then with what astonishing consistency is it carried through! He is an incarnate fiend; a being nourished with gall and bitterness, capable neither of love nor joy; who regards evil as his element; the philosophizing on himself, the contemplating and full and clear setting forth of his own atrocities, is his only enjoyment. The tie which binds him to human kind is feeble; it is only revenge for the suspected injury done him by the Moor: and even this seems but a sort of pretext which he makes to himself with the last expiring breath of moral sensibility, and his genuine delight in torture and distress ever the real and leading motive. And yet even this monster is not utterly revolting. His intellectual superiority, his courage, his consistency, and, at the last, his firmness in extremity, never suffer the consummate villain to sink into abject, vulgar degradation. Iago is a hero, compared to Kotzebue's models of virtue. Completely in this sense Young played the character: his manners are gloomy and morose, but noble; no smile passes over his lips, and his jests lose nothing by this dryness: certain of his power, he treats all with calm superiority, but with well-defined 'nuances:' to his wife he is simply rough and domineering; to Roderigo, authoritative and humorous; to Cassio, polite and friendly; to the Moor, reverential and attached, but always serious and dignified. Kemble, on his part, played Cassio as admirably; and perfectly as Shakspeare describes him; "a man, framed to make women false;" young, gay, gallant, of a noble mein, good-natured character, and polished manners.--Desdemona, unhappily, was but moderately represented; and yet the touching contrast of her gentle, patient, womanly devotedness, with the Moor's burning passion, was not utterly lost. Kean played Othello in the dress of a Moorish King out of the Bible,--in sandals, and a long silk talar, which is manifestly absurd. But one soon forgets his dress in his glorious acting. Your faithful L----. LETTER XXIII. _London, March 24th, 1828._ BELOVED FRIEND, Among the most aristocratical parties are to be numbered the concerts of one of the most liberal members of the Opposition,--an anomaly often to be found here; where a certain vague general liberalism goes hand-in-hand with the narrowest pride and most arrogant conceit of class; and where the haughtiest man in his own house possesses the reputation of the most liberal in public life. Very amusing parties are also given by a Duchess, whose brevet is so new that she is reckoned a plebeian by the exclusives:--such an one took place to-day. On the second floor there was an excellent concert, on the first a ball, and on the ground-floor constant eating. At the dinner which preceded, the servants waited in white kid gloves, an imitation of another fashionable Duke. This almost disgusted me, for I could not get out of my head the lazaretto, and other disagreeable cutaneous associations.