Even the inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength.  Cassio is brave, benevolent and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation.  Roderigo’s suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which, by persuasion, he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend; and the virtue of Aemilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villanies.

The scenes, from the beginning to the end, are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative, in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.

Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Mr. Heath, who wrote a Revisal of Shakespeare’s text, published in
    8vo. circa 1760.

[2] This is not a blunder of Shakespeare’s, but a mistake of Johnson’s,
    who considers the passage alluded to in a more literal sense than
    the author intended it.  Sir Proteus, it is true, had seen Silvia for
    a few moments; but though he could form from thence some idea of her
    person, he was still unacquainted with her temper, manners, and the
    qualities of her mind.  He, therefore, considers himself as having
    seen her picture only.  The thought is just and elegantly expressed. 
    So in the Scornful Lady, the elder Loveless says to her, “I was mad
    once when I loved pictures.  For what are shape and colours else
    but pictures?”—­Mason in Malone’s Shak. iv. 137.—­Ed.

[3] In the Three Ladies of London, 1584, is the character of an Italian
    merchant, very strongly marked by foreign pronunciation.  Dr.
    Dodypoll, in the Comedy which bears his name, is, like Caius, a
    French physician.  This piece appeared, at least, a year before The
    Merry Wives of Windsor.  The hero of it speaks such another jargon as
    the antagonist of Sir Hugh, and, like him, is cheated of his
    mistress.  In several other pieces, more ancient than the earliest of
    Shakespeare’s, provincial characters are introduced—­Steevens.

    In the old play of Henry V. French soldiers are introduced speaking
    broken English.—­Boswell.

[4] See, however, Dr. Drake’s Essays on Rambler &c. ii. 392.—­Ed.