There is always danger, lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation; but che character of lago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.

Even the inferior characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his waut of stubbornuess to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo's suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind, betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend; and the virtue of Emilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villainies.

The scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.

Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preced ing incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous iegularity. JOHNSON.

To Dr. Johnson's admirable and nicely discri→ minative character of Othello, it may seem unnecessary to make any addition; yet I cannot forbear to conclude our commentaries on this transcendent poet with the fine eulogy which the judicious and learned Lowth has pronounced on him, with a

particular reference to this tragedy,, perhaps the most perfect of all his works.

"In his viris [tragoediae Graecae scilicet scriptoribus] accessio quaedam Philosophiae erat Poetica facultas: neque sane quisquam adhuc Poesin ad fastigium suum ac culmen evexit, nisi qui prius in intima Philosophia artis suae fundamenta jecerit. Quod si quis objiciat, nonnullos in hoc ipso poeseos genere excelluisse, qui nunquam habiti sunt Philosophi, ac ne literis quidém praeter caeteros imbuti; sciat is, me rem ipsam quaerere, non de vulgari opinione, aut de verbo laborare: qui autem tantum ingenio consecutus est, ut naturas hominum, vimque omnem humanitatis, causasque eas, quibus aut incitatur mentis impetus aut retunditur, penitus perspectas habeat, ejusque omnes motus oratione non modo explicet, sed effingat, planeque oculis fubjiciat; sed excitet, regat, commoveat, moderetur; eum, etsi disciplinarum instrumento minus adjutum, eximie tamen esse Philosophum arbitrari. Quo in genere affectum Zelotypiae, ejusque causas, adjuncta, progressiones, effectus, in una SHAKSPEARI nostri fabula, copiosius, subtilius, accuratius etiam veriusque pertractari existimo, quam ab omnibus omnium Philosophorum scholis in simili argumento est unquam disputatum." [Praelectio prima, edit. 1763. p. 8.] MALONE.

If by,, the most perfect" is meant the most regular of the foregoing plays, I subscribe to Mr. Malone's opinion; but if his words were designed to convey a more exalted praise, without a moment's hesitation I should transfer is to MACBETH. It is true, that the domestick tragedy of Othello affords room for a various and forcible display of character. The less familiar groundwork of Mac

beth (as Dr. Johnson has observed) excludes the influence of peculiar dispositions. That exclusion, however, is recompensed by a loftier strain of poetry, and by events of higher rank; by supernatural agency, by the solemnities of incantation, by shades of guilt aud horror deepening in their progress, and by visions of futurity solicited in aid of hope, but eventually the ministers of despair.

Were it necessary to weigh the pathetick effusions of these dramas against each other, it is generally allowed that the sorrows of Desdemopa would be more than counterbalanced by those of Macduff.

Yet if our author's rival pieces (the distinct property of their subjects considered) are written with equal force, it must still be amitted that the latter has more of originality. A novel of considerable length (perhaps amplified and embellished by the English translator of it) supplied a regular and circumstantial outline for Othello; while a few slight hints collected from separate narratives of Holinshed, were expanded into the sublime and awful tragedy of Macbeth.

Should readers, who are alike conversaut with the appropriate excellencies of poetry and painting, pronounce on the reciprocal merits of these great productions, I must suppose they would describe them as of different pedigrees. They would add, that one was of the school of Raphael, the other from that of Michael Angelo; and that if the steady Sophocles and Virgil should have decided in favour of Othello, the remonstrances of the daring Aeschylus and Homer would have claimed the laurel for Macbeth.

To the sentiments of Dr. Lowth respecting the tragedy of Othello, a general elogium on the dra

matick works of Shakspeare, imputed by a judicious and amiable critick to Milton, may be not improperly subjoined:

There is good reason to suppose (says my late friend the Rev. Thomas Warton, in a note on L Allegro,) that Milton threw many additions and corrections into the THEATRUM POETARUM, a book published by his nephew Edward Philips, in 1675. It contains criticisms far above the taste of that period. Among these is the following judgement on Shakspeare, which was not then, I believe, the ,,In tragedy, never any exgeneral opinion." pressed a more lofty and tragick heighth, never any represented nature more purely to the life: and where the polishments of art are most wanting, as probably his learning was not extraordinary, he pleases with a certain WILD and NATIVE elegance." P. 194.

What greater praise can any poet have received, than that of the author of Paradise Lost?

STEEVENS.

F IN IS.