fist of his betters;-one whom malcontent Achilles can inveigle from malcontent Ajax, under the one condition, that he shall be called on to do nothing but abuse and slander, and that he shall be allowed to abuse as much and as purulently as he likes, that is, as he can ;in short, a mule,-quarrelsome by the original discord of his nature,—a slave by tenure of his own baseness,—made to bray and be brayed at, to despise and be despicable. 'Aye, Sir, but say what you will, he is a very clever fellow, though the best friends will fall out, There was a time when Ajax thought he deserved to have a statue of gold erected to him, and handsome Achilles, at the head of the Myrmidons, gave no little credit to his friend Thersites !'

Aet iv. sc. 5. Speech of Ulysses :

O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue,

That give a coasting welcome ere it comes—

Should it be 'accosting?' 'Accost her, knight, accost!' in the Twelfth Night. Yet there sounds a something so Shakspearian in the phrase give a coasting welcome,' ('coasting' being taken as the epithet and adjective of 'welcome,') that had the following words been, 'ere they land,' instead of 'ere it comes,' I should have preferred the interpretation. The sense now is, that give welcome to a salute ere it comes.'

CORIOLANUS.

THIS play illustrates the wonderfully philosophic impartiality of Shakspeare's politics. His own country's history furnished him with no matter, but what was too recent to be devoted to patriotism. Besides, he knew that the instruction of ancient history would seem more dispassionate. In Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar, you see Shakspeare's good-natured laugh at mobs. Compare this with Sir Thomas Brown's aristocracy of spirit..

Act i. sc. 1. Coriolanus' speech :

He that depends

Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?

I suspect that Shakspeare wrote it transposed;

Trust ye? Hange ye!

Ib. sc. 10. Speech of Aufidius :

Mine emulation

Hath not that honor in't, it had; for where

I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True sword to sword; I'll potch at him some way,
Or wrath, or craft may get him.-

My valor (poison'd

With only suffering stain by him) for him

Shall fly out of itself: not sleep, nor sanctuary,

Being naked, sick, nor fane, nor capitol,

The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifices,

Embankments all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
My hate to Marcius.

I have such deep faith in Shakspeare's heart-lore, that I take for granted that this is in nature, and not as a mere anomaly; although I cannot in myself discover any germ of possible feeling, which could wax and unfold itself into such sentiment as this. However, I perceive that in this speech is meant to be contained a prevention of shock at the afterchange in Aufidius' character.

Act ii. sc. 1. Speech of Menenius:

The most sovereign prescription in Galen, &c.

Was it without, or in contempt of, historical information that Shakspeare made the contemporaries of Coriolanus quote Cato and Galen? I cannot decide to my own satisfaction. Ib: sc. 3. Speech of Coriolanus :—

Why in this wolvish gown should I stand here-

That the gown of the candidate was of whitened wool, we know. Does 'wolvish' or 'woolvish' mean 'made of wool?' If it means 'wolfish,' what is the sense?

Act iv. sc. 7. Speech of Aufidius :—

All places yield to him ere he sits down, &c.

I have always thought this in itself so beautiful speech, the least explicable from the mood and full intention of the speaker, of any in the whole works of Shakspeare. I cherish the hope that I am mistaken, and that, becoming wiser, I shall discover some profound excellence in that, in which I now appear to detect an imperfection.

ACT I. sc. 1.

JULIUS CÆSAR.

Mar. What meanest thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow !

The speeches of Flavius and Marullus are in blank verse. Wherever regular metre can be rendered truly imitative of character, passion, or personal rank, Shakspeare seldom, if ever, neglects it. Hence this line should be read:

What mean'st by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow ! I say regular metre: for even the prose has in the highest and lowest dramatic personage, a Cobbler or a Hamlet, a rhythm so felicitous and so severally appropriate, as to be a virtual

metre.

Ib. sc. 2.

Bru. A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March. If my ear does not deceive me, the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic contempt, characterizing Brutus even in his first casual speech. The line is a trimeter,—each dipodia containing two accented and two unaccented syllables, but variously arranged, as thus ;

A soothsayer | bids you beware the Ides of March.

Ib. Speech of Brutus :

Set honor in one eye, and death i̇' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently.

Warburton would read 'death' for 'both ;' but I prefer the old text. There are here three things, the public good, the individual Brutus' honor, and his death. The latter two so balanced each other, that he could decide for the first by equipoise; nay-the thought growing-that honor had more weight than death. That Cassius understood it as Warburton, is the beauty of Cassius as contrasted with Brutus.

Ib. Cæsar's speech:

He loves no plays,

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music, &c.

This is not a trivial observation, nor does our poet mean barely by it, that Cassius was not a merry, sprightly man; but that he had not a due temperament of harmony in his disposition. Theobald's Note.

O Theobald! what a commentator wast thou, when thou would'st affect to understand Shakspeare, instead of contenting thyself with collating the text! The meaning here is too deep for a line ten-fold the length of thine to fathom.

Ib. sc. 3. Cæsar's speech :

Be factious for redress of all these griefs;
And I will set this foot of mine as far,

As who goes farthest.

I understand it thus: You have spoken as a conspirator; be so in fact, and I will join you.