The general groundwork of the character of Iago, as it appears to us, is not absolute malignity, but a want of moral principle, or an indifference to the real consequences of the actions, which the meddling perversity of his disposition and love of immediate excitement lead him to commit. He is an amateur of tragedy in real life; and instead of exercising his ingenuity on imaginary characters, or forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. The character is a complete abstraction of the intellectual from the moral being; or, in other words, consists in an absorption of every common feeling in the virulence of his understanding, the deliberate wilfulness of his purposes, and in his restless, untamable love of mischievous contrivance. We proceed to quote some particular passages in support of this opinion. In the general dialogue and reflections, which are an accompaniment to the progress of the catastrophe, there is a constant overflowing of gall and bitterness. The acuteness of his malice fastens upon every thing alike, and pursues the most distant analogies of evil with a provoking sagacity. He by no means forms an exception to his own rule:— ‘Who has that breast so pure, But some uncleanly apprehensions Keep leets and law-days, and in sessions sit With meditations lawful?’ His mirth is not natural and cheerful, but forced and extravagant, partaking of the intense activity of mind and cynical contempt of others in which it originates. Iago is not, like Candide, a believer in optimism, but seems to have a thorough hatred or distrust of every thing of the kind, and to dwell with gloating satisfaction on whatever can interrupt the enjoyment of others, and gratify his moody irritability. One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately after the marriage of Othello:— ‘_Roderigo._ What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe, If he can carry her thus? _Iago._ Call up her father: Rouse him [_Othello_], make after him, poison his delight, Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen, And tho’ he in a fertile climate dwell, Plague him with flies: tho’ that his joy be joy, Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t, As it may lose some colour.’ The pertinacious logical following up of his favourite principle in this passage, is admirable. In the next, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he is plotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of real enthusiasm:— ‘_Roderigo._ Here is her father’s house, I’ll call aloud. _Iago._ Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell, As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied in populous cities.’