Up to the year 1666 Pepys adhered to the
praiseworthy opinion that _Othello_ was a "mighty good" play. But in
that year his judgment took a turn for the worse, and that for a
reason which finally convicts him of incapacity to pass just sentence
on the poetic or literary drama. On August 20, 1666, he writes: "Read
_Othello, Moor of Venice_, which I have ever heretofore esteemed a
mighty good play; but having so lately read the _Adventures of Five
Hours_, it seems a mean thing."
Most lovers of Shakespeare will agree that the great dramatist rarely
showed his mature powers to more magnificent advantage than in his
treatment of plot and character in _Othello_. What, then, is this
_Adventures of Five Hours_, compared with which _Othello_ became in
Pepys's eyes "a mean thing"? It is a trivial comedy of intrigue,
adapted from the Spanish by one Sir Samuel Tuke. A choleric guardian
arranges for his ward, who also happens to be his sister, to marry
against her will a man whom she has never seen. Without her guardian's
knowledge she, before the design goes further, escapes with a lover of
her own choosing. In her place she leaves a close friend, who is wooed
in mistake for herself by the suitor destined for her own hand.
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