was lost in the effeminate votary to sloth and sensual indulgence: "The triple pillar of the world transform'd Into a strumpet's fool". Such has history described the hero of the tragedy before us. The most repulsive feature in his character, cruelty, the dramatist has entirely suppressed, whilst he has taken frequent opportunities to enlarge upon, and give instances of, his courage, constancy, nobility, and generosity. In Julius Cæsar, indeed, Shakspeare has carried his partiality to Antony so far, that a sincere and amiable attachment to Cæsar is his prominent characteristic, and his vices are no more than lightly alluded to under the scarcely reprobative phrase, "Antony, that revels long o'nights," and, "a masker and a reveller." Not till our author exhibited Antony under the witchery of Cleopatra did he represent him as completely abandoned to voluptuousness. Shakspeare adopted the opinion of Plutarch that Cleopatra “did waken and stir up many vices yet hidden in Antony, and were never scene to any: and if any sparke of goodness or hope of rising were left him, Cleopatra quenched it straight, and made it worse than before."* It will be seen from Plutarch, that the instances given by Shakspeare of Antony's indolence and dissipation are not amusements which the probability of their occurrence suggested to the mind of the poet, but faithful copies of the tions of the historian: "From Alexandria grave asser This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes Sir Thomas North's account of the fishing party reflects more honour upon the divers than any others concerned in it: "On a time he went to angle for fish, and when he could take none, he was as angrie as could be ; because Cleopatra stood by. Wherefore he secretly commanded the fishermen, that, when he cast in his line, they should straight dive under the water, and put a fish on his hooke which they had taken before: and so snatched up his angling rod, and brought up a fish twice or thrise. Cleopatra found it straight, yet she seemed not to see it, but wondered at his excellent fishing: but when she was alone by herself among her own people, she told them how it was, and bad them the next morning to be on the water to see the fishing. A number of people came to the haven, and got into the fisher-boats to see this fishing. Antonius then threw in his line, and Cleopatra straight commanded one of her men to * Act I. sc. 4. dive under the water before Antonius' men, and to put some old salt-fish upon his bait. When he had hung the fish on his hooke, Antonius thinking he had taken a fish indeed, snatched up his line presently. Then they all fell a laughing." * Of this stroke of Cleopatra's wit, Shakspeare makes, in a subsequent passage, distinct mention: " 'Twas merry, when You wager'd on your angling; when your diver The notoriety of Antony's drunkenness and midnight revelry precludes the necessity of quotation from Plutarch; but it may not be amiss to produce our author's authority for so startling an allegation as "eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons there."† Philotas, a physician, being in Antonius' kitchen, saw a world of diversities of meats, and amongst others, eight wild bores rosted whole; he began to wonder at it, and said: 'Sure, you have a great number of guests to supper.' The cooke fell a laughing, and answered him: (quoth he), not many guests; not above twelve in all but yet all that is boiled or rosted must be served in whole, or else it would be marred straight.'" + * Life of Antonius, 924. + Act II. sc. 2. Life of Antonius, 928. No Shakspeare has very concisely expressed the disgust which Octavius would naturally feel at his coadjutor's degrading irregularities : "Let us grant, it is not Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit And keep the turn of tippling with a slave; To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet With knaves that smell of sweat: say, this becomes him, (As his composure must be rare indeed Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must Antony So great weight in his lightness."* I shall quote some passages from Plutarch in illustration of this account of Anthony. Furthermore, things that seeme intollerable in other men, as to boast commonly, to jest with one or other, to drinke like a good fellow with every body, to sit with the souldiers when they dine, and to eate and drinke with them souldierlike, it is incredible what wonderful love it wan him amongst them."+ Standing "the buffet with knaves that smell of sweat," has reference to another princely amusement in which Antony delighted. "Sometime, also, when he would go up and downe the city disguised like a slave in. the night, and would peere into poore men's windowes and their shops, and scold and braule with them within the house; Cleopatra would be *Act I. sc. 4. + Life of Antonius, 923. also in a chamber-maide's array, and amble up and downe the streets with him, so that often times Antonius bare away both mocks and blows." * In the first scene of the play, Antony proposes such an expedition to the beauteous partner of his pleasures: To-night we'll wander through the streets, and note Last night you did desire it: The extent and effect of Antony's fatal infatuation by Cleopatra, are forcibly stated in Plutarch: "Now Antonius was so ravished with the love of Cleopatra, that though his wife Fulvia had great wars, and much ado with Cæsar for his affaires, and that the army of the Parthians was now assembled in Mesopotamia, ready to invade Syria: yet (as though all this had nothing touched him) he yielded himselfe to go with Cleopatra into Alexandria, where he spent and lost in childish sports, (as a man might say) and idle pastimes, the most precious thing a man can spend, and that is, Time. For they made an order between them, which they called Amimetobion, (as much as to say, no life comparable and matchable with it) one feasting each other by turnes, and in cost exceeding all measure and reason." *Life of Antonius, 923. |