When sensibility

their only safeguard to the Cyprus wars. calls, he combines again to our astonishment the tenderness of a woman with the ferocity of an Indian chief. Like the lover, as painted by the chambermaid in Cervantes, he is sincere, simple, silent, and secret.

After this copious enumeration of the excellencies of Othello's character, the most brilliant feature still remains to be depicted. It is the signal triumph which the Moor enjoys in the superiority of mental and moral power over physical disadvantages. With a visage begrimed; with fading years; with an embarrassed elocution; with a harsh voice; with a homely person, and of a description calculated to inspire terror rather than delight, he rivets the attention; he excites the passions; he commands the respect and wins the love of Desdemona. His services, done to the signiory out-tongue all the clamorous complaints of one of the most potent of the Venetian magnificoes. Feats of broil and battle are as familiar to him as the face of Desdemona, or the streets of Venice, Nor is he, in despite of his amiable diffidence, meanly skilled in the softer courtesies of life. He has the double power to charm the mistress, and to fix the friend.-He can beguile Beauty of her tears, and allure domestic duty from domestic cares to listen to the marvellous narrative of a wild adventurer. His witchcraft is simple, yet, nevertheless, it is as potent as the wand of a necromancer. Nothing can be more animated, nothing more gallant, nothing more noble, nothing more generous, nothing more dignified, nothing more decisive than his declaration to the duke in council, in consequence of the importunity of Desdemona to accompany her husband to the Cyprus wars:

Your voices, lords: beseech you let her will
Have a free way.

Vouch with me, Heaven; I therefore beg it not

To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young effects,

In my distinct and proper satisfaction;

- But to be free and bounteous to her mind:

And heaven defend your good souls, lest you think

I will your serious and great business scant,
For she is with me. No, when light wing'd toys

Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness

My speculative and active instruments,

LET HOUSEWIVES MAKE A SKILLET OF MY HELM.

The freedom and frankness of his nature, constant, loving and noble, which are liberally ascribed to him, even by an enemy, are most gloriously displayed on the platform of the castle, on the nuptial night of Othello, when he is roused from the bed of Beauty, by the clamorous intemperance of an inebriated officer. I am acquainted, no not in the reliques of Demosthenes, Cicero, or Quinctilian, with no passage of purer climax than this:

Now, by heaven,

My blood begins my safer guides to rule;

And passion, having my best judgment collied,
Assays to lead the way: If I once stir,

Or do but lift this arm, the best of you

Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
How this foul rout began, who set it on;
And he that is approved in this offence,
Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,
Shall lose me.-What! in a town of war,

Yet wild, the people's hearts brim full of fear,

To manage private and domestic quarrel,

In night, and on the court and guard of safety!

'Tis monstrous.

The military merit of this splendid chieftain is not less conspicuous and brilliant than his other virtues and graces. Like his discarded lieutenant,

He is a soldier, fit to stand by Cæsar,
And give direction.

When, in consequence of the rash resentment of Brabantio, as exemplified, in the night scene, immediately after the Moor's nuptials, he is assailed by the myrmidons of the magnifico, we find Othello equally calm, dignified, and intrepid. He com

mands his retainers to

Keep up their bright swords, for the dew will rust them; and, when his followers are eager to engage in a perilous combat, what is the spirited adjuration of this gallant warrior?

Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it,
Without a prompter.

Fiery, credulous, artless, and ardent, yet on every great ococcasion, he displays

A noble nature,

Which passion cannot shake; whose solid virtue

The shot of accident and dart of chance

Can neither graze nor pierce.

Lastly, in the parting scenes of this peerless play, the more prominent features in the character of this noble general arebrought out, heightened and relieved, with all the magic art of a painter's pencil. He reveals the excess of sensibility and the horrors of remorse; but, amid the accumulation of his wo, remembers his patriotism and his courage; his feelings as a lover, his spirit as a husband, and his honour as a cavalier.

