"I have been consul, and can shew, for Rome, Her enemies' marks upon me."-Act III., Scene 3. The old copy here reads "from Rome." There can scarcely be a doubt of the propriety of the alteration. In other parts of the play we find: "So banish him that struck more blows for Rome." And again: "Good man! the wounds that he does bear for Rome." "You common cry of curs!"-Act III., Scene 3. "Cry" here signifies a troop or pack. "A cry of hounds" was formerly a common term. -"Have the power still To banish your defenders: till at length As most abated captives, to some nation That won you without blows!"-Act III., Scene 3. That is, "Still retain the power of banishing your defenders, till your undiscerning folly leave none in the city but yourselves; when, for want of skilful leaders, you will become an easy prey to any hostile force." --"Fortune's blows When most struck home, being gentle, wounded, craves The sense is, When fortune strikes her hardest blows, to be wounded, and yet continue calm, requires a generous policy. Coriolanus calls calmness cunning, because it is the effect of reflection and philosophy.-JOHNSON. Cunning is here, as was generally the case in former times, used synonymously with skill or wisdom. "Sic. Are you mankind? VOL. Ay, fool: is that a shame?—Note but this fool :Was not a man my father?"—Act IV., Scene 2. The term "mankind," as applied to women, meant fierce or ferocious. It is so used in the "WINTER'S TALE," where Leontes calls Paulina "a mankind witch."-Volumnia, in her reply, takes the word in its present received sense. "A goodly city is this Antium.-City, 'Tis I that made thy widows."-Act IV., Scene 4. It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium, and many people met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So he went directly to Tullus Aufidius' house; and when he came thither, he got him up straight to the chimney-hearth, and sat him down, and spake not a word to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the house spying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they durst not bid him rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and disguised as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in his countenance and in his silence. Whereupon they went to Tullus, who was at supper, to tell him of the strange disguising of this man. Tullus rose presently from the board, and coming towards him, asked him what he was, and wherefore he came. Then Martius unmuffled himself; and after he had paused awhile (making no answer), he said unto him, "If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and, seeing me, dost not perhaps believe me to be the man I am indeed, I must of necessity betray myself to be that I am. I am Caius Marsius, who hath done to thyself particularly, and to all the Volces generally, great hurt and mischief; which I cannot deny, for my surname of Coriolanus that I bear: for I never had other benefit nor recompense of the true and painful service I have done, and the extreme dangers I have been in, but this only surname : a good memory and witness of the malice and displeasure thou shouldst bear me. Indeed, the A noble servant to them; but he could not Carry his honours even. Whether 't was pride," &c. Act IV., Scene 7. Aufidius assigns three probable reasons for the miscarriage of Coriolanus:-pride, which easily follows an uninterrupted train of success: unskilfulness to regulate the consequences of his own victories: a stubborn uniformity of nature, which could not make the proper transition "from the casque to the cushion," or chair of civil authority, but acted with the same despotism in peace as in war.--JOHNSON. "But he has a merit To choke it in the utterance. So our virtues Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair To extol what it hath done."-Act IV., Scene 7. That is, He has a merit for no other purpose than to destroy it by boasting it.-JOHNSON Of the latter part of the quotation, Warburton says:"The sense is, the virtue which delights to commend itself, will find the surest tomb in that chair wherein it holds forth its own commendations." There is probably some corruption in the original text. -"Go, you that banished him, A mile before his tent fall down, and knee In reference to the word "knee" in this passage, it is stated by an intelligent, though sometimes hasty contemporary, that "the second folio, which has been followed in all other editions, has the less expressive word kneel." The point is of very little importance, but it so happens that we have immediately at hand two copies in which the word knee is used, and not kneel. These are, a reprint of Malone's edition of 1790 (Dublin, 1794); and Ayscough's (1791). The number might, no doubt, be easily multiplied to any required amount. Our contemporary is entitled to credit for perfect good faith; but he appears to be inadvertently in the habit of supposing many defects universal, or nearly so, which in fact "My wife comes foremost: then the honoured mould Wherein this trunk was framed; and in her hand The grandchild to her blood."