truth one striking argument of inferiority; and the clearness with which Shakspeare conceives a definite purpose, and the fixedness with which he pursues it, go very far to unravel the great secret of his power. [Sidenote: His relying on the emotion he puts into his characters.] I have already pointed out to you, perhaps without necessity, wherein it is that his strength of passion consists; that it is not in the incidents of his fable, but in his mode of treating the incidents; that he will not rely on mere vigour or skill of outline in his stage-grouping, for that influence which he is conscious of being always able to acquire more worthily, by the beauty and emotion which he breathes into the organic formation of the living statuary of the scene; that he refuses to sacrifice to the meretricious attraction of strained situations or entangled incidents, the internal and self-supporting strength of his historical pictures of the heart, or the unflinching accuracy of his demonstrations of the intellectual anatomy. [Sidenote: Shakspere's unity of purpose, seen in his conception, and his carrying this out.] In a similar way you will look for his unity of purpose, not in the mechanical economy of his plots, but in the elementary conception of his characters, and in his developement of the principles of passion under whose suggestions those characters act. [Sidenote: Shakspere's conception of character, and method of developing it.] He chooses as the subject of his delineation some mightily and truly conceived impersonation of human attributes, inconsistent it may be in itself, but faithful to its prototype as being inconsistent according to the rules which guide inconsistency in our enigmati[80:1]cal mental constitution; for the exhibition of the character so imagined he devises some chain of events by which its internal springs of action may be brought into play; and he traces the motion and results of those spiritual impulses with an undeviating steadiness of design, which turns aside neither to raise curiosity nor to gratify a craving for any other mean excitement. Some singular instances of Shakspeare's fine judgment in clinging to one great design, are furnished by the 'Othello.' [Sidenote: Desdemona's murder compard with Annabella's (by Ford).] The death of Desdemona has been compared with the murder of Annabella, a scene (evidently drawn from it) in a drama of Ford's on a story which makes the flesh creep. [Sidenote: Ford's above Shakspere's in pathos.] Some have pronounced Ford's scene superior in pathos to Shakspeare's: I think it is decidedly so. The tender mournfulness of the language and few images is exquisite, and the sweet sad monotonous melody of the versification is indescribably affecting. Is it from weakness that Shakspeare has not given to the death of his gentle lady an equally strong impress of pathos? No. He was not indeed susceptible of the feminine abandonment of Ford; but he was equal to a manly tone of