effects, by means apparently the most simple and inartificial. — But to continue our general comparison. Shakspeare, prudently enough, omits to notice the motives which should have restrained Brutus from raising his arm against the head of Cæsar. "The great honors and favour Cæsar shewed unto him, kept him backe that of himselfe alone he did not conspire nor consent to depose him of his kingdome. For Cæsar did not only save his life after the battel of Pharsalia when Pompey fled, and did at his request also save many moe of his friends besides; but, furthermore, he put a marvellous confidence in him.” * But while he rescued his hero from the charge of ingratitude, the dramatist exposes him to a more disgraceful accusation, that of violating the sacred bond of friendship, by confounding him with Decimus Brutus, whom, after Plutarch, he styles Decius. Shakspeare calls Marcus Brutus "Cæsar's angel," and the "well-beloved," and makes him say that he had slain his "best lover." Now it was "Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, in whom Cæsar put such confidence, that in his last will and testament he had appointed him to be his heiret", and who with "Octavius, the son Life of Julius Cæsar, p. 739. + Ibid. 740. of his neece," accompanied him "throughout al Italy."* Though Plutarch's account of Cæsar's dispo sition towards Brutus is very contradictory, he clearly enough intimates, that neither friendship nor familiarity subsisted between them. "Cæsar, on the other side, did not trust Marcus Brutus overmuch, nor was without tales brought unto him against him: howbeit he feared his great mind, authoritie, and friends. Yet on the other side, also, he trusted his good nature and faire conditions. For intelligence being brought him one day, that Antonius and Dolabella did conspire against him; he answered, that these fat long-haired men made him not afraid, but the lean and whitely-faced fellows, meaning that by Brutus and Cassius."+ The lives both of Cæsar and Anthony also mention the dictator's aversion from abstemiousness; and though in every instance Brutus is coupled with Cassius as a man to be suspected, Shakspeare omits to name him in transferring into his play the testimony of Cæsar in favour of the loyalty of the votaries of conviviality. ‡ *Life of Antonius. + Life of Brutus, p. 994. キ "Let me have men about me that are fat," &c. Act I. sc. 2. Had all the conspirators been as deeply impressed with the overwhelming importance of their enterprize as Brutus was, the momentous secret must have been divulged, since even the constancy of the philosopher was scarcely able to maintain an exterior indifference, while his mind was oppressed by the difficulties that surrounded him :-"when he was out of his house, he did so frame and fashion his countenance and lookes, that no man could discerne he had any thing to trouble his mind. But when night came that he was in his owne house, then he was cleane changed for, either care did wake him against his will when he would have slept, or else oftentimes of himself he fell into such deepe thoughts of his enterprize, casting in his mind all the dangers that might happen."* How intense Shakspeare intended to represent the feelings of his hero, may partly be seen, as in Plutarch, from what his wife, Portia, alleges of him; but far more impressively from Brutus' description of his mental anxiety in the fearful interval between the formation of his resolution and its execution.† The patriot's injunctions to his associates, with regard to the manner of their * Life of Brutus, p. 996. "Between the acting of a dreadful thing," &c. Act II. sc. 1. behaviour, are formed upon Plutarch's description of Brutus' own conduct. * The biographer is fertile in instances of the command maintained by Brutus over himself when the execution of his enterprise arrived. Shakspeare confines himself to one, that in which Popilius Lena displays his knowledge of the conspiracy.† Deficient in that nobleness of mind which conferred on the most questionable of Brutus' actions the character of virtue, the enterprising spirit of Cassius gave him an importance to which the purity of his motives by no means entitled him. "Marvellous cholericke and cruell,” he himself panted for the possession of that uncontrolled sway to which he was a declared enemy in others, it being "certainly thought that he made warre, and put himself into sundrie dangers, more to have absolute power and authoritie than to defend the liberty of his countre." His hatred of Cæsar was rather the result of personal pique than patriotism, “hating Cæsar privately, more than he did the tyrannie openly:" so that whereas Brutus hated the tyranny, "Cassius hated the tyrant."‡ "Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily," &c. Act II. sc. 1. +"I wish your enterprize to day may thrive." Life of Brutus, p. 994. 1003. Act III. sc. 1. Shakspeare has very artfully contrived to give a more favourable portrait of Cassius than that which the page of history warrants, without, however, so misrepresenting him as to destroy the identity of his character. With reference to dramatic effect, indeed, some change was necessary: Brutus could only, with propriety, be associated, in private friendship and in public undertakings, with a man who, in outward appearance at least, possessed some claims to equality with him. The poet, therefore, suppressed the vindictiveness, cruelty, and tyranny of Cassius, and gave the utmost effect to the fire and energy which characterised him, and particularly marked his abhorrence from living under the control of an arbitrary monarch.* speare has made Cassius' hatred of Cæsar sufficiently apparent; but so repeatedly is his love of liberty enforced, that the patriot, rather than the malignant avenger of his own wrongs, appears to strike against the tyrant. Shak The great political error of the life of Brutus was his gross mis-estimation of Marc Antony. To the mistake of sparing his life, in the first instance, and of suffering him to speak at the * "Indeed, they say," &c. to the conclusion of the scene. Act I. sc. 3. |