himself again, he said, If he had done; or said, any thing amifs, he defired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches, where I ftood, cried, Alas, good foul!-and forgave him with all their hearts: But there's no heed to be taken of them; if Cæfar had stabb'd their mothers, they would have done no lefs.

BRU. And after that, he came, thus fad, away? CASCA. Ay.

CAS. Did Cicero fay any thing?

CASCA. Ay, he spoke Greek.
CAS. To what effect?

CASCA. Nay, an I tell you that, I'll ne'er look you i' the face again: But thofe, that understood him, fmiled at one another, and shook their heads: but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Cæfar's images, are put to filence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

and

CAS. Will you fup with me to-night, Casca?
CASCA. No, I am promised forth.

CAS. Will you dine with me to-morrow?

CASCA. Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, your dinner worth the eating.

CAS. Good; I will expect you.

CASCA. Do fo: Farewell, both.

[Exit CASCA.

BRU. What a blunt fellow is this grown to be? He was quick mettle, when he went to school.

CAS. So is he now, in execution

Of any bold or noble enterprize,
However he puts on this tardy form.
This rudeness is a fauce to his good wit,

Which gives men ftomach to digeft his words.
With better appetite.

BRU. And fo it is. For this time I will leave

you:

To-morrow, if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

Cas. I will do fo:-till then, think of the world.
[Exit BRUTUS.
Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I fee,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is difpos'd: Therefore 'tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes:
For who fo firm, that cannot be feduc'd?

6

7

Cæfar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus: If I were Brutus now, and he were Caffius,

He should not humour me.

I will this night,

In feveral hands, in at his windows throw,

As if they came from feveral citizens,

Thy honourable metal may be wrought

From that it is difpos'd:] The best metal or temper may be worked into qualities contrary to its original conftitution.

JOHNSON. From that it is difpos'd, i. e. difpos'd to. See Vol. XI. p. 185, MALONE.

n. 2.

me.

7

doth bear me hard;] i. e. has an unfavourable opinion of The fame phrafe occurs again in the first scene of Act III. STEEVENS.

8 If I were Brutus now, and he were Caffius,

He fhould not humour me.] This is a reflection on Brutus's ingratitude; which concludes, as is ufual on fuch occafions, in an encomium on his own better conditions. If I were Brutus (fays he) and Brutus, Caffius, he should not cajole me as I do him. To humour fignifies here to turn and wind him, by inflaming his paffions. WARBURTON.

The meaning, I think, is this: Cæfar loves Brutus, but if Brutus and I were to change places, his love fhould not humour me, fhould not take hold of my affection, so as to make me forget my principles. JOHNSON.

Writings, all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obfcurely
Cæfar's ambition fhall be glanced at:

And, after this, let Cæfar feat him fure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

[Exit.

SCENE III.

The fame. A Street.

Thunder and lightning. Enter, from oppofite fides, CASCA, with his fword drawn, and CICERO.

CIC. Good even, Cafca: Brought you Cæfar home? 8

Why are you breathlefs? and why ftare you fo? CASCA. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway

of earth'

Shakes, like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,

I have feen tempefts, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have feen
The ambitious ocean fwell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempeft dropping fire.
Either there is a civil ftrife in heaven;
Or elfe the world, too faucy with the gods,
Incenses them to fend deftruction.

9

Cic. Why, faw you any thing more wonderful?

Brought you Cafar home?] Did you attend Cæfar home?

See Vol. IX. p. 328, n. 7. MALONE.

JOHNSON.

fway of earth-] The whole weight or momentum of this globe. JOHNSON.

CASCA. A common flave (you know him well

by fight,)

Held up his left hand, which did flame, and burn
Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand,
Not fenfible of fire, remain'd unfcorch'd.
Befides, (I have not fince put up my fword,)
Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'd upon me,' and went furly by,

2 A common flave &c.] So, in the old tranflation of Plutarch: a flave of the fouldiers that did caft a marvelous burning flame out of his hande, infomuch as they that faw it, thought he had bene burnt; but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt." STEEVENS.

3 Who glar'd upon me,] The firft [and fecond] edition reads: Who glaz'd upon me,

Perhaps, Who gaz'd upon me. JOHNSON.

Glar'd is certainly right. To gaze is only to look ftedfastly, or with admiration. Glar'd has a fingular propriety, as it expreffes the furious fcintillation of a lion's eyes: and, that a lion fhould appear full of fury, and yet attempt no violence, augments the prodigy. STEEVENS.

The old copy reads-glaz'd, for which Mr. Popę fubftituted glar'd, and this reading has been adopted by all the fubfequent editors. Glar'd certainly is to our ears a more forcible expreffion; I have however adopted a reading propofed by Dr. Johnfon, gaz'd, induced by the following paflage in Stowe's Chronicle, 1615, from which the word gaze feems in our author's time to have been peculiarly applied to the fierce afpect of a lion, and therefore may be prefumed to have been the word here intended. The writer is defcribing a trial of valour (as he calls it,) between a lion, a bear, a ftone-horse and a maftiff; which was exhibited in the Tower, in the year 1609, before the king and all the royal family, diverse great lords, and many others: "Then was the great yon put forth, who gazed awhile, but never offered to affault or approach the bear." Again: "the above mentioned young lufty lyon and lyonefs were both put together, to fee if they would refcue the third, but they would not, but fearfully [that is, dreadfully] gazed upon the dogs." Again: "The lyon having fought long, and his tongue being torne, lay ftaring and panting a pretty while, fo as all the beholders thought he had been utterly fpoyled and spent ; and upon a fodaine gazed upon that dog which remained, and so foon as he had foyled and worried, almost deftroyed him.”

Without annoying me: And there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghaftly women,
Transformed with their fear; who fwore, they faw
Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And, yesterday, the bird of night did fit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
Hooting, and fhrieking. When these prodigies
Do fo conjointly meet, let not men say,
Thefe are their reafons,-They are natural;
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

Cic. Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:
But men may conftrue things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Cæfar to the Capitol to-morrow?

CASCA. He doth; for he did bid Antonius Send word to you, he would be there to-morrow. Cic. Good night then, Cafca: this disturbed sky Is not to walk in.

CASCA.

Farewell, Cicero. [Exit CICERO.

In this last instance gaz'd seems to be used as exactly fynonymous to the modern word glar'd, for the lion immediately afterwards proceeds to worry and deftroy the dog. MALONE.

That glar'd is no modern word, is fufficiently ascertained by the following paffage in Macbeth:

Thou haft no fpeculation in thofe eyes

"That thou doft glare with."

I therefore continue to repair the poet with his own animated phrafeology, rather than with the cold expreffion fuggefted by the narrative of Stowe; who, having been a tailor, was undoubtedly equal to the task of mending Shakspeare's hofe; but, on poetical emergencies, muft not be allowed to patch his dialogue.

STEEVENS.

4 Clean from the purpofe-] Clean is altogether, entirely. See Vol. VIII. p. 267, n. 7. MALONE.