NORTH.
I cannot but believe that the Othello of Shakspeare is black, and all black. I cannot conceive the ethnography of that age drawing—on the stage especially—the finer distinction which we know between a Moor and a Blackamoor or Negro. The opposition, entertained by nature, is between White and Black—not between White and Brown. You want the opposition to tell with all its power. "I saw Othello's visage in his mind" is nothing, unless the visible visage is one to be conquered—to be accepted by losing sight of it. I say again, that I cannot myself imagine the contemporary audience of Shakspeare deciding colour between a Moor and a Negro. The tradition of the Stage, too, seems to have made Othello jet black. Such, I opine, was the notion of the Moor, then, to the People, to the Court, to the Stage, to Shakspeare.