And men have loft their reason.-Bear with me, My heart is in the coffin there with Cæfar, And I must pause 'till it come back to me. But yesterday the word of Cæfar might And none so poor to do him reverence. Unto their issue. 4 Pleb. We'll hear the will; read it, Mark Antony. All. The will; the will; we will hear Cæfar's will. Ant. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it; It is not meet you know how Cæfar lov'd you; For For if you should-O what would come of it? 4 Pleb. Read the will, we will hear it, Antony: You shall read us the will, Cæfar's will. Ant. Will you be patient? will you stay a while ? (I have o'er-shot myself, to tell you of it.) I fear, I wrong the honourable men, Whose daggers have stabb'd Cæfar. - I do fear it. 4 Pleb. They were traitors-honourable men! All. The will! the testament! Ant. You will compel me then to read the will? Then make a ring about the corps of Cæfar, And let me shew you him, that made the will. Shall I descend, and will you give me leave ? All. Come down. 2 Pleb. Descend, : [He comes down from the pulpit. Ant. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now You all do know this mantle; I remember, Look! in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through;- And, in (11) this mantle muffling up his face, 2 Pleb. We will be reveng`d; revenge; about seek-burn-fire-kill-flay! let not a traitor live. Ant. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a fudden flood of mutiny : But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, well, That give me publick leave to speak of him: "The action and the (11) This] Upton vulg. bis. emphafis is highly improved by this easy change."" The reader may fee a fevere comment on a note of Mr. Warburton's, concerning this mantle in the 14th page of the Preface to Upton's observations on Shakespear. (12) See Vol. I. p. 177. n, 6, To To ftir mens blood; I only speak right on. mouths! And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus, Ceremony infincere. -Ever note, Lucilius, When love begins to ficken and decay, There are no tricks in plain and fimple faith : SCENE III. Changes to the Inside of Brutus's Tent. : Re-enter Brutus and Caffius. Cas. (13) That you have wrong'd me doth appear in this You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella, For (13) That, &c.] I shall not use any apology for quoting this celebrated scene entire; fince to have taken any particular passages from it, would have spoilt the beauty of the whole: Its excellence is so generally known, and so greatly admired, that there remains little For taking bribes here of the Sardians; That (14) ev'ry nice offence should bear its com ment. Bru. Yet let me tell you, Caffius, you yourself Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm; To fell, and mart your offices for gold, To undeservers. little to be faid concerning it: There is a famous scene of the • like kind between Agamemnon and Menelaus, in the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides, which Mr. Dryden judges inferior to this; the reader may see what he says upon this head in his preface to Troilus and Creffida, in which he himself has introduced a similar scene: Beaumont and Fletcher, charmed, I suppose, with the Applause our author met with for this scene, (which we find particularly commended in some verses prefix'd to the first folio impreffion of his works, Or till I hear a scene more nobly take, Than what thy half-fword parlying Romans make) They, I fay, have endeavour'd to imitate him, but with their asual fuccess, in the Maid's Tragedy, where "two virtuous perfons, as here and in Euripides, des, rais'd by natural degrees to the extremity of paffion, are conducted to the declination of that paffion, and conclude with the warm renewing of their friendship." See the Maid's Tragedy, Act 3. Mr. Gildon in his remarks on Shakespear's works, at the end of his poems, has tranflated the quarreling scene from Euripides, in which, if a good deal of the fpirit has evaporated, the reader will yet in some measure be able to judge of its merits. See Shakespear's poems, Sewel's edit. p. 388. (14) Ev'ry nice, &c.] This may be well-understood and explained by every flight or triffing offence; but I am to imagine the author gave it, That every offence shou'd bear nice comment. It was so easy for the word nice to have been removed from its proper place: bis comment is in the folio, which shews there is fomething wrong; and the metre by this reading is as perfect, nay more fo, than by the other, Caf |