found passages so nobly phrased, whole dialogues sustained at such a height of dignity, force, or eloquence, that he incorporated them into his work with essentially minor changes. Holinshed furnished only the bare outlines of movement for "Richard II." and "Richard III.," but Plutarch supplied traits, hints, suggestions, phrases, and actions so complete in themselves that the poet needed to do little but turn upon the biographer's prose his vitalizing and organizing imagination. The difference between the prose biographer and the dramatist remains, however, a difference of quality so radical as to constitute a difference of kind. The nature and extent of Shakespeare's indebtedness to the works upon which he drew for material may be most clearly shown by placing in juxtaposition Mark Antony's famous oration over Cæsar's body as Shakespeare found it and as he left it: "When Cæsar's body," writes Plutarch, "was brought into the market-place, Antonius making his funeral-oration in praise of the dead, according to the ancient custom of Rome, and perceiving that his words moved the common people to compassion, he framed his eloquence to make their hearts yearn the more, and taking Cæsar's gown all bloudy in his hand, he layed it open to the sight of them all, shewing what a number of cuts and holes it had in it. Therewith all the people fell presently into such a rage and mutinie that there was no more order kept among the common people."

A magical change has been wrought in this narrative when it reappears in Shakespeare's verse in one of his noblest passages:

You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Cæsar put it on;

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii:

Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Cæsar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all;

For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms,
Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart:
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statua,

Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.

"Julius Cæsar" probably appeared in 1601. Many facts point to this date, among them the oft-quoted passage from Weever's "Mirror of Martyrs," which was printed in that year:

The many-headed multitude were drawn

By Brutus' speech, that Cæsar was ambitious.
When eloquent Mark Antonie had shewn

His virtues, who but Brutus then was vicious?

A little later, in a still greater play, Polonius, recalling his life at the University, said:

I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed i' the Capitol:

Brutus killed me.

The story, like many others with which Shakespeare dealt, was popular, and had been presented on the stage at an earlier date. Shakespeare's rendering was so obviously superior to all its predecessors that it practically put an end to further experiments with the same theme.

In the English historical plays the dramatist never entirely broke with the traditional form and spirit of the Chronicle play; in his first dealing with a Roman subject he took the final step from the earlier drama to the tragedy. "Julius Cæsar" is not, it is true, dominated by a single great character, as are the later Tragedies, but it reveals a rigorous selection of incidents with reference to their dramatic value, and a masterly unfolding of their significance in the story. The drama was not misnamed; although Cæsar dies at the beginning of the dramatic movement, his spirit dominates it to the very end. At every turn he confronts the conspirators in the new order which he personified, and of which he was the organizing genius. Cassius dies with this recognition on his lips :

Cæsar, thou art revenged,

Even with the sword that kill'd thee.

And when Brutus looks on the face of the dead Cassius he, too, bears testimony to a spirit which was more potent than the arms of Octavius and Antony:

O Julius Cæsar, thou art mighty yet!

Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.

This new order in the Roman world, personified by Cæsar, is the shaping force of the tragedy; Octavius represents without fully understanding it, and Brutus and Cassius array themselves against it without recognizing that they are contending with the inevitable and the irresistible. At a later day, the eloquent and captivating Antony, a man of genius, enthusiasm, and personal devotion, but without the coördinating power of character, flings himself against this new order in the same blank inability to recognize a new force in the world, and dies as much a victim of his lack of vision as Brutus and Cassius. Nowhere else is Shakespeare's sense of reality, his ability to give facts their full weight, more clearly revealed than in "Julius Cæsar." Brutus is one of the noblest and most consistent of Shakespearean creations; a man far above all self-seeking and capable of the loftiest patriotism; in whose whole bearing, as in his deepest nature, virtue wears her noblest aspect. But Brutus is an idealist, with a touch of the doctrinaire; his purposes are of the highest, but the means he employs to give those purposes effect are utterly inadequate; in a lofty spirit he embarks on an enterprise doomed to failure by the very temper and pressure of the age. "Julius Cæsar " is the tragedy of the conflict between a great nature, denied the sense of reality, and the world-spirit. Brutus is not only crushed, but recognizes that there was no other issue of his untimely endeavour.

The affinity between Hamlet and Brutus has often been pointed out. The poet was brooding over the story of the Danish prince probably before he became

interested in Roman history; certainly before he wrote the Roman plays. The chief actors in both dramas were men upon whom was laid the same fatal necessity; both were idealists forced to act in great crises, when issues of appalling magnitude hung on their actions. Their circumstances were widely different, but a common doom was on both; they were driven to do that which was against their natures.

In point of style "Julius Cæsar" marks the culmination of Shakespeare's art as a dramatic writer. The ingenuity of the earlier plays ripened in a rich and pellucid flexibility; the excess of imagery gave place to a noble richness of speech; there is deep-going coherence of structure and illustration; constructive instinct has passed on into the ultimate skill which is born of complete identification of thought with speech, of passion with utterance, of action with character. The long popularity of the play was predicted by Shakespeare in the words of Cassius:

How many ages hence

Shall this, our lofty scene, be acted over

In States unborn and accents yet unknown.

The great impression made by "Julius Cæsar" in a field which Jonson regarded as his own probably led to the writing of "Sejanus," which appeared two years later, and of "Catiline," which was produced in 1611. A comparison of these plays dealing with Roman history brings into clear relief the vitalizing power of Shakespeare's imagination in contrast with the conscientious and scholarly craftsmanship of Jon