SCENE III. Cleopatra's Dream and Defcription

of Antony.

Cleo. I dreamt, there was an emperor Antony;
Oh, fuch another fleep, that I might fee
But fuch another man!

Dol. If it might please ye

Cleo. His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck A fun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted The little O o'th'earth.

Dol. Most sovereign creature

Cleo. His legs bestrid the ocean, his rear'd arm

Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends :
But when he meant to quail, and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
That grew the more by reaping; his delights

Were

rally refolve it into its first principles: thus, man is dust and ashes, and the food we eat, the dung, by which first our vegetable, and from thence our animal food is nourish'd. This fentiment has in Shakespear's Antony and Cleopatra, escaped the obfervation of two that defervedly bear the first names in criticism, Sir Thomas Hanmer and Mr. Warburton. Cleopatra finding the can no longer riot in the pleasures of life, with the ufual workings of a disappointed pride, pretends disgust to them, and thus speaks in praise of fuicide-And it is great, &c. (as in the text.)

From the observation above, nothing can be clearer than this paffage: Both the beggar and Cæfar are fed and nursed by the dung of the earth: and in this sense it always appeared to me before the following demonftration of it occur'd. In the first scene of the fame play, Antonio says,

Kingdoms are clay, our dungy earth alike
Feeds beasts as man.

Though I am perfuaded, with Mr. Seward, this is the true sense of the paffage; yet we must nicely observe the fense of flups and palates, which are quite peculiar, and may be reckoned amongit the anomalies of. Shakespear. "Suicide, "fays he" "shackles accidents and boits up change, fleeps, [i. e, caules us to leep] and never palates," [never more to palate, &c.]

Were dolphin-like; they shew'd his back above
The elements they liv'd in; in his livery,
Walk'd crowns and coronets; realms and island's were

As plates dropt from his pocket.

How poor an instrument

May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.
My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing
Of woman in me: now from head to foot
I am marble constant; now the fleeting moon
No planet is of mine.

SCENE VI. Cleopatra's Speech on applying the Asp.

-Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me. Now no more
The juice of Egypt's grape shall moift this lip.
Yare, yare, good Iras: quick-methinks I hear
Antony call, I see him rouse himself

To praise my noble act. (33) I hear him mock
The luck of Cafar, which the gods give men
T'excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come;
Now to that name, my courage, prove my title!
I am fire, and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So-have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.

Farewel,

(33) I bear, &c.] It has been observed, this poffibly might have been shadowed out from Claudian;

-Jam non ad culmina rerum

Injuftos crevisse queror: tolluntur in altum
Ut lapfu graviore cadant.

In Rufinum L,

To fairest heights that wicked men attain,
No more I marvel, and no more complain;
Since but with greater ruin down to fall
Aloft they're raised.

Farewel, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewel.

[Applying the Asp.

[To Iras.

Have I the aspic in my lips? Do'st fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Which hurts, and is defir'd. Do'st thou lie still?
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
It is not worth leave-taking.

[Iras dies.

Char. Diffolve, thick cloud and rain, that I may say,

The gods themselves do weep.

Cleo. This proves me base

If the first meet the curled Antony,
He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
Which is my heaven to have. Come, mortal wretch,

[To the Afp.

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinficate (34)
Of life at once untie. Oh, couldst thou speak,
That I might hear thee call great Cafar afs,
Unpoliced!

Char. Oh, eastern star!

Cleo. Peace, peace!

Dost thou not fee my baby at my breaft,

That fucks the nurse asleep?

Char. O, break! O, break!

Cleo. As sweet as balm, as foft as air, as gentle,

O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too,

(35) What should I stay.

[Applying another Afp.

[Dies.

Char.

(34) Intrinficate] i. e. Intricate, intangled, or tied in hard knots; fo, in King Lear,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain,
Too intrinficate to unloose.

Edwards.

(35) What should I ftay, &c.] Shakespear excels prodigiously in these breaks; so, Perey, in Henry IV. first part, just departing; says,

No

:

i

Char. In this wild world? so, fare thee well;
Now, boast thee, death; in thy poffeffion lies
A lass unparallel'd.

And food for

-No, Percy, thou art dust,

[Diet

P.Hen. Worms; brave Percy, fare thee well, &c.

General Obfervation.

THIS play (fays Johnfon) keeps curiofity always bufy, and the passions always interested. The continual hurry of the action, the variety of incidents, and the quick fucceffion of one perfonage to another, call the mind forward without intermiffion from the first act to the last. But the power of delighting is derived principally from the frequent changes of the scene; for, except the feminine arts, some of which are too low, which diftinguish Cleopatra, no character is very strongly difcriminated. Upton, who did not easily miss what he desired to find, has discovered that the language of Antony is, with great skill and learning, made pompous and fuperb, according to his real practice. But I think his diction not diftinguishable from that of others: the moft tumid speech in the play is that which Cæfar makes to

Οδιανία.

The events, of which the principal are defcribed according to hiftory, are produced without any art of connexion or care of difpofition.

Coriolanus

1

II.

W

Coriolanus.

ACT I. SCENE III.

Mob.

4

HAT (1) would you have, ye curs,
That like nor peace, nor war? The one af-
frights you,

The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,

Where

(1) What, &c.] Shakespear has many passages on the uncertainty of popular favour, and the fickleness of the vulgar: the reader will find one in the 2d part of Henry IV. v. 2. p. 17. where I have referred to this: Milton, in his 3d book of Paradife Regained, has a passage remarkably similar to this. Satan says to Chrift,

These god-like virtues wherefore doft thou hide,
Affecting private life? wherefore deprive
All earth her wonder at thy acts, thyfelf
The fame and glory: glory, the reward
That sole excites to high attempts, the flame
Of most erected spirits?

To whom our Saviour calmly thus reply'd:
-What is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people's praise, if always praise unmixt?
And what the people, but a herd confus'd,
A mifcellaneous rabble, who extol

Things vulgar, and well-weigh'd scarce worth the praise?

They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other.

And what delight to be by such extoll'd,

To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,

Of