In whom so mix'd the elements all lay, That none to one could sov'reignty impute; As all did govern, so did all obey:

He of a temper was so absolute,

As that it seem'd when nature him began, She meant to show all that might be in man.'

been strongly agitated in perusing it; and I think it somewhat cold and unaffecting, compared with some other of Shakspeare's plays: his adherence to the real stcry, and to Roman nianners, seem to have impeded the xaturai vigour of his genius. JOHNSON. Gildon has justly observed that this tragedy ought to have been called Marcus Brutus, Cæsar being a very inconsiderable in the third act. personage in the scene, and being killed

As all did govern, yet did all obey;

His lively temper was so absolute,

That seem'd, when heaven his modell first began,
In him it show'd perfection in a man.'

The poem originally appeared under the title of 'Mor. timeriados,' in 1506; but Malone says, there is no trace of the stanza in the poem in that form. He is wrong in 1609, as the following title-page of my copy will in asserting that the Barons' Wars were first published show: The Barons' Wars, in the raigne of Edward

'Such one he was (of him we boldly say,)

In whose rich soule all soveraigne powers did sute;
In Trors in peace the elements all lay
So mir d, as none could soveraigntie impute;

chaell Drayton. At London, printed by J. R. for N Ling, 1603. So that, if Malone be right in placing the date of composition of Julius Cæsar in 1607, Shakspeare imitated Drayton.

AFTER a perusal of this play, the reader will, I doubt not, be surprised when he sees what Johnson has asserted:-That its power of delighting is derived principally from the frequent changes of the scene ;—and that no character is very strongly discriminated.' If our great poet has one supereminent dramatic quality in perfection, it is that of being able to go out of himself at pleasure to inform and animate other existences.' It is true, that in the number of characters many persons of historical importance are merely introduced as passing shadows in the scene; but the principal personages are most emphatically distinguished by lineament and colouring, and powerfully arrest the imagination.' The character of Cleopatra is indeed a masterpiece though Johnson pronounces that she is only distinguished by feminine arts, some of which are too low.' It is true that her seductive arts are in no respect veiled over; but she is still the gorgeous Eastern Queen, remarkable for the fascination of her manner, if not for the beauty of her son; and though she is vain, ostentatious, fickle, and luxurious, there is that heroic regal dignity about her, which makes us, like Antony, forget her defects: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy Th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies.'

The mutual passion of herself and Antony is without moral dignity, yet it excites our sympathy:-they seem formed for each other. Cleopatra is no less remarkable for her seductive charms, than Antony for the splendour of his martial achievements. Her death, too, redeems one part of her character, and obliterates all faults.

51

Warburton has observed that Antony was Shak speare's hero; and the defects of his character, a lavish and luxurious spirit, seem almost virtues when opposed to the heartless and narrow-minded littleness of Octavius Cæsar. But the ancient historians, him flatterers, had delivered the latter down ready cut and dried for a hero; and Shakspeare has extricated him self with great address from the dilemma. He has admitted all those great strokes of his character as he found them, and yet has made him a very unamiable character, deceitful, mean-spirited, proud, and revengeful.

Schlegel attributes this to the penetration of Shakspeare, who was not to be led astray by the false glitter of historic fame, but saw through the disguise thrown around him by his successful fortunes, and distinguished in Augustus a man of little mind.

Malone places the composition of this play in 1608 No previous edition to that of the folio of 1623 has beer hitherto discovered; but there is an entry of A Booke called Antony and Cleopatra,' to Edward Blount, in 1608, on the Stationers' books.

Shakspeare followed Plutarch, and appears to have been anxious to introduce every incident and every personage he met with in his historian. Plutarch mentions Lamprias his grandfather, as authority for some of the stories he relates of the profuseness and luxury of Antony's entertainments at Alexandria. In the stage-direction of Scene 2, Act i. in the old copy. Lumprias, Ramnus, and Lucilius are made to enter with the rest; but they have no part in the dialogue, nor do their names appear in the list of Dramatić Persone.

