As this doctrine of the harmful excess of all and even of good things lies in the facts, it is to be found also in the images and similes of this poem so rich in maxims. Thus the crowd around the sick man, who wish to help, becomes an injury; the crowd around the beloved prince, for the sake of applause, becomes a burden. And just so does this doctrine lie in the characters and in the contrast of their position with regard to each other. The single character of Angelo, with the unnaturally over-strained exaggeration of his nature, counterbalances alone a series of contrasts; with his severity he counterbalances the mildness of the Duke, with his sobriety the levity of Claudio, with his heartlessness the tender weakness of his faithful Mariana, with his anxious adherence to the appearance of good Lucio's indifference to the basest reputation. Between these extremes stands Isabella alone, a type of a complete human nature, which renders it plain, that all extreme is only imperfect and fragmentary, that moderation and a wise medium is not weakness and indolence, that far rather it forms in man the true moral centre of gravity, which holds him secure from all waverings and errors, and qualifies him for the highest. power which can be required of man.

OTHELLO.

Out of the same collection of tales by Giraldi Cinthio (Hekatomithi III b. 7.), from which Shakespeare borrowed his material for Measure for Measure, did he take that for Othello. He read it probably in the Italian original, for no English translation of his time is known.

The story of the Moor of Venice offered somewhat more to Shakespeare than that of Juriste for his Measure for Measure; yet here also, all is poor and barren in motive and characterization. Disdemona (for so is her fatal name here written) loves the Moor for the sake of his virtues, and marries him against the will of the family. The ancient destroys the happiness of the pair, because he loves Disdemona and believes her to be enamoured of the Moor's lieutenant. The circumstances, which serve to provoke the jealousy of the Moor, the dismissal of the lieutenant, Disdemona's intercession for him, the lost pocket - handkerchief, &c. are to be found in the story, but all in much simpler form, and without the ancient appearing so prominently as in Shakespeare to be the originator of the favourable circumstances, which are to serve his ends. The figure

of Rodrigo is wholly wanting in the tale. Upon the Moor there is a shadow cast, especially in the unpleasing conclusion. He allows his wife to be barbarously murdered by the ancient, then seeks carefully to hide the cause of her death, and upon the rack denies his guilt, upon which he is banished and subsequently is put to death by a relative of Disdemona. One sees out of this single comparison, what a gulf even here separates the novel from the drama.

In Othello, of whose origin no definite period lies before us, beyond the notice of a performance in 1604, we place by the side of Measure for Measure a play which, though from another point of view, makes upon most readers a similarly painful impression. Both pieces demand the somewhat stronger nerves of the time in which they originated. Both repel us by the bare subject, the latter still more deeply by the cutting truth of its development. Both pieces give evidence beyond many other works of Shakespeare, that the interest in moral and psychological truth stood ever higher with our poet than that of outward æsthetic beauty, but above all far higher than consideration for an over-softness of feeling. In Measure for Measure he smoothed and moderated with the greatest refinement of feeling the painful situation, which formed the plot of the story; but so far would he not go, as to let fall the whole purport, morally so valuable. In Othello he created with wonderful psychological perception, a magnificent tragic field for the passion of jealousy, which commonly belongs rather to man's petty self-love and is more suited to comic treatment; but just for this reason, he forfeited the possibility of consideration for the feelings of his readers and of forbearance in agitating their minds. With

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his sense of psychological truth he sought the ground of
a passion of such strength as the issue of that story of the
Moor of Venice supposed, and he accepted it, when found,
with all its necessary consequences. He suffered the flood
of this excited sea to rise according to the power of the
storm, unmindful of the finer natures, which could not
stand the hurricane. Even Ulrici, who generally stood on
the side of our poet against criticizing opinion and prejudice,
considered the harshness here in the distraction of the beau-
tiful as outweighing the consolatory and the elevating;
because the conclusion affords not here, as in Romeo and
But this, it seems, lay
Juliet, an agreeable dénouement.
unavoidably in the subject itself.

Romeo and Juliet fall

by their own will in the excess of the most ravishing passion of love, which even in its agony appears sweet to us; in the tragedy before us the innocent wife falls by the hand of her husband under the frightful power of the bitterest and most malignant passion, which completely annihilates the sweeter emotion of love. This was indeed only to be avoided by relinquishing the subject itself, which certainly would be a far greater cause of regret, than if the poet had not written Measure for Measure on account of its painful plot. The question therefore is only, whether the poet has done all that he could, having once undertaken the theme, to avoid what is needlessly terrible, and to soften what is necessarily severe. That he has done this, must have so appeared even to Ulrici. For he found, that with the comprehension of the whole and with reflective consideration, he perceived the harmony which he had before missed. This different result from a different contemplation can be scarcely the consequence of an inner want of har

mony in the poem, or the reflective comprehension of the whole would itself discover it, whilst on the contrary it just convinces us, that although indeed passion is here aroused and displayed in all its strength and power, leading to the most terrible actions, yet no actual discord in the melody is to be distinguished. The fault must thus lie in ourselves. The reflective comprehension is not with us in unison with our moral or æsthetic feelings; either our understanding in the final comprehension of the play, or our feeling in the first impression of it, must have erred.

And truly we shall discover by the more accurate examination of the play and of ourselves, that so far as the object and design of the drama is concerned, we are rather in opposition to the poet in the system of our moral perceptions. The entire spirit of the tale of the Moor of Venice is laid down by Giraldi Cinthio in the following plain words from Desdemona: "I fear", says she, "that I must serve as a warning to young maidens, not to marry against the will of their parents; an Italian girl should not marry a man, whom nature, heaven, and mode of life have wholly separated from her." These prosaic truths meet us also in Shakespeare's tragedy, set forth in glowing poetry, and grounded on the deepest experiences of life. But we in our day have not so lively an appreciation of the first of these truths, we do not estimate so highly the opposition of Othello and Desdemona against family-claims as did Shakespeare and his time. If we follow this natural method of consideration, we perceive not the crime which makes the sufferers deserve such suffering, and we stumble at their heavy punishment. If we place ourselves and our judgment (which with some knowledge of history is not so