than Shakespeare, whose fervid imagination drives him to realise Brutus' inmost heart, and who just for that reason seeks into him

For that which is not in him?

Here and generally Alexander gives the exacter, if not the more faithful transcript, but the main truth, the truth of life, escapes him; and therefore, too, despite all his painstaking fidelity, he is apt to miss even the vital touches that Plutarch gives. We have seen with what reverent accuracy Shakespeare reproduces the conversation between Brutus and Portia. In a certain way Alexander is more accurate still. Portia pleads:

I was not (Brutus) match'd with thee to be
A partner onely of thy boord and bed;
Each servile whore in those might equall me,
Who but for pleasure or for wealth did wed.
No, Portia spoused thee minding to remaine
Thy fortunes partner, whether good or ill: . .
If thus thou seek thy sorrows to conceale
Through a distrust, or a mistrust of me,
Then to the world what way can I reveale,
How great a matter I would do for thee?
And though our sexe too talkative be deem'd,

As those whose tongues import our greatest pow'rs,
For secrets still bad treasurers esteem'd,

Of others greedy, prodigall of ours:

"Good education may reforme defects,"

And this may leade me to a vertuous life,

(Whil'st such rare patterns generous worth respects)
I Cato's daughter am, and Brutus wife.

Yet would I not repose my trust in ought,

Still thinking that thy crosse was great to beare,
'Till I my courage to a tryall brought,

Which suffering for thy cause can nothing feare:
For first to try how that I could comport
With sterne afflictions sprit-enfeebling blows,
Ere I would seek to vex thee in this sort,
(To whom my soule a dutious reverence owes);
Loe, here a wound which makes me not to smart,
No, I rejoyce that thus my strength is knowne;
Since thy distresse strikes deeper in my heart,
Thy griefe (lifes joy !) makes me neglect mine owne.

And Brutus answers:

Thou must (deare love!) that which thou sought'st, receive;
Thy heart so high a saile in stormes still beares,

That thy great courage does deserve to have

Our enterprise entrusted to thine eares.

Here, with the rhetorical amplification which was the chief and almost sole liberty that Alexander allowed himself, Plutarch's train of thought is more closely followed than by Shakespeare himself. King James's "philosophical poet" does not even suppress the tribute to education, but rather calls attention to the edifying "sentence" by the expedient less common west of the Channel than among his French masters, of placing it within inverted commas. But, besides lowering the temperature of the whole, he characteristically omits the most important passage, at least in so far as Brutus is concerned, his prayer that “he might be founde a husband, worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia."

Suppose that a conscientious draughtsman and a painter of genius were moved to reproduce the impression that a group of antique statuary had made on them, using the level surface which alone is at their disposal. The one might choose his station, and set down with all possible precision in his black and white as much as was given him to see. The other taking into account the different conditions of the pictorial and the plastic art, might visualise what seemed to him the inmost meaning to his own mind in his own way, and represent it, the same yet not the same, in all the glory of colour. The former would deliver a version more useful to the historian of sculpture were the original to be lost, but one in which we should miss many beauties of detail, and from which the indwelling spirit would have fled. The latter would not give much help to an antiquarian knowledge of the archetype, but he might transmit its inspiration, and rouse kindred feelings

in an even greater degree just because they were mingled with others that came from his own heart.

The analogy is, of course, an imperfect one, for the problem of rendering the solid on the flat is not on all fours with the problem of converting Plutarch's Lives to modern plays. But it applies to this extent, that in both cases the task is to interpret a subject, that has received one kind of treatment, by a treatment that is quite dissimilar. And the difference between William Alexander and William Shakespeare is very much the difference between the conscientious draughtsman and the inspired artist.

CHAPTER III

THE TITULAR HERO OF THE PLAY

THE modification of Brutus' character typifies and involves the modification of the whole story, because the tragic interest is focussed in his career. This must be remembered, if we would avoid misconception. It has sometimes been said that the play suffers from lack of unity, that the titular hero is disposed of when it is half through, and that thereafter attention is diverted to the murderer. But this criticism is beside the point. Really, from beginning to end, Brutus is the prominent figure, and if the prominent figure should supply the name, then, as Voltaire pointed out, the drama ought properly to be called Marcus Brutus. If we look at it in this way, there is no lack of unity, though possibly there is a misnomer. Throughout the piece it is the personality of Brutus that attracts our chief sympathy and concern. If he is dismissed to a subordinate place, the result is as absurd as it would be were Hamlet thus treated in the companion tragedy; while, his position, once recognised, everything becomes coherent and clear.

But when this is the case, why should Shakespeare not say so? Why, above all, should he use a false designation to mix the trail?

It has been answered that he was wholly indifferent to labels and nomenclature, that he gives his

plays somewhat irrelevant titles, such as Twelfth Night, or lets people christen them at their fancy, What You Will, or As You Like It. Just in the same way, as a shrewd theatrical manager with his eye on the audience, he may have turned to account the prevalent curiosity about Caesar, without inquiring too curiously whether placard and performance tallied in every respect.

And doubtless such considerations were not unknown to him. Shakespeare, as is shown by the topical allusions in which his works abound, by no means disdained the maxim that the playwright must appeal to the current interests of his public, even to those that are adventitious and superficial. At the same time, it is only his comedies, in which his whole method is less severe, that have insignificant or arbitrary titles. There is no instance of a tragedy being misnamed. On the contrary, the chief person or persons are always indicated, and in this way Shakespeare has protested in advance against the mistake of viewing King Lear as a whole with reference to Cordelia, or Macbeth as a whole with reference to Lady Macbeth.

But in the second place, Julius Caesar, both in its chronological position and in its essential character, comes as near to the Histories as to the Tragedies; and the Histories are all named after the sovereign in whose reign most of the events occurred. He may not have the chief role, which, for example, belongs in King John to the Bastard, and in Henry IV. to Prince Hal. He may even drop out in the course of the story, which, for example, in the latter play is continued for an entire act after the King's death but he serves, as it were, for a landmark, to date and localise the action. It is not improbable that this was the light in which Shakespeare regarded Caesar. In those days people did not make fine distinctions. He was generally viewed