Ay, the noblest moral nature, and high above every other evidence of it, his love of HER--which, what it was, and what it would have remained, or become--and what he was and would have been, had Iago not been there--we may imagine! With all the power of a warrior, and a ruler, he has the sensibility of a Lover--with all spontaneous dignity and nobility, he has the self-mastery of reason--before his overthrow. NORTH. Wherefore, my dear Sheriff, I prefer Othello as a specimen of the _Ethical Marvellous_. Like, as in another kingdom, a Winged Horse or a Centaur--the meeting of two natures which readily hold asunder. All this has under the Æthiop complexion its full force--less if you mitigate--if not mitigate merely, but take away, where are we all? The innate repugnance of the White Christian to the Black Moorish blood, is the ultimate tragic substratum--the "_must_" of all that follows. Else--_make_ Othello White--and, I say again, _see_ where we are! TALBOYS. Shakspeare, sir, is not one to flinch from the utmost severity of a Case. NORTH. Not he, indeed--therefore I _swear_ Othello is a Blackamoor. TALBOYS. And I take it, sir, that Othello's natural demeanour is one of great gravity, to which the passionate moods induced are in extremity of contrast. I conceive that, by these mixtures and contrasts, he is rendered picturesque and poetical. NORTH. I swear Othello was a Blackamoor--and that Desdemona was the Whitest Lady in Europe. TALBOYS. Had he lived to be tried for murder, I think his counsel might have successfully set up the plea of insanity. NORTH. They might have successfully set it up--but I, the Judge, would have successfully put it down. Honestly, I don't think Othello mad; and for this reason, that the thought never before came into my head. An incident that appears to me most wonderful in dramatic invention is--the Swooning. Look at the precise words preceding his falling down. To me it has no other effect or sense, than that of the blood being driven up into the head, and oppressing with physical pressure that bodily organ--the brain. The soul strikes the body like a hammer, and knocks it down. TALBOYS. Ay, how his words waver--"That's not so good now"--from a man believing, or on the point of believing. There is to me a physical faintness in these words, and in the play upon the words "lie with her," &c., intellect reeling to fall. NORTH.