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, The ftones of Rome to rife and mutiny. 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 have forgot the will I told you of. ALL. you then. 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, fev'nty-five drachma's." 2 PLEBEIAN. Moft noble Cæfar! ANTONY. Moreover, he hath left you all his walks, His private arbours, and new-planted orchards, On that fide Tiber; he hath left them you, And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures, Is there any oration extant, in which the topics are more fkilfully 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 first fooths his audience by affuring them, that Cæfar lov'd the poor, and fympathized 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 these managements he proceeds further, and tells them of the Will. There is a delicate touch in the observation, 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 ftab given by his beloved Brutus. The remark that he fell as a victim at the feet of Pompey's ftatue, whom the lower fort confidered as of a party unfavourable to them, is another happy stroke in this piece. I am forry that I muft 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 fo 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 wish the part of the mob had been shorter. The miferable conceit of Cæfar's blood rufshing out of the wound, to ask who so unkindly knocked, is indefenfible. The repetition of the words, honourable men, is perhaps too frequent, as at last 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 ne-. ceffary to be fimple: The quarrel between Brutus and Caffius does not by any means deferve the ridicule, thrown S. thrown upon it by the French critic. The characters of the men are well fuftained. It is natural, it is interefting; but it rather retards than brings forward the catastrophe, and is useful only in fetting Brutus in a good light. A fublime genius, in all its operations, facrifices little things to great, and parts to the whole. Modern criticism dwells on minute articles. The principal object of our Poet was to interest the spectator for Brutus; to do this he was to fhew, that his temper was the furtheft imaginable from any thing ferocious or fanguinary, and by his behaviour to his wife, his friends, his fervants, to demonftrate, that out of refpect to public liberty, he made as difficult a conqueft over his natural difpofition, as his great predeceffor had done for the like cause over natural affection. Clemency and humanity add luftre to the greatest hero; but here these fentiments determine the whole character of the man, and the colour of his deed. The victories of Alexander, Hannibal, and Cæfar, whether their wars were just or unjust, must obtain`for them |