Page:The Moor of Venice.djvu/21

110 reflection, and in the rapidity of the action in the Play he is rendered the helpless tool of Iago's villainy, which Shakspere's plot required. We see the force of this necessity, which rules Othello strikingly after the deed is perpetrated, in the startled horror, the ghastly despair of his soul, when the portentous and damning doubt—that if—is forced on his mind, by the opening proofs of Iago's villainy and falsehood:

And again:

The same inevitable law of consequence, we may observe, which dominates the thoughts and conduct of Othello, conducts equally, by the most consummate art, the whole machinery of the Play, shaping the plot, determining the actions, overruling the wills, and leading on to a necessitated conclusion.

The characters of the Ensign and Iago are very similar; but whilst the former is a deep-dyed villain by habit, the latter is an unmitigated fiend by nature. Iago is one of the greatest impersonations of the Evil Spirit that has ever been suggested to an artist's mind. In the Novel, the Ensign's