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JULIUS CÆSAR:

A TRAGEDY,

En Five Acts,

BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

A

PRINTED FROM THE ACTING COPY, WITH REMARKS,
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, BY D-G.

To which are added,

A DESCRIPTION OF THE COSTUME, -CAST OF THE CHARACTERS, ENTRANCES AND EXITS, RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE PERFORMERS ON THE STAGE, AND THE WHOLE OF THE STAGE BUSINESS.

As now performed at the

THEATRES ROYAL, LONDON.

EMBELLISHED WITH A FINE ENGRAVING,

By MR. WHITE, from a Drawing taken in the Theatre, by
MR. R. CRUIKSHANK.

LONDON:

JOHN CUMBERLAND, 6, BRECKNOCK PLACE,

CAMDEN TOWN.

REMARKS.

Julius Caesar.

THIS is the grandest of the Roman tragedy of Shakspeare. It occupies a considerable portion of time: beginning with the festival of Luperci, which was held in honour of Cæsar, and en jing with the battle of Philippi. It includes the formation of the conspiracy, the death of the dictator, the sanguinary proscription of the triumvirate, the flight of Brutus and Cassius, and their fall. For the conduct and action of this drama, Shakspeare is indebted to Plutarch, and also for some portion of the dialogue: but no praise can be too high for the poet's art in the concentration of the events supplied by history; or for his genius, in producing some of the most perfect specimens of eloquence that are to be found in any language.

The subject had before employed the pen of William Alexander, Earl of Sterline, a heavy Scotch writer of monarchic tragedies; but whose mode of treating it is so insufferably cold and prolix, and whose style, abounding in Scotticisms, is so incorrect and pedantic, that he deserves not the honour which Malone would give him, of haivng furnished Shakspeare with hints for the present drama, and, also, for a celebrated passage in The Tempest, Act 3, from his play of Darius: which we doubt if Shakspeare ever had the curiosity to inquire after, much less the patience to read. A Latin play, on the same subject, had been written by Dr. Richard Eedes, a celebrated tragic poet of his day, as early as the year 1582. It was reserved for Shakspeare to exhibit the patriots and heroes of imperial Rome acting and speaking in a manner worthy of themselves for such is the exact propriety preserved throughout this drama, that it would be impossible to transfer an oration from one speaker to another, without being guilty of as glaring an anachronism as ever made glad the heart of an editor, who is more alive to the faults than to the beauties of his author.

Some exception has been taken to the catastrophe; which, it seems, should have been the death of Cæsar, rather than the defeat of the conspirators. But, would the former have compensated for the noble speeches of Brutus and Mark Antony from the Forum (with what contempt do we cast back the sneer of Stevens, at the " artificial jingle of short sentences," which is but a servile echo of Warburton)? or for the contention and reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius, which is without its parallel for reasoning and eloquence. And though, after the third act, the two latter are the only great personages that are left upon the scene, the interest they excite is undiminished to the close; nor would any catastrophe have been more truly affecting than the farewell and death of the last and noblest of the Romans.

In this tragedy, three of the most celebrated characters of antiquity are presented to our view with wonderful force and precision-Brutus, Cassius, and Mark Antony. To them Shakspeare has sacrificed the conqueror of the world; in whom we behold little else but the selfconfident voluptuary, for whom the daggers of the conspirators would seem too gloricus a death. We can hardly admit that Shakspeare has shown his wonted regard to historical truth, in thus sinking the greatness of Cæsar's character, and exhibiting him in an unlucky moment, when

"A fit of vapours clouds this demi-god!"

for he is marvellously disturbed at the lean and hungry looks of Cassius, and exclaims, with ludicrous apprehension

"Would he were fatter!"

and Casca represents him as superstitious grown of late

"Quite from the main opinion he held once

Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies," &c. &c.

The following passage, however, almost redeems the prevailing inbecility of his character:

"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,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come."

The fiery, generous-hearted Cassius, impatient of contradiction or control; the open, unsuspecting Antony, whose natural eloquence counteracts and overwhelms the studied oratory of Brutus, receive ample justice at the hands of Shakspeare. How majestic is the following image of Cæsar's boundless ambition:

"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves."

The speech where Cassius describes the perils of Cæsar in Tiber's angry flood, and the effects of a fever on his shivering frame, when

continue to shine, with undiminished radiance, to the latest posterity. Brutus was no less the angel of Shakspeare than of Cæsar; for the poet has left no points in his character untouched.-His gentleness and candour alternately shine forth, and relieve the sterner virtues; nor does his philosophy, like Cato's, elevate him above humanity. The remark of Dr. Johnson, that this tragedy is somewhat cold and unaffecting, compared with some others of Shakspeare's plays, is true; - Lear, Hamlet, and Othello are holy ground: but how insensible must that heart be that is not deeply moved at Brutus's announcement of Portia's death, at his resolution to die rather than be led captive through the streets of Rome, and at the everlasting farewell between the reconciled friends. That nothing might be wanting to complete the glory of his character, Mark Antony is made to bear the following eloquent testimony to his virtues:

"This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He, only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, 'This was a man!"

The chronology of Mr. Malone has fixed the date of this tragedy to the year 1607. It was revived in 1663 by the company formerly belonging to the Red Bull, but at that time acting at the new theatre in Drury Lane, under the management of Thomas Killigrew; who obtained a patent from King Charles II., in order to create them the king's servants. Cassius was played by Major Mohun, Brutus by Mr. Hart, and Mark Antony by Mr. Kynaston. The Merchant of Venice, King Henry IV. Part I., Othello, and Julius Cæsar, were classed among the principal old stock-plays. Out of a list of fifteen dramas given by Downes, seven are by Beaumont and Fletcher, three by Ben Jonson, and three, only, by Shakspeare.

The genius that gave life and energy to this noble tragedy cannot but live in the remembrance of those who have beheld the late Mr. Kemble, in Brutus. To recall the beauties of that grand performance must be gratifying to every lover of the histrionic art; while any attempt to convey a notion of them to those who have never witnessed it, would be flat and unprofitable. We may tell the youthful amateur that, to the highest conception he can possibly form of acting, from his own experience, Kemble's Brutus is Olympus to a molehill.

Mr. Young has of late exchanged Cassius for Brutus; which is not (as Bishop Juxon said to King Charles on the scaffold) " a good exchange," but a bad exchange; for his Cassius was fine, while his Brutus is mediocre. Mark Antony is beautifully acted by Mr. Charles Kemble. This was a part in which the unfortunate Conway more particularly excelled.

D-G.