Searching the window for a flint, I found Bru. Get you to bed again, it is not day. Bru. Look in the kalendar, and bring me word. Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air, [Exit. [Opens the letter, and reads, Brutus, thou fleep'ft; awake, and jee thyself. Such inftigations have been often dropp'd Shall Rome-Thus must I piece it out; Shall Rome ftand under one man's awe? What! Rome? My ancestors did from the freets of Rome The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. Speak, ftrike, redress!-Am Ientreated To fpeak, and ftrike? O Rome! I make thee promife, If the redrefs will follow, thou receiveft Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus ! Re-enter LUCIUS. Luc. Sir, March is wafted fourteen days 3. [Knock within. Bru 2 Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March ?] The old copy has the firft of March. The correction was made by Mr. Theobald. The error muft have been that of a tranfcriber or printer; for our authour without any minute calculation might have found the ides, nones, and kalends, oppofite the refpective days of the month, in the Almanacks of the time. In Hopton's Concordancie of yeares, 1616, now before me, oppofite to the fifteenth of March is printed Idus. MALONE. We can never fuppofe the fpeaker to have loft fourteen days in his account. He is here plainly ruminating on what the foothfayer told Cæfar [A&t I. fc. ii.] in his prefence. [-Beware the ides of March.] The boy comes back and fays, Sir, March is wafted fourteen days. So that the morrow was the ides of March, as he fuppofed. For March, May, July, and October, had fix nones each, fo that the fifteenth of March was the ides of that month. WARBURTON. 3- March iswafted fo urteen days.] In former editions: [Exit Lucius. Bru. 'Tis good. Go to the gate; fomebody knocks. Since Caffius firft did whet me against Cæfar, I have not flept. Between the acting of a dreadful thing Sir, March is wafted fifteen days. Like The editors are flightly mistaken: it was wafted but fourteen days: this Are then in council; &c.] Dr. Warburton has written a long note, Dr. Warburton's pompous criticifm [on this paffage] might well have been shortened. The genius is not the genius of a kingdom, nor are the inftruments, confpirators. Shakspeare is defcribing what pafles in a fingle bosom, the infurrection which a confpirator feels agitating the little kingdom of his own mind; when the genius, or power that watches for his protection, and the mortal inftruments, the paffions, which excite him to a deed of honour and danger, are in council and debate; when the defire of action and the care of fafety, keep the mind in continual fluctuation and difturbance. JOHNSON. The word genius in our authour's time, meant either "a good angel or a familiar evil fpirit," and is fo defined by Bullokar in his Englifo Expofiter, 1616. So, in Macbeth: 46 - and, under him, "My genius is rebuk'd; as, it is faid, Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "Thy dæmon, that thy fpirit which keeps thee, is," &c. The more usual fignification now affixed to this word was not known till feveral years afterwards. I have not found it in the common modern fenfe in any book earlier than the Dictionary published by Edward Phillips, in 1657. Mortal is certainly ufed here, as in many other places, for deadly, So, in Othello: "And you, ye mortal engines," &c. The Like to a little kingdom, fuffers then The nature of an infurrection. Re-enter LUCIUS. Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Caffius at the door, Who doth defire to fee you. Bru. Is he alone? Luc. No, fir, there are more with him. Bru. Do you know them? Luc. No, fir; their hats are pluck'd about their ears, And half their faces bury'd in their cloaks, That by no means I may discover them The mortal inftruments then are, the deadly paffions, or as they are called in Macbeth, the "mortal thoughts," which excite each "corporal agent" to the performance of fome arduous deed. So, as Mr. Mason has obferved, in the play laft mentioned: "I am settled, and bend up "Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.” The little kingdom of man is a notion that Shakspeare feems to have been fond of. So, K. Richard II. fpeaking of himself: "And these fame thoughts people this little world." Again, in K. Lear: "Strives in bis little world of man to outfcorn Again, in K. Jobn: in the body of this fleshly land, "This kingdom,-." I have adhered to the old copy, which reads-the ftate of a man. Shakspeare is here fpeaking of the individual in whofe mind the genius and the mortal inftruments hold a council, not of man, or mankind, in general. The paffage above quoted from K. Lear does not militate against the old copy here. There the individual is marked out by the word bis, and "the little world of man" is thus circumfcribed, and appropriated to Lear. The editor of the fecond folio omitted the article, probably from a miftaken notion concerning the metre; and all the fubfequent editors have adopted his alteration. Many words of two fyllables are used by Shakspeare as taking up the time of only one; as whether, either, brother, lover, gentle, fpirit; &c. and I fuppofe council is fo ufed here