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.’
There is nothing here of the trim levity and epigrammatic conciseness of Mr. Kean’s manner of acting the part; which is no less paradoxical than Mrs. Greville’s celebrated Ode to Indifference. Iago was a man of genius, and not a petit maitre. One of his most frequent topics, on which he is rich indeed, and in descanting on which, his spleen serves him for a muse, is the disproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is brought forward in the first scene, and is never lost sight of afterwards.