LORDS.

Hold, hold, hold, hold.

AUF. My noble masters, hear me speak. 1. LORD.

O Tullus,

2. LORD. Thou haft done a deed whereat valour

will weep.

3. LORD. Tread not upon him.-Masters all, be

AUF. My lords, when you shall know (as in this

rage,

Provok'd by him, you cannot,) the great danger Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours To call me to your fenate, I'll deliver

Myfelf your loyal fervant, or endure

Your heaviest cenfure.

1. LORD.

Bear from hence his body,

And mourn you for him: let him be regarded
As the most noble corfe, that ever herald

Did follow to his urn."

.2. LORD.

His own impatience

Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
Let's make the best of it.

AUF. My rage is gone, And I am ftruck with forrow.-Take him up :Help, three o' the chiefeft soldiers; I'll be one.Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully: Trail your fteel pikes.-Though in this city he Hath widow'd and unchilded many a one,

Did follow to his urn.] This allufion is to a cuftom unknown, I believe, to the ancients, but obferved in the publick funerals of English princes, at the conclufion of which a herald proclaims the style of the deceased. STEEVENS.

Which to this hour bewail the injury,
Yet he shall have a noble memory. 8

Affift. [Exeunt, bearing the body of Coriolanus. A dead march founded.

a noble memory.] Memory for memorial, See p. 174, n. 6.

STEEVENS.

? The tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amufing of our author's performances. The old man's merriment in Menenius; the lofty lady's dignity in Volumnia; the bridal modefty in Virgilia; the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus; the plebeian malignity and tribunitian infolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleafing and interefting variety: and the various revolutions of the hero's fortune fill the mind with anxious curiofity. There is, perhaps, too much buftle in the first act, and too little in the Jaft. JOHNSON.

JULIUS CÆS A R.*

JULIUS CAESAR.] It appears from Peck's Colletion of divers curious Hiftorical Pieces, &c. (appended to his Memoirs, &c. of Oliver Cromwell,) p. 14. that a Latin play on this subject had been written. "Epilogus Cæfaris interfecti, quomodo in fcenam prodiit ea res, acta, in Ecclefia Chrifti, Oxon. Qui Epilogus a Magiftro Ricardo Eedes, et fcriptus et in profcenio ibidem dictus fuit, A. D. 1582." Meres, whofe Wit's Commonwealth was published in 1598, enumerates Dr. Eedes among the best tragic writers of that time. STEEVENS.

From fome words fpoken by Polonius in Hamlet, I think it probable that there was an English play on this fubject, before Shakfpeare commenced a writer for the stage.

Stephen Goffon in his School of Abufe, 1579, mentions a play entitled The Hiftory of Cæfar and Pompey.

William Alexander, afterwards earl of Sterline, wrote a tragedy on the story and with the title of Julius Cæfar. It may be prefumed that Shakspeare's play was pofterior to his; for lord Sterline, when he compofed his Julius Cæfar was a very young author, and would hardly have ventured into that circle, within which the moft eminent dramatick writer of England had already walked. The death of Cæfar, which is not exhibited but related to the audience, forms the catastrophe of his piece. In the two plays many parallel paffages are found, which might, perhaps, have proceeded only from the two authors drawing from the fame fource. However, there are fome reasons for thinking the coincidence more than accidental.

A paffage in The Tempeft, (p. 127,) feems to have been copied from one in Darius, another play of Lord Sterline's, printed at Edinburgh in 1603. His Julius Cæfar appeared in 1607, at a time when he was little acquainted with English writers; for both thefe pieces abound with fcotticifins, which, in the fubfequent folio edition, 1637, he corrected. But neither The Tempest nor the Julius Cafar of our author was printed till 1623.

It should alfo be remembered, that our author has feveral plays, founded on fubjects which had been previously treated by others. Of this kind are King John, King Richard II. the two parts of K. Henry IV. King Henry V. King Richard III. King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Meafure for Meajure, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and I believe, Hamlet, Timon of Athens, and The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.: whereas no proof has hitherto been produced, that any contemporary writer ever prefumed to new model a ftory that had already employed the pen of Shakspeare. On all thefe grounds it appears more probable, that Shakspeare was indebted to lord Sterline, than that lord Sterline borrowed from Shakfpeare. If this reafoning be juft, this play

could not have appeared before the year 1607. I believe it was produced in that year, See An Attempt to ascertain the order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

The real length of time in Julius Cæfar is as follows: About the middle of February A. U. C. 709, a frantick feftival, facred to Pan, and called Lupercalia, was held in honour of Cæfar, when the regal crown was offered to him by Antony. On the 15th of March in the fame year, he was flain. Nov. 27, A. U. C. 710, the triumvirs met at a fmall ifland, formed by the river Rhenus, near Bononia, and there adjusted their cruel profcription.-A. U. C. 711, Brutus and Caffius were defeated near Philippi. UPTON.