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 existed. 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 ftreets 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 some 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 worfe than fenfelefs

tings!

Q 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 sounds,

Made in his concave-shores ?

And do

you

now put on your best 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 houfes, 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 elfe would foar above the view of men,
And keep us all in fervile fearfulness.

The fecond fcene is the courfe 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 fcene 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 incenfe Brutus against the growing power of Cæfar. On the fhouts 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 thofe petty circumstances, by which he is not diftinguished from ordinary men. The French critic is much offended at this scene, and fays, 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 oppose 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 Roman, but undoubtedly, adored by his defcendants.

This is truly Imitation, when the Poet gives us the just copies of all circumstances that accompanied the action he represents. Corneille's drama's are fantastic compofitions, void of hiftorical truth, imitation of character, or representation of manners. Some few lines from Seneca, ingrafted into the Cinna, have given it reputation. For, however custom may have taught a very ingenious and polite people to endure the infipid fcenes of l'amoureux et l'amoureuse, the fault has been in the Poets, not the spectators all their critics have strongly condemned this mode of writing; and the public, by its approbation of this piece on account of the scenes between Augustus and Cinna, fhews plainly how much dialogues of a noble and manly kind would please. Unhappily, Seneca's Auguftus makes the Cinna of Corneille appear too mean and little. These borrowed ornaments never will affort perfectly well with the piece; they

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