Having, in this essay, expatiated with an exuberance of enthusiasm on the character of one of the most magnanimous of Shakspeare's heroes, it belongs to the whole of our private plan to declare that Othello is but the herald and harbinger of a dramatic personage, greater, in our deliberate opinion, than the valiant Moor himself. The man we mean, who figures in the tragedy now under review; and who is, as we shall prove, one of the most conspicuous characters in any drama, will make his appearance with all pride, pomp and circumstance, in the next speculation, which we shall have the honour to address to the attention of our readers.

ap

FOR THE PORT FOLIO. MEMOIRS OF HAYTI.
LETTER XIX.

The Cape, Island of Hayti, March, 1806.

You may, perhaps, have been led to suppose from the tenor of my last communication, that travelling through the country from one part of the Island to another, is attended with much insecurity. This however is not the case. Our countrymen are almost daily passing from one port to another, with many thousands of dollars, laden upon the backs of mules under their

protection, without ever experiencing the least interruption on their journey. The usual style in which a stranger travels is on horseback, furnished with a brace of pistols, and if he pleases, a sabre by his side, accompanied by a guide who is accoutred with similar warlike implements. These guides, who are mulattoes or negroes, are honest trusty fellows, and are at times employed as expresses, to convey letters when private opportunities are wanting. One of these men will perform the route between this and Port au Prince, a distance of about one hundred and sixty miles over a mountainous country in the course of two days and an half, which renders the want of a regular mail establishment scarcely to be felt

The confidence of security in the performance of a journey, is certainly one of the greatest sources of enjoyment, which the traveller can experience. But there are other causes of satisfaction which are requisite to complete his comfort, that are not to be found in this Island. The most important of these is, the convenience of public houses, without which it would seem almost impossible to travel with any great degree of pleasure. Taverns, or in fact any species of house, where fare and accommodations are expressly provided for travellers, are not frequently to be found in the country. The houses of private individuals are indeed a substitute, but a miserable one. There is a certain kind of liberty, that of consulting his taste, to which a man is entitled at a public house and with which mine host is expected to conform, that cannot possibly be exercised in a private one. The food is generally of the plainest sort, the wine of an inferior quality, and the lodgings not the best. In some towns a traveller may be accommodated at the house of a man of quality, as at Limbé, where general Romain has frequently entertained Americans who have stopped at his mansion. In such cases no charge is regularly made by the master of the house, and his civility has the appearance of a mere exercise of the duties of hospitality, but it is always understood that his lady will by no means be offended, to find in the chamber of the guest after his departure, as many dollars as he has felt disposed to leave upon the table. This mode of paying a bill is so universally understood and practised, as seldom to be omitted, but the amount is not so

determinate, as that varies according to the liberality of the tra-
veller from two to eight dollars for a night. The want of bridges
is also another serious inconvenience in travelling. The rivers
of the Island are usually narrow, many of them being no wider
than what we call creeks, and in common times of such a depth
as to be easily fordable on horseback. But they are excessively
rapid, and during the rainy seasons, acquire such impetuosity
with the increase of their waters, as to render them impassable.
The
unwary traveller is sometimes deluded by the apparent
gentleness of the stream, and instances are not rare, wherein
he has been swept away by the current, without the ability to
save himself from drowning even where the depth of water has
not exceeded three or four feet. In the course of the last month
I had an opportunity of acquiring some little experience in tra-
velling, in a short journey I made to Port de Paix, whither I was
invited by some commercial prospects. The particulars of this
expedition I recorded with attention and will now proceed to
give you a description thereof.

On the 18th of February, at about mid-day, I set out with my companion who was to act the part of a servant as well as that of guide. Lorent was dressed in a sort of uniform jacket, a large brass scabbard, with a sword in it for aught I know, a fierce chapeau in the style of what we call shoot the moon, barefooted, and in many other particulars quite en militaire. One of his heels, after the manner of the inferiors of the country, and in perfect imitation of his worthy predecessor, Hudibras, was armed with a trusty spur of good old iron, for the honest soldier like the humorous knight well knew that

"could he stir

To active trot one side of's horse,"

there was no danger that the other side would lag behind. His nag was a small creole pony, and like its master in every respect handsomely caparisoned for the expedition. His holsters were well supplied-not with pistols, as a fighting man would be led to suppose, for Lorent had no stomach for fighting-neither with "ammunition, bread and cheese" but with the more inoffensive order of fire-arms, cigars. The long decorating tails of our chargers which did not disdain at their full length to