prepares for the effect produced by his afterwards yielding to Hermione;--which is, nevertheless, perfectly natural from mere courtesy of s.e.x, and the exhaustion of the will by former efforts of denial, and well calculated to set in nascent action the jealousy of Leontes. This, when once excited, is unconsciously increased by Hermione:--

Yet, good deed, Leontes, I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind What lady she her lord;--

accompanied, as a good actress ought to represent it, by an expression and recoil of apprehension that she had gone too far.

At my request, he would not:--

The first working of the jealous fit;--

Too hot, too hot:--

The morbid tendency of Leontes to lay hold of the merest trifles, and his grossness immediately afterwards--

Padling palms and pinching fingers:--

followed by his strange loss of self-control in his dialogue with the little boy.

Act iii. sc. 2. Paulina's speech:

That thou betray'dst Polixenes,'twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a _fool_, inconstant, And d.a.m.nable ingrateful.--

Theobald reads 'soul.'

I think the original word is Shakspeare's.

1. My ear feels it to be Shakspearian;

2. The involved grammar is Shakspearian;--'show thee, being a fool naturally, to have improved thy folly by inconstancy;'

3. The alteration is most flat, and un-Shakspearian. As to the grossness of the abuse--she calls him 'gross and foolish' a few lines below.

Act iv. sc. 2. Speech of Autolycus:--

For the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it.

Fine as this is, and delicately characteristic of one who had lived and been reared in the best society, and had been precipitated from it by dice and drabbing; yet still it strikes against my feelings as a note out of tune, and as not coalescing with that pastoral tint which gives such a charm to this act. It is too Macbeth-like in the 'snapper up of unconsidered trifles.'

'Ib.' sc. 3. Perdita's speech:--

From Dis's waggon! daffodils.

An epithet is wanted here, not merely or chiefly for the metre, but for the balance, for the aesthetic logic. Perhaps, 'golden' was the word which would set off the 'violets dim.'

Ib.

Pale primroses That die unmarried.--

Milton's--

And the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.

'Ib.' Perdita's speech:--

Even here undone: I was not much afraid; for once or twice I was about to speak, and tell him plainly, The self-same sun, that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike. Wilt please you, Sir, be gone!

(_To Florizel._) I told you, what would come of this. Beseech you, Of your own state take care: this dream of mine, Being awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, But milk my ewes, and weep.

O how more than exquisite is this whole speech!--And that profound nature of n.o.ble pride and grief venting themselves in a momentary peevishness of resentment toward Florizel:--

--Wilt please you, Sir, be gone!

'Ib.' Speech of Autolycus:--

Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie; but we pay them for it in stamped coin, not stabbing steel;--therefore they do not _give_ us the lie.

As we _pay_ them, they, therefore, do not _give_ it us.

NOTES ON OTh.e.l.lO

Act I. sc. 1. Admirable is the preparation, so truly and peculiarly Shakspearian, in the introduction of Roderigo, as the dupe on whom Iago shall first exercise his art, and in so doing display his own character.

Roderigo, without any fixed principle, but not without the moral notions and sympathies with honor, which his rank and connections had hung upon him, is already well fitted and predisposed for the purpose; for very want of character and strength of pa.s.sion, like wind loudest in an empty house, const.i.tute his character. The first three lines happily state the nature and foundation of the friendship between him and Iago,--the purse,--as also the contrast of Roderigo's intemperance of mind with Iago's coolness,--the coolness of a preconceiving experimenter. The mere language of protestation--