gaze upon it steadily. We have read it again and again; and the impression which it leaves again and again is that of wonder.

The ANTONY of this play is of course the Antony of Julius Cæsar ;-not merely the historical Antony, but the dramatic Antony, drawn by the same hand. He is the orator that showed dead Cæsar's mantle to the Roman people; he is the soldier that after his triumph over Brutus said, "This was a man." We have seen something of his character; we have learnt a little of his voluptuousness; we have heard of the "masker and the reveller;" we have beheld the unscrupulous politician. But we cannot think meanly of him. He is one great, either for good or for evil. Since he fought at Philippi he has passed through various fortunes. Cæsar thus apostrophizes him :

"When thou once

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did Famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer."

There came in after-time when, at Alexandria,

"Our courteous Antony,

Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast;
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart."

This is the Antony that Shakspere, in the play before us, brings upon the scene.

Upton has a curious theory, which would partly make Shakspere to belong to the French school. The hero of this play, according to this theory, does not speak "the language of the people." Upton says-"Mark Antony, as Plutarch informs us, affected the Asiatic manner

...

of speaking, which much resembled his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, and very rhodomontade. This style our poet has. very artfully and learnedly interspersed in Antony's speeches." Unquestionably the language of Antony is more elevated than that of Enobarbus, for example. Antony was of the poetical temperament a man of high geniusan orator, who could move the passions dramatically-a lover, that knew no limits to his devotion because he loved imaginatively. When sorrow falls upon him, the poetical parts of his character are more and more developed; we forget the sensualist. But even before the touch of grief has somewhat exalted his nature, he takes the poetical view of poetical things. What can be more exquisite than his mention of Octavia's weeping at the parting with her brother?

The April's in her eyes: it is love's spring,
And these the showers to bring it on."

And, higher still:

"Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can

Her heart inform her tongue: the swan's down feather,
That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,

And neither way inclines."

This, we think, is not "the Asiatic manner of speaking."

TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Cæsar.

CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony.

SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's Army.

EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Cæsar ALEXAS; MARDIAN, a eunuch; SELEUCUS; and DioMEDES, attendants on Cleopatra.

A Soothsayer; a Clown.

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt.

OCTAVIA, sister to Cæsar, and wife to Antony. CHARMIAN and IRAS, attendants on Cleopatra. Officers Soldiers, Messengers, and other Åttendants. SCENE,-Dispersed; in several parts of the ROMAN EMPIRE.