fore deliberates and spares; Cassius precipitates and denounces Brutus is the nobler instructor; Cassius the better politician. Shakspere, in the first great scene between them, brings out these distinctions of character upon which future events so mainly depend.

Nothing can be more interesting than to follow Shakspere with Plutarch in hand. The poet adheres to the facts of history with a remarkable fidelity. A few hard figures are painted upon a canvas; the outlines are distinct, the colours are strong; but there is no art in the composition, no grouping, no light and shadow. This is the historian's picture. We turn to the poet. We recognise the same figures, but they appear to live; they are in harmony with the entire scene in which they move; we have at once the reality of nature, and the ideal of art, which is a higher nature. Yet the art of the poet is so subtle that many have fancied that they could detect a want of art; and the character of Cæsar, as drawn by Shakspere, has been held not only to be tame, and below the historical conception of the great dictator, but as representing him in a false light We believe that Shakspere was wholly right. At the exat period of the action of this drama, Cæsar, possessing the reality of power, was haunted by the weakness of passionately desiring the title of king. Plutarch says "The chiefest cause that made him mortally hated was the covetous desire he had to be called king." This is the pivot upon which the whole action of Shakspere's tragedy turns. There might have been another mode of treating the subject. The death of Julius Cæsar might have been the catastrophe. The republican and the mo narchical principles might have been exhibited in conflict The republican principle would have triumphed in the fall of Cæsar; and the poet would have previously held the balance between the two principles, or have claimed, indeed, our largest sympathies for the principles of Cæsar and his friends, by a true exhibition of Cæsar's greatness and Cæsar's virtues. The poet chose another course. And are we then to talk, with ready flippancy, of ignorance and carelessness-that he wanted classical knowledge-that he gave himself no trouble? "The fault of the character is the fault of the plot," says Hazlitt It would have been nearer the truth had he said-the charac ter is determined by the plot. While Cæsar is upon the scene, it was for the poet, largely interpreting the historian, to show the inward workings of "the covetous desire he had to be called king;" and most admirably, according to our notions of characterisation, has he shown them. Altogether we profess to receive Shakspere's characterisation of Cæsar with a perfect confidence that he produced that character upon fixed princi

ples of art. It is not the prominent character of the play; and it was not meant to be so. It is true to the narrative upon which Shakspere founded it; but, what is of more importance, it is true to every natural conception of what Cæsar must have been at the exact moment of his fall.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

THE Life of Antonius, in North's 'Plutarch,' has been followed by Shakspere with very remarkable fidelity; and there is scarcely an incident which belongs to this period of Antony's career which the poet has not engrafted upon his wonderful performance. The poetical power, subjecting the historical minuteness to an all-pervading harmony, is one of the most remarkable efforts of Shakspere's genius.

"Of all Shakspere's historical plays," says Coleridge, "Antony and Cleopatra is by far the most wonderful." He again says, assigning it a place even higher than that of being the most wonderful of the historical plays, "The highest praise, or rather form of praise, of this play, which I can offer in my own mind, is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether the Antony and Cleopatra is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and Othello." The epithet "wonderful" is unquestionably the right one to apply to this drama. It is too vast, too gorgeous, to be approached without some prostration of the understanding. It pours such a flood of noonday splendour upon our senses, that we cannot gaze upon it steadily. We have read it again and again; and the impression which it leaves again and again is that of wonder.

The ANTONY of this play is of course the Antony of Julius Cæsar;-not merely the historical Antony, but the dramatic Antony, drawn by the same hand. He is the orator that showed dead Cæsar's mantle to the Roman people; he is the soldier that after his triumph over Brutus said, "This was a man." We have seen something of his character; we have learnt a little of his voluptuousness; we have heard of the "masker and the reveller;" we have beheld the unscrupulous politician. But we cannot think meanly of him. He is one great, either for good or for evil. Since he fought at Philippi he has passed through various fortunes. Cæsar thus apostrophises him :

"When thou once

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did Famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer."

There came an after-time when, at Alexandria,

"Our courteous Antony,

Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast;
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart.”

This is the Antony that Shakspere, in the play before us, brings upon the scene.

Upton has a curious theory, which would partly make Shal spere to belong to the French school. The hero of this pla according to this theory, does not speak "the language of the people." Upton says "Mark Antony, as Plutarch informs us affected the Asiatic manner of speaking, which much resem bled his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, and very rhe domontade. **** This style our poet has very artfuly and learnedly interspersed in Antony's speeches."* Unques tionably the language of Antony is more elevated than that Enobarbus, for example. Antony was of the poetical tempera ment—a man of high genius—an orator, who could move t passions dramatically-a lover, that knew no limits to his votion because he loved imaginatively. When sorrow fi upon him, the poetical parts of his character are more a more developed ; we forget the sensualist. But even before : touch of grief has somewhat exalted his nature, he takes poetical view of poetical things. What can be more exquis than his mention of Octavia's weeping at the parting with brother?

