hard, thick, and tough outershell and husk, the unconsciousness and ignorance of ignorance, would perhaps be instructive, but it would divert the attention from another subject. In order to comprehend the difficulty of mastering thoroughly any science, or department of knowledge, it is sufficient for the present purpose to have suggested to the mind, by way of illustration, a sketch and outline of the valuation of the amount and extent of the difficulty of understanding a single book drawn by the pen of a critic, whose natural position had a peculiar tendency to augment the inborn subtlety of Eastern wit. The doctors and scholars of the Jewish nation having been occupied for more than three thousand years in expounding a written code of laws, have attained to a degree of refinement, penetration, and acuteness in the nice arts of exposition, interpretation, and construction, which astonishes even a reader not unacquainted with the marvellous ingenuity and astuteness of the expounders of the text of the civil law. If the difficulty of rightly understanding books may be gathered from the lessons of rabbinical teachers, we must frequent the school of Socrates and ponder over the Socratic writings with a Jewish patience, and especially the golden pages of Plato, to glean so much of the Socratic Ignorance, as is scattered over them. To strive to learn ignorance is a generous ambition; and every occasion is a happy one which brings us nearer to the wise men of antiquity. "Many are possessed and actuated by a divine spirit derived to them through others, in the same manner, as it is reported of the Delphian priestess, that when she approaches the sacred tripod, where a chasm in the earth, they say, respires some vapour, which fills her with enthusiasm, she is immediately by that more than human power made pregnant, and is there upon the spot delivered of oracles, such as the particular nature of the inspiration generates. So from the great genius residing in the ancients, through them, as through some sacred openings, certain emanations issuing forth pass into the souls of their admirers, by which many, who of themselves but little |