I do. Iago was a liar--but here I think he spoke truth--there is nothing in the Play indicating that Cassio had seen much service--he had never been at Cyprus--nor anywhere else--he had never seen a Turk--he had never-- NORTH. Hold your tongue. TALBOYS. A more disgraceful Brawl-- NORTH. Hold your tongue, I say. TALBOYS. Don't keep pouring out your excuses for him, sir, with such overwhelming volubility--it won't do. He knew his own wretched head. "I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking," yet drink he would,--"I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was craftily qualified too"--worse than shirking--"behold what innovation it makes here,"--and yet he would not join the Teetotallers. Out on such a Lieutenant! Iago _was_ an ill-used man. NORTH. Talboys-- TALBOYS. O that ceaseless volubility! Shakspeare afterwards makes Iago say that Cassio "has a daily beauty in his life." Where do we see it? In his _liaison_ with that "fitchew?" From pleading with the Divine Desdemona on a question to him of life or death, to go straight to sup--and sleep with Bianca! NORTH. Othello's "Now thou art my Lieutenant," shows the importance meant by Shakspeare to be attached to the previous oppression--or "holding down" of Iago. Alas! how that allocution instigating Iago to murder by more than a promise of promotion, sadly lowers Othello to me--I hardly know why. I feel a descent from his own passion to a sympathy with Iago's desire to step into his superior officer's shoes. I can fancy that Shakspeare meant this. Ay, that he did; for I believe that turbulent passion, in some of its moods, lowers--degrades--debases a great and generous nature. TALBOYS. Iago, was jealous of Othello. He says he was, and either believes it, or tries to believe it. His own words intimate the doubt, and the determination to believe. Malignity and hate indulge in giving acceptance to slight grounds--such he says, in his own coarse way, was the rumour--and perhaps it was true-- NORTH. Certainly it was false. High characters, as Coriolanus, Hotspur, Othello, are, by a native majesty of spirit, saved and exalted from the pursuit of illicit pleasure. TALBOYS. They are. But let his jealousy of Othello--sincere or assumed--or mixed or alternating--enter as an element into the hatred. NORTH. Let it. Iago was, you said truly, a stout Soldier--and I add, a hard, unfeeling, unprincipled Soldier. Of all trades in the world, that of a Soldier is the worst and the best--witness an Iago--an Othello. The same trade helped to make both. In Othello we almost see Wordsworth's _Happy Warrior_--in Iago one-- "Yet ill he lived, much evil saw, 'Mongst men to whom no better law Nor better life was known; Deliberately and undeceived, Those bad men's vices he received And gave them back his own!"