He is a great observer; and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou doit, Antony; (4) he hears no mufici
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a fort,
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit,
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease,
Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd,
Than what I fear; for always I am Cafar.

SCENE VII. Spirit of Liberty. I know, where I will wear this dagger, then: Caffius from bondage will deliver Caffius. Therein, ye Gods, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye Gods, you tyrants do defeat : Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the itrength of spirit: But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks power to dismiss itself. If I know this; know all the world befides, That part of tyranny, that I do bear, I can shake off at pleasure.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Ambition, covered with specious Humility.

But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto

(4) 11e hears, &c.] Mr. Theclald obferves well here: “ This is not a trivial obfervation, nor does our poet mean barely by it, that Caffius was not a merry, sprightly man, but that he haul not a due temperament of harmony in his composition : and

Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, fcorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

Conspiracy, dreadful till executed. (5) Between the acting of a dreadful thing, And the first motion, all the interim is

Like

that, therefore, natures so uncorrected, are dangerous." He hath finely dilated on this sentiment, in his Merchant of Venice.

The man that hath no music, &c. (5) Between, &c.] Mr. Addison has paraphrased this inimitable passage, in his Cato, which alwaysserves to remind me of that excellent distinction, made by Mr. Guibrie, in his Elay on Trata gedy, betwixt a poet and a genius :

O think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods.
Oh 'tis a dreadful interval of time,
Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death,

Cato.

Either Mr. Theobald or Mr. Warburton (which who can pro. nounce, since the one prints the same words in his preface, which the other uses as his own in his notes ! See Thiobald's preface, vol. 1. p. 23. and Warburton on the passage) either the one or the other of them have observed, “that nice critic, Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, confesses, that he could not find those great strokes which he calls the terrible graces, any where so frequent as in Homer. I believe the success would be the same, likewise, if we fought for them in any other of our authors besides our Britisha Homer, Shakespear. This description of the condition of conspirators has a pomp and terror in it, that perfectly astonishes; our excellent Mr. Addison, whose modesty made him sometimes diffident in his own genius, but whose exquisite judgment always led him to the safest guides, has paraphrased this fine description : but we are no longer to expect those terrible graces, which he could not binder from evaporating in the transfusion. We may observe two things on his imitation: first, that the subjects

of

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council ; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Conspiracy.

of these two conspiracies being so very different, (the fortune of Caesar and the Roman empire being concerned in the first, and that of only a few auxiliary troops in the other) Mr. Addison could not with that propriety bring in that magnificent circumAtance, which gives the terrible grace to Shakespear's description:

The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council.

For kingdoms, in the poetical theology besides their good, have their evilgeniuses likewise, represented here with the most daring stretch of fancy, as sitting in council with the conspirators, whom he calls the mortal instruments. But this would have been tuo great an apparatus to the rape and desertion of Syphax and Sempronius. Secondly, the other thing very observable is, that Mr. Addison was so warm’d and affected with the fire of Shak{pear's description, that instead of copying his author's sentiments, he has, before he was aware, given us only the image of his own expressions, on the reading of his great original. For

Oh, 'tis a dreadful interval of time
Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death.

Are not the affections rais’d by such forcible images as these,

All the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.

The state of man,
Like*to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.

Comparing the mind of a conspirator to an anarchy, is just and beautiful : but the interim to a hideous dream, has something in it so wonderfully natural, and lays the human foul 10 open, that one cannot but be surpriz'd, that any poet, who had not himself been some time or other engaged in a conspiracy, could ever have given such force of colouring to truth and na. ture.

Conspiracy.

O conspiracy! Sham'ít thou to shew thy dang’rous brow by night, When evils are most free? O then, by day Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough, To mark thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy, Hide it in smiles and affability : For if thou (6) path, thy native semblance on, Not Erebus itself were dim enough To hide thee from prevention,

Against Cruelty.

Gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the Gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds,
And let our hearts, as subtle matters do,
Stir
up
their servants to an act of

rage, And after seem to chide them.

Sleep.
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of flumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep'it fo found.

SCENE III. Porcia's Speech to Brutus.

You've ungently, Brutus,
Stole from my bed: and yesternight at fupper,
You suddenly arose and walk'd about,
Musing and sighing, with your arms a-crofs :

And,

(6) Path,] i. e. walk; he makes a verb of the fubftantive, which is very common with him. VOL. III.

G

And, when I ask'd you what the matter was,
You star'd upon me with ungentle looks.
I urg'd you further: then you scratch'd your head,
And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot:
Yet I insisted, yet you answer'd not ;
But with an angry wafture with your hand,
Gave sign for me to leave you: so I did,
Fearing to strengthen that impatience,
Which seem'd too much inkindled; and, withal,
Hoping it was but an effect of humour,
Which sometimes hath his hour with ev'ry man,
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep;
And could it work so much upon your shape,
As it hath much prevailid on your condition,
I should not know

Dear my lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

you, Brutus.

Scene IV. Calphurnia to Cæfar, on the Prodigies

seen the Night before his Death.

Cæfar, I never stood on (7) ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me: there is one within,
(Besides the things that we have heard and feen)
Recounts most horrid fights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets,
And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead.
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol :
The noise of battle hurtled in the air ;
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan;
And ghosts did shriek, and squeal about the streets:
O Cæsar! these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them.
Cæf. What can be avoided,

Whose (7) The Reader will be agreeably entertained, if he turns to she beginning of Hamlet, where he will find an account of these prodigies from our author, Virgil and Ovid.