This line is difficult. Thou hast harden'd my heart, and makest
me kill thee with the rage of a MURDERER, when I thought to have
sacraficed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking
a victim.

It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quarto's reads, "Thou
dost stone THY heart:" which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning
then will be, thou forcest me to dismiss thee from the world in
the state of the murdered without preparation for death, when I
intended that thy punishment should have been "a sacrifice" atoning
for thy crime.

I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It
is not to be endured.

The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the
attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical
illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless,
and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection,
inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool
malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs,
and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft
simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of
innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness
to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare's
skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any
modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's
conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him,
are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said
of him as he says of himself, that he is "a man not esily jealous,"