O what a fall was there, my countrymen ! O, now you weep! and, I perceive, you feel The dint of pity; these are gracious drops. Kind fouls! what, weep you when you but behold Our Cæfar's vefture wounded! look you here! Here is himself, marr'd as you fee, by traitors. O piteous fpectacle! I PLEBEIAN. ANTONY. Good friends, fweet friends, let me not ftir you up They, that have done this deed, are honourable. I am no orator, as Brutus is, But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend; and that they know full well, I tell I tell you that which you yourselves do know; Shew you fweet Cæfar's wounds, poor, poor, dum mouths! And bid them fpeak for me. But were I Brutus, We'll mutiny. ALL. ANTONY. Why, friends, you go to do you know not what. Wherein hath Cæfar thus deferv'd your loves? Alas! you know not. I must not tell you then. ALL. Moft true, the will.-Let's ftay, and hear the will. ANTONY. Here is the will, and under Cæfar's feal. To ev'ry Roman citizen he gives, To ev'ry fev'ral man, fevʼnty-five drachma's. 2 PLEBEIAN. Moft noble Cæfar! ANTONY. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,' His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures, Is there any oration extant, in which the topics are more skilfully felected for the minds and temper of the perfons, to whom it is fpoken? Does it not by the most gentle gradations arrive at the point to which it was directed! Antony firft fooths his audience by affuring them, that Cæfar lov'd the poor, and sympathized with their diftreffes by reminding them, that he had rejected the proffered crown, he removes, from their shallow understandings, all apprehenfion of that ambition in him, which the confpirators alledged as the motive of their act: after thefe managements he proceeds further, and tells them of the Will. There is a delicate touch in the obfervation, that Cæfar received the mortal wound in the very mantle he wore the day in which he had gained a victory over the Nervii, the fierceft of their enemies. He excites tender pity, by mentioning the stab given by his beloved Brutus. The remark that he fell as a victim at the feet of Pompey's statue, whom the lower fort confidered as of a party unfavourable to them, is another happy stroke in this piece. I am forry that I must differ from the opinion of our commentator, who thinks the words, "O what a fall was there!" related to that circumstance; it seems rather to refer to what immediately follows: ANTONY. Then I, and you, and all of us fell down: Meaning how the general state of the republic was affected by the fall of so great a man. As the illiterate People are afraid of being impofed upon by the arts of the Learned and the Eloquent, he very judiciously affures them he is no orator. The refinements of the French theatre, poffibly, would not endure the mob of Plebeians, that appear in this scene. The fickle humour of the people, and the influence of eloquence upon their minds, are truly exhibited; and I must Own own, as the imitation is so just, though the original may be called mean, I think it is not to be entirely condemned: one might perhaps with the part of the mob had been shorter. The miserable conceit of Cæfar's blood rufhing out of the wound, to ask who fo unkindly knocked, is indefenfible. The repetition of the words, honourable men, is perhaps too frequent, as at laft it is too apparently ironical. The oration of Brutus, in many parts, is quaint and affected, an unhappy attempt, as the learned commentator obferves, to imitate that brevity and fimplicity of expreffion, of which this noble Roman was a profeffed admirer. Our author, who followed with great exactness every circumstance mentioned in Plutarch, would probably have attempted to give to Antony the pomp of Afiatic eloquence, if his good fense had not informed him, that to be pathetic it is neceffary to be fimple. The quarrel between Brutus and Caffius does not by any means deferve the ridicule, thrown S |