-Act V., Scene 3. She (Volumnia) took her daughter-in-law, and Martius's children with her; and, being accompanied with all the other Roman ladies, they went in troop together into the Volces' camp: whom when they saw, they of themselves did both pity and reverence her, and there was not a man amongst them that once durst say a word unto her. Now was Martius set then in his chair of state, with all the honours of a general; and when he had spied the women coming afar off, he marvelled what the matter meant: but afterwards, knowing his wife, which came foremost, he determined at the first to persist in his obstinate and inflexible rancour. But, overcome in the end with natural affection, and being altogether altered to see them, his heart would not serve him to tarry their coming to his chair, but, coming down in haste, he went to meet them: and first he kissed his mother and embraced her a pretty while; then his wife and little children; and nature so wrought with him that the tears fell from his eyes, and he could not keep himself from making much of them, but yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had been violently carried with the fury of a most swift-running stream.-PLUTARCH. "COR. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome. VIR. The sorrow that delivers us thus changed Makes you think so."-Act V., Scene 3. Virgilia makes a voluntary misinterpretation of her husband's words. He says, "These eyes are not the same;" meaning that he saw things with other eyes or other dispositions. She lays hold on the word eyes, to turn his attention to their present appearance.-JOHNSON. "Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw, And saving those that eye thee !"-Act V., Scene 3. A flaw is a violent blast or sudden gust of wind. The word is not obsolete, as stated in Todd's "JOHNSON." It will be found in the interesting "Journal" of Captain Hall (1824, vol. i., p. 4); and in Captain Lyon's "Narrative of Lis attempt to reach Repulse Bay" (1824).-SINGER. Hamlet, it will be recollected, speaks of the winter's flaw." "Ladies, you deserve To have a temple built you."-Act V., Scene 3. Plutarch states, that a temple, dedicated to the "Fortune of the Ladies," was built on this occasion by order of the senate. "He waged me with his countenance, as if I had been mercenary."—Act V. Scene 5. To wage, formerly meant to pay or reward. The meaning is, he prescribed to me with an air of authority, and gave me his countenance for my wages:-thought me sufficiently rewarded with good looks. "Hail, lords! I am returned your soldier: Than when I purted hence."—Act V., Scene 5. Now when Martius was returned again into the city of Antium from his voyage, Tullus, that hated and could no longer abide him, for the fear he had of his authority, sought divers means to make him away; thinking that, if he let slip that present time, he should never recover the like and fit occasion again. Wherefore Tullus, having procured many other of his confederacy, required Martius might be deposed from his estate, to render up account to the Volces of his charge and government. Martius, fearing to become a private man again, under Tullus, being general (whose authority was greater otherwise than any other among all the Volces), answered he was willing to give up his charge, and would resign it into the hands of the lords of the Volces if they did all command him, as by all their commandment he received it: and moreover, that he would not refuse even at that present to give up an account unto the people, if they would tarry the hearing of it. The people hereupon called a common council, in which assembly there were certain orators appointed that stirred up the common people against him: and when they had told their tales, Martius rode up to make them answer.-Now, notwithstanding the mutinous people made a marvellous great noise, yet when they saw him, for the reverence they bare unto his valiantness, they quieted themselves, and gave him audience to allege with leisure what he could for his purgation. Moreover, the honestest men of the Antiates, and who most rejoiced in peace, shewed by their countenance that they would hear him willingly, and judge also according to their conscience. Whereupon Tullus,-fearing that if he did let him speak, he would prove his innocency to the people, because, amongst other things, he had an eloquent tongue: besides that the first good service he had done to the people of the Volces did win him more favour than these last accusations could purchase him displeasure: and furthermore, the offence they laid to his charge was a testimony of the goodwill they owed him (for they would never have thought he had done them wrong for that he took not the city of Rome, if they had not been very near taking it by means of his approach and conduction):- for these causes, Tullus thought he might no longer delay his pretence and enterprise, neither to tarry for the mutinying and rising of the common people against him. Wherefore those that were of the conspiracy began to cry out that he was not to be heard, and that they would not suffer a traitor to usurp tyrannical power over the tribe of the Volces; who would not yield up his state and authority. And in saying these words, they all fell upon him and killed him in the market-place, none of the people once offering to rescue him.