SCENE I. Alexandria. A Room in Cleopatra's
Palace. Enter DEMETRIUS und PHILO.
Philo.

NAY, but this dotage of our general's
O'erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes,
That o'er the files and musters of the war
Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front: his captain's heart,
Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges' all temper;
And is become the bellows, and the fan,
To cool a gipsy's lust. Look where they come !
Flourish. Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with
their Trains; Eunuchs fanning her.
Take but good note, and you shall see in him
The triple2 pillar of the world transform'd
Into a strumpet's fool: behold and see.

Cleo. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
Ant. There's beggary in the love that can be
reckon'd. 3

Cleo. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
Ant. Then must thou needs find out new heaven,

new earth.4

1 i. e. renounces. The metre would be improved by Leading reneyes, or reneies, a word used by Chaucer and other of our elder writers: but we have in King Lear, renege, affirm, &c. Stanyhurst, in his version of the second book of the Æneid, has the word :'To live now longer, Troy burnt, he flatly reneageth.' 2 Triple is here used for third, or one of three; one of the Triumvirs, one of the three masters of the world. To sustain the pillars of the earth is a scriptural phrase. Triple is used for third in All's Well that Ends Well: 'Which, as the dearest issue of his practice; He bade me store up as a triple eye.'

3 So in Romeo and Juliet :

They are but beggars that can count their worth. And in Much Ado about Nothing:

'I were but little happy, if I could say how much.’ 'Basia pauca cupit, qui numerare potest.' Martial, vi. 36.

4 Then must you set the boundary at a distance greater than the present visible universe affords.'

5 'Be brief, sum thy business in a few words.' 6 i. e. the news; which was considered plural in Shakespeare's time. See King Richard III. Act. iv. Sc. 4.

7 Take in, it has before been observed, signifies subdue, conquer

MENAS,

MENECRATES, Friends of Pompey.
VARRIUS,

TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Cæsar.
CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony
SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's Army.

EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony &
Cæsar.

ALEXAS, MARDIAN, 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 Attend

ants.

SCENE, dispersed in several Parts of the Romanı Empire.

Ant. How, my love!

Cleo. Perchance,-nay, and most like,
You must not stay here longer, your disinission
Is come from Cæsar; therefore hear it, Antony.
Where's Fulvia's process ?8 Cæsar's, I would say?
-Both ?-

Call in the messengers.-As I am Egypt's queen,
Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine
Is Cæsar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame,
When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messen-
gers.

Ant. Let Rome in Tyber melt! and the wide arch
Of the rang'd' empire fall! Here is my space;
Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life

Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair,
[Embracing.
And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind,
On pain of punishment, the world to weet,1o
We stand up peerless.

Cleo.
Excellent falsehood!
I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony
Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
Will be himself.

Art.

But11 stirr'd by Cleopatra.Now, for the love of Love,12 and her soft hours, Let's not confound13 the time with conference harsh There's not a minute of our lives should stretch Without some pleasure now: What sport to-night? Cleo. Hear the ambassadors. Ant. Fie, wrangling queen ! Whom every thing becomes, 14 to chide, to laugh, Το weep; whose every passion fully strives To make itself, in thee, fair and admir'd! No messenger; but thine and all alone, To-night, we'll wander through the streets, and note

8 Process here means summons. 'Lawyers call that the processe by which a man is called into the court, and no more. To serve with processe is to cite, to summon.'--Minsheu.

9 The rang'd empire is the well arranged, well ordered empire. Shakspeare uses the expression again in Coriolanus:bury all which yet distinctly ranges,

In heaps and piles of ruins.' 10 To weet is to know.