"The April's in her eyes: it is love's spring,
And these the showers to bring it on."

And, higher still:—

"Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can

Her heart inform her tongue: the swan's down feather,
That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,

And neither way inclines."

This, we think, is not "the Asiatic manner of speaking."

* Critical Observations,' p. 100.

CYMBELINE.

It was not the purpose of the poet to make 'Cymbeline' a History. The historical portion is subservient to the main action of the piece the fortunes of Imogen and Posthumus. But there is enough of that historical portion to justify us in classing it with those which more distinctly belong to the historical series.

In 'Cymbeline' we have the ancient Britons presented to us under a rich colouring, whose tints belong to the truth of high art. Shakspere threw the scene with marvellous judgment into the obscure period of British history, when there was enough of fact to give precision to his painting, and enough of fable to cast over it that twilight hue which all poets love. In these scenes we are thrown back into the halffabulous history of our own country, and see all objects under the dim light of uncertain events and manners. We have civilisation contending with semi-barbarism; the gorgeous worship of the Pagan world subduing to itself the more simple worship of the Druidical times; kings and courtiers surrounded with the splendour of "barbaric pearl and gold ;" and, even in those days of simplicity, a wilder and a simpler life, amidst the fastnesses of mountains, and the solitude of caves-the hunters' life, who "have seen nothing'

"Subtle as the fox for prey,

Like warlike as the wolf,"

but who yet, in their natural piety, know "how to adore the heavens." This is opposed to our common notion of painted savages, living in wretched huts. There was a civilisation amongst the stock from which we are descended, before the Roman refinement. Strabo says that the Britons had the same manners as the Gauls. They wore party-coloured tunics, flowered with various colours in divisions. They had chequered cloaks. They bore helmets of brass upon their heads. They had broad-swords suspended by iron or brazen chains. Some were girded with belts of gold or silver. Pliny tells us that they excelled in the arts of weaving and dyeing cloth, and wove their fine dyed wool, so as to form stripes or chequers. This is the tartan of the Highlanders—“ the garb of old Gaul." Their round bronze shields are the ornaments of our antiquarian cabinets. We may, without any violation of historical accuracy, believe that the Romans had introduced their arts te

an extent that might have made Cymbeline's palace bear some of the characteristics of a Roman villa. A highly-civilised people very quickly impart the external forms of their civilisation to those whom they have colonised.

If the semi-historical attributes of the drama had been less absorbing, we perhaps might have more readily seen the real course of the dramatic action. We venture to express our opinion, that one predominant idea does exist.

The dialogue of the "two Gentlemen" in the opening scene makes us perfectly acquainted with the relations which Posthumus and Imogen stand to each other, and t those around them. "She's wedded, her husband banish'd We have next the character of the banished husband, and c the unworthy suitor who is the cause of his banishment; & well as the story of the king's two lost sons. This is essentially the foundation of the past and future of the action. Brief i deed is this scene, but it well prepares us for the parting Posthumus and Imogen. The course of their affections turned awry by the wills of others. The angry king at ons proclaims himself to us as one not cruel, but weak; he has before been described as "touch'd at very heart." It is on in the intensity of her affection for Posthumus that Imoge opposes her own will to the impatient violence of her father. and the more crafty decision of her step-mother. But she surrounded with a third evil,

"A father cruel, and a step-dame false,
A foolish suitor to a wedded lady."

Worse, however, even than these, her honour is to be assailed her character vilified, by a subtle stranger; who, perhage more in sport than in malice, has resolved to win a palty wager by the sacrifice of her happiness and that of her hu band. What has she to oppose to all this complication of vi lence and cunning? Her perfect purity-her entire simplicit -her freedom from everything that is selfish-the strengt only of her affections. The scene between Iachimo and Imoge is a contest of innocence with guile, most profoundly affecting in spite of the few coarsenesses that were perhaps unavoi able, and which were not considered offensive in Shaksper day.

This is the first Act; and, if we mistake not the object Shakspere, these opening scenes exhibit one of the most cer fiding and gentle of human beings, assailed on every side by determination of purpose, whether in the shape of violence. wickedness, or folly, against which, under ordinary circum