We may finally remark, that over the popular creed relative to the Art of Magic, and which, as detailed in the common books and traditions on the subject, presents us with little but what is either ridiculous or revolting, Shakspeare has exerted a species of enchantment which infinitely surpasses that of the most profound Magi of classic or of Gothic lore; eliciting from materials equally crude, gigantic, and extravagant, the elements of beauty, sublimity, and awful wonder; and unfolding such a picture of what may be conceived within the reach of human skill and science, and so much of the philosophy of poetry in his glimpses of the spiritual world, that while we are spell-struck by the creations of a fancy beyond all others glowing and romantic, we yet feel ourselves in the presence, and bow before the throne, of Nature.
34. Othello: 1612. Mr. Malone has assigned the composition of this play to the year 1611, though, as he confesses, with little satisfaction to himself, in consequence of Dr. Warburton having considered the following passage, in the third act of this play, as an allusion to the institution of the order of Baronets, created by James the First, in 1611:—
—————— "the hearts of old gave hands,
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts."[527:B]
The baronets, remarks Warburton, "had an addition to their paternal arms, of an hand gules in an escutcheon argent. And we are not to doubt but that this was the new heraldry alluded to by our author."[527:C]
That the text contains a sly allusion to the new heraldry of hands in the baronet's arms, there cannot, as Mr. Douce has justly observed, be a doubt[528:A]; but, unfortunately for Mr. Malone's chronology, Dr. Warburton was mistaken as to the period of the grant of arms, Mr. Chalmers having clearly proved, that "the additional armorial bearing, of the bloody hand, was not given by the patent of creation.—But the King, wishing to ampliate his favour towards the baronets, granted them, by a second patent, dated the 28th of May 1612, among other preheminences, 'the arms of Ulster, that is, in a field argent, a hand geules, or a bloudie hand.'"[528:B]
Now, as we have it recorded, on the authority of Mr. Vertue's MS., that Othello was acted at court EARLY in the year 1613[528:C], it might have been imagined that Mr. Chalmers's discovery would have led him to the adoption of the epoch which we have chosen. But, strange as it may appear, this is not the case; for, finding Iago, in the subsequent act, remarking to Othello, in reference to Desdemona, "If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to [528:D]offend," he immediately disputes the testimony of Vertue, which had been allowed in every other instance, and because a clamour had occurred in the House of Commons against patents of monopoly, in May, 1614, places Othello in this very year[528:E], when, but three pages before, he had spoken of "the audience" knowing, "from their feelings, how much vexation had arisen from the patents of monopoly, which Queen Elizabeth, and King James, had so frequently granted;" and referring, in a note, to a declaration of Sir Francis Bacon to the House of Commons, in which he tells them, "if you make a penal statute, the Queen will dispense with it, and grant a patent with a non obstante."[528:F]
Convinced that an allusion so indeterminate, and which might have been as much relished by an audience before, as after, the year
1614, ought not to weigh against a positive and respectable testimony, we feel no hesitation in expressing our belief that Othello was written in the interval elapsing between the 28th of May, 1612, and the 1st of January, 1613.
The tragedy of Othello, certainly one of the first-rate productions of its author, is yet, in our opinion, inferior, in point of originality and poetic wealth, to Macbeth, to Lear, to Hamlet, and The Tempest, though superior, perhaps, to every other play. It is, without doubt, an unrivalled representation of the passion of jealousy, in all its stages and effects; but the incidents, if we except the catastrophe, are pretty closely copied from the novel of Giraldi Cinthio, who, as Mr. Steevens has observed, "supplied our author with a regular and circumstantial outline." It has also been remarked by Mr. Dunlop, and with some truth, that "the characters of Iago, Desdemona, and Cassio, are taken from Cinthio with scarcely a shade of difference[529:A];" a declaration, however, which, with respect to Desdemona, cannot be admitted without great qualification; for with what beauty, with what pathetic impressiveness, is her part filled up, when compared with the sketch of the Italian novellist! We must also recollect, that although the incidents in which Othello is concerned be nearly the same in both productions, the character of the Moor has no prototype in Cinthio, but is exclusively the property of Shakspeare.