11 I think that Johnson has entirely mistaken the meaning of this passage, and believe Mason's explana tion nearly correct. Cleopatra means to say that'An tony will act like himself, (i. e. nobly,) without regard to the mandates of Cæsar or the anger of Fulvia. To which he replies, But stirrid by Cleopatra,' i. e. 'Add, if moved to it by Cleopatra.' This is a compliment to her. Johnson was wrong in susing but to be used here in its exceptive sense. 12 That is, for the sake of e Queen of Love.' 13 To confound the time, is to consume it, to lose it 14 Quicquid enim dicit, seu facit, omne decet.' Marel'us, lib. i.

See Shakspeare's 150th Sonnet

15 The folio reads, who, every, &c.: corrected br Rowe.

The qualities of people.' Come, my queen;
Last night you did desire it :-Speak not to us.

[Exeunt ANT. and CLEO. with their Train. Dem. Is Cæsar with Antonius priz'd so slight? Phi. Sir, sometimes, when he is not Antony, He comes too short of that great property Which still should go with Antony.

Dem. I'm full sorry, That he approves the common liar,2 who Thus speaks of him at Rome: But I will hope Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!

[Exeunt. SCENE II. The same. Another Room. Enter CHARM AN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a Soothsayer. Char. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most any thing Alexas, almost most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you praised so to the queen? O, that I knew this husband, which, you say, must charge his horns with garlands !3

Alex. Soothsayer.

Sooth. Your will?

Char. Is this the man?-Is't you, sir, that know things?

Sooth. In nature's infinite book of secrecy,
A little I can read.
Alex.

Show him your hand.

Enter ENOBARBUS.

Eno. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough, Cleopatra's health to drink.

Char. Good sir, give me good fortune.
Sooth. I make not, but foresee.
Char. Pray then, foresee me one.

Sooth. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
Char. He means, in flesh.

Iras. No, you shall paint when you are old.
Char Wrinkles forbid!

Alex. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
Char. Hush!

Sooth. You shall be more beloving, than beloved.
Char. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.4
Alex. Nay, hear him.

Char. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let ine be married to three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all: let me have a child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage: find me to marry me with Octavius Cæsar, and companion me with my mistress.

Sooth. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve. Char. O excellent! I love long life better than figs. Sooth. You nave seen and proved a fairer former fortune

Than that which is to approach.

Char. Then, belike, my children shall have no names: Pr'ythee, how many boys and wenches must I have?

Sooth. If

every of your

wishes had a womb, And fertile every wish, a million.

Char. Out, fool; I forgive thee for a witch. Alex. You think, none but your sheets are privy o your wishes.

Char. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.

1 'Sometime also when he would goe up and down the city disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poor mens windows and their shops, and scold and brawl with them within the house; Cleopatra would be also in a chambermaid's array, and amble up and down the streets with him.'

Life of Antonius in North's Plutarch.

2 That he proves the common liar, Fame, in his case to be a true reporter.' Shakspeare usually uses approve for prove, and approof for proof.

3 The old copy reads, change his horns,' &c similar error of change for charge is also found in

riolanus.

Alex. We'll know all our fortunes.

Eno. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-drunk to bed.

Iras. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.

Char. Even as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.

Iras. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot sooth

say.

Char. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication,9 I cannot scratch mine ear.-Pr'ythee, tell her but a worky-day fortune.

Sooth. Your fortunes are alike.

Iras. But how, but how? give me particulars.
Sooth. I have said.

Iras. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
Char. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune
better than I, where would you choose it?
Iras. Not in my husband's nose.

Char. Our worser thoughts heavens mend !— Alexas,-come, his fortune, his fortune.-O, let him marry a woman that cannot go, sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die, too, and give him a worse! and let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good Isis, I beseech thee!

the people! for, as it is a heart-breaking to see a Iras. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of handsome man loose-wived, so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded: Therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!

Char. Amen.

A

4 The liver being considered the seat of love, Charmian says she would rather heat her liver with drinkng than with love's fire. A heated liver was supposed .o make a pimpled face.