in the Shakespeare part of the last act by Othello to Desdemona beside the consolatory address of the Duke to Brabantio, and see the difference of the rhetoric and style in the two.  If they turned to characters, Othello and Desdemona were even more clearly the companion pair to Biron and Rosaline of Love’s Labour’s Lost than were Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet the match-pair (sic) of Romeo and Juliet.  In Love’s Labour’s Lost the question of complexion was identical, though the parts were reversed.  He would cite but a few parallel passages in evidence of this relationship between the subjects of the two plays.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, iv. 3. Othello.
1.  “By heaven, thy love is black 1.  “An old black ram.” i. 1.
as ebony.”
2.  “No face is fair that is not 2.  “Your son-in-law is far more
full so black.” fair than black.” i. 3.
3.  “O paradox!  Black is the 3.  “How if she be black and
badge of hell.” witty?” ii. 1.
4.  “O, if in black my lady’s 4. “If she be black, and thereto
brows be decked.” have a wit.” id.
5.  “And therefore is she born 5.  “A measure to the health of
to make black fair.” black Othello.” ii. 3.
6.  “Paints itself black to 6.  “For I am black.” iii, 3.
imitate her brow.”
7.  “To look like her are 7. “Begrimed and black.” id.
chimney-sweepers black.”

Now, with these parallel passages before them, what man, woman, or child could bring himself or herself to believe that the connection of these plays was casual or the date of the first Othello removable from the date of the early contemporary late-first-period-but-one play Love’s Labour’s Lost, or that anybody’s opinion that they were so was worth one straw?  When therefore by the introduction of the Iago episode Shakespeare in his later days had with the assistance of three fellow-poets completed the unfinished work of his youth, the junction thus effected of the Brabantio part of the play with this Iago underplot supplied them with an evidence wholly distinct from that of the metrical test which yet confirmed in every point the conclusion independently arrived at and supported by the irresistible coincidence of all the tests.  He defied anybody to accept his principle of study or adopt his method of work, and arrive at a different conclusion from himself.

The reading of Mr. G.’s paper on the authorship of the soliloquies in Hamlet was unavoidably postponed till the next meeting, the learned member having only time on this occasion to give a brief summary of the points he was prepared to establish and the grounds on which he was prepared to establish them.  A year or two since, when he first thought of starting the present Society, he had never read a line of the