-PLUTARCH. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ULIUS CÆSAR, like CORIOLANUS, belongs to that class of dramas which represent action and character, and stands conspicuously prominent amongst the many similar productions of Shakspere's wondrous mind. What an elevated tone of thought, feeling, and expression, pervades the whole of this play: how admirably suited to the scene of action, and to the great men who were the actors: how fitly does all seem to belong to the stern, the awful glories of old Rome!-We can almost fancy that we stand upon the Capitoline Hill, and behold the splendours of the eternal city spreading far and wide beneath us: that we see the procession of Cæsar to the Lupercalian games, and the toged senators mounting the steps of the senatehouse that we hear the uproarious shoutings of the mighty mob of Rome: : "That Tyber trembles underneath her banks, To hear the replication of their sounds : But superior even to the reality of the general effect,-to the power of carrying back the imagination to remote ages and events, -is the remarkable individuality of character exhibited in this great tragedy: one of the most distinguished characteristics of the mighty master's mind, but never more powerfully and subtly displayed. Observe all the principal characters: and, without any violent contrasts (the easy and too common trick of dramatic writing), see how completely distinctive in their natures, how delicately and skilfully discriminated, each from the others, they are, in thought, sentiment, and diction! How soon do we perceive the striking difference of nature and disposition between Brutus and Cassius, and the immense superiority of Brutus! Cassius is evidently actuated, in his hostility to Cæsar, quite as much by envy of the man, as by a patriotic dread of the consequences of his overgrown power. The mere existence of that power he evidently thinks less dangerous to the commonweal, than that it should be vested in one man; he appears to have a lurking wish to be a sharer in it. Brutus is the living personification of all that is noble, elevated, kindly, and generous in human nature; never appearing to think of self but in connexion with his kind: but Cassius, with all his high qualities, is well described by Cæsar as one of those who are "never at heart's ease, whiles they behold a greater than themselves." Brutus, perceiving no stains on the bright surface of his own clear mind, suspects them not in that of his fellows: but Cassius, conscious that much of the world's craft enters into his composition, is quick to detect craft in others. With the same masterly skill are drawn the characters of Julius Cæsar and Marc Antony, as far as the plan of the play allowed: the scene in which Antony delivers his oration over Cæsar's body has ever been regarded as one of the poet's master-pieces in dramatic effect, vigour, and subtlety. The intense reality of this scene is truly marvellous. It is as though the author had been on the actual spot, heard the actual words, and beheld the actual effects he has so vividly recorded. We can see the influence of Antony's most artful harangue gradually diffuse itself over the rude multitude. With what consummate tact and address does he at first command their attention, and conciliate their regards, by eulogising "Brutus and the rest"-the very men against whom he wishes to raise that "flood of mutiny" he so artfully affects to deprecate! How admirably, too, he times the reproduction of Cæsar's will, when they, in their excited rage, have forgotten it;-in order that no one motive should be wanting to incite them against the conspirators: so managing, as to make it the uppermost idea in their minds, that they were hastening to avenge the death of their especial benefactor. Amidst all our admiration of this entire play, Brutus must, however, always rank as its greatest and most interesting character. Farewell to thee, noble, gentle Brutus! deeply, bitterly, must all true lovers of thy humane philosophy regret, that thy great and kindly mind should ever have become engaged in the violent and turbulent scenes of the times in which thou hadst the misfortune to live; scenes so unsuited to thy good and gracious nature and heartily must all join in the poet's estimate of thy character "This was the noblest Roman of them all!" Plutarch's Lives of Brutus, Antony, and Cæsar, furnished the incidents of this surpassing drama: the period of time comprised in the action is about two years. "JULIUS CAESAR' was first published in the original folio, and is obviously a production of the Poet's intellect in its maturer years. |