genuine fon of ancient Rome, the lover of the liberty of his country, that we are interefted. A concern for him mixed with compaffion for any other perfon, would only, from thefe difcordant Sentiments, have excited fome painful Emotions, in the Spectator. Indeed, the common aim of tragedy writers feems to be merely to make us uneafy, for fome reafon or other, during the drama. They take any thing to be tragedy, in which there are great perfons, and much lamentation; but our Poet never represents an action of one fort, and raises emotions and paffions of another fort. He excites the fympathies, and the concern, proper to the tory. The paffion of love, or maternal affection, may afford good fubjects for a tragedy. In the fables of Phædra and Merope, thofe fentiments belong to the action; but they had no fhare in the refolution taken to kill Cæfar; and, if they are made to interfere, they adulterate the imitation; if to predominate, they spoil it. Our author difdains the legerdemain trick of fubftituting one paffion for another. He is the great magi

cian who can call forth paffions of any fort. If they are fuch as time has destroyed, or custom extinguished, he fummons from the dead those fouls in which they once exifted. Having fufficiently enlarged on the general scope of our Author in this play, we will now confider it in the detail.

The first scene is in the streets of Rome. The Tribunes chide the people for gathering together to do honour to Cæfar's triumph. As certain decorums were unknown to the writers of Shakespear's days, he suffers fome poor mechanics to be too loquacious. As it was his business to deprefs the character of Cæfar, and render his victory over his illustrious rival as odious as poffible, he judiciously makes one of the Tribunes thus address himself to the people:

MARULLUS.

Wherefore rejoice? What conqueft brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you ftones, you worse than sensele

1

things!

O you

O you

hard hearts! you cruel Men of Rome!
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have fat
The live-long day with patient expectation,
To fee great Pompey pass the streets of Rome;
And when faw his chariot but appear,
you

Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tyber trembled underneath his banks

To hear the replication of your founds,
Made in his concave shores?

And do you now put on your beft attire?
And do you now cull out an holiday?
And do you now ftrew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Begone-

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods, to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

The next speech expreffes the general apprehenfion of Cæfar's affuming too great a degree of power.

FLAVIUS,

FLAVIUS.

Let no images

Be hung with Cæfar's trophies. I'll about,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
Thefe growing feathers, pluckt from Cæfar's wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch;

Who else would foar above the view of men,

And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

The fecond fcene is the course at the Lupercal games, in which Antony appears the humble courtier of Cæfar. A Soothsayer bids him beware the Ides of March.

In the third scene there is a dialogue between Brutus and Caffius, in which the latter tenderly reproaches Brutus, that his countenance is not fo open and cordial to him as formerly; to this the other replies, he has fome inward discontent,

And that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the fhews of love to other men.

This intimation of difcontent encourages Caffius to try to incense Brutus against the growing power of Cæfar. On the shouts of the mob, Brutus expreffes his fear that they are making Cæfar king; this encourages Caffius to proceed in his defign. He makes two speeches, in which he appears envious and malignant to Cæfar, of whom he speaks as men do, who, unwilling to confefs the qualities that give fuperiority to a rival, dwell with malice on those petty circumstances, by. which he is not diftinguished from ordinary men. The French critic is much offended at this scene, and says, it is not in the style of great men. The language of envy is always low. The speeches of Caffius express well his envious and peevish temper, and make him a foil to fet off to advantage the more noble mind of Brutus. Caffius endeavours to stimulate Brutus to oppofe the encroachments of Cæfar on the liberty of Rome, by fetting before him its firft Deliverer, the great Junius Brutus ; a name revered by

every