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Like a phantafma, or a hideous dream :
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, fuffers then
The nature of an infurrection.

Confpiracy.

of these two confpiracies being fo very different, (the fortune of Cefar and the Roman empire being concerned in the first, and that of only a few auxiliary troops in the other) Mr. Addifon could not with that propriety bring in that magnificent circumtance, which gives the terrible grace to Shakespear's description:

The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council.-

For kingdoms, in the poetical theology befides their good, have their evil geniuses likewife, represented here with the most daring ftretch of fancy, as fitting in council with the confpirators, whom he calls the mortal inftruments. But this would have been too great an apparatus to the rape and defertion of Syphax and Sempronius. Secondly, the other thing very obfervable is, that Mr. Addifon was fo warm'd and affected with the fire of Shakefpear's defcription, that instead of copying his author's fentiments, he has, before he was aware, given us only the image of his own expreffions, on the reading of his great original. For

Oh, 'tis a dreadful interval of time

Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death.

Are not the affections rais'd by fuch forcible images as thefe,

All the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.

The state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, fuffers then

The nature of an infurrection.

Comparing the mind of a confpirator to an anarchy, is just and beautiful: but the interim to a hideous dream, has fomething in it fo wonderfully natural, and lays the human foul fo open, that one cannot but be furpriz'd, that any poet, who had not himself been fome time or other engaged in a confpiracy, could ever have given fuch force of colouring to truth and na

ture.

Confpiracy.

O confpiracy!

Sham'it thou to fhew thy dang'rous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O then, by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough,

To mask thy monstrous vifage? Seek none, confpiracy, Hide it in fmiles and affability:

For if thou (6) path, thy native femblance on,

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Against Cruelty.

Gentle friends,

Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a difh fit for the Gods,
Not hew him as a carcafs fit for hounds.
And let our hearts, as fubtle mafters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,

And after feem to chide them.

Sleep.

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of flumber:
Thou haft no figures nor no fantafies,
Which bufy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou fleep'st so sound.

SCENE III. Porcia's Speech to Brutus.

You've ungently, Brutus, Stole from my bed: and yefternight at fupper, You fuddenly arose and walk'd about,

Mufing and fighing, with your arms a-cross :

And,

(6) Path,] i. e. walk; he makes a verb of the fubftantive, which is very common with him.

VOL. III.

G

And, when I ask'd you what the matter was,
You ftar'd upon me with ungentle looks.

I urg'd you further: then you fcratch'd your head,
And too impatiently stamp'd with your foot:
Yet I infifted, yet you answer'd not;

But with an angry wafture with your hand,
Gave fign for me to leave you:
: fo I did,
Fearing to ftrengthen that impatience,
Which feem'd too much inkindled; and, withal,
Hoping it was but an effect of humour,
Which fometimes hath his hour with ev'ry man,
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor fleep;
And could it work so much upon your shape,
As it hath much prevail'd on your condition,
I fhould not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

SCENE IV. Calphurnia to Cæfar, on the Prodigies
Seen the Night before his Death.

Cafar, I never ftood on (7) ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me: there is one within,
(Befides the things that we have heard and feen)
Recounts most horrid fights feen by the watch.
A lionefs hath whelped in the streets,

And graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their dead.
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
In ranks and fquadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol :

The noise of battle hurtled in the air;

Horfes did neigh, and dying men did groan;

And ghosts did fhriek, and squeal about the streets:
O Cafar! these things are beyond all use,

And I do fear them.

Caef. What can be avoided,

Whofe

(7) The Reader will be agreeably entertained, if he turns to the beginning of Hamlet, where he will find an account of thefe prodigies from our author, Virgil and Ovid.

Whofe end is purpos'd by the mighty Gods?
Yet Cafar fhall go forth: for these predictions
Are to the world in general, as to Cæfar.

Cal. When beggars die, there are no comets feen; The heav'ns themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

Against the Fears of Death.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once:
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange, that men should fear;
(8) Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come, when it will come.

Danger.

Danger knows full well,

That Cafar is more dangerous than he. (9) We are two lions litter'd in one day, And I the elder and more terrible.

Envy.

My heart laments, that virtue cannot live Out of the teeth of emulation.

(8) Seeing, &c.]

ACT

The term of life is limited,

Ne may a man prolong nor shorten it,

The foldier may not move from watchful fted,
Nor leave his ftand until his captaine bed.

Spenfer.

(9) We are, &c.] The old folios read Wee beare, which Mr. Theobald, ingeniously enough, altered to we were; and Mr. Upim to we are, which is not only nearer the traces of the letters, but more agreeable to the fenfe of the paffage; for Caefar fpeaks all through in the present tense: Danger knows, that Cefar is more dangerous than he: we are two lions, twins, litter'd in one day, and I am the elder and more terrible.

ACT III. SCENE III.

Antony to the Corps of Cæfar.

O, mighty Cæfar, doft thou lie fo low?
Are all thy conquefts, glories, triumphs, fpoils,
Shrunk to this little measure? fare thee well.

His Addrefs to the Confpirators.

I know not, gentlemen, what you intend;
Who else must be let blood, who elfe is rank.
If I myself, there is no hour so fit

As Cafar's death's hour; nor no inftrument
Of half that worth, as those your
fwords made rich
With the most noble blood of all this world.

I do befeech ye, if you bear me hard,

Now whilft your fury-led hands do reek and smoke,
Fulfil your pleafure. Live a thousand years,

I fhall not find myself so apt to die.

No place will please me fo, no means of death
As here by Cafar, and by you cut off,
The choice and master spirits of the age.

SCENE IV. Revenge.

(10) Cafar's fpirit, raging for revenge, With Ate by his fide, come hot from hell,

Shall

(10) Cæfar's, &c.] Mr. Seward obferves, that in those terrille graces fpoken of just now (note 5.) no followers of ShakeSpear approach fo near him as Beaumont and Fletcher; of which he adds the lines here quoted as a strong proof:

Fix not your empire

Upon the tomb of him, will shake all Ægypt:

Whofe warlike groans will raise ten thousand spirits, ;

Great as himself, in every hand a thunder,

Destructions darting from their looks.

The Falfe One, A. 2. S. 1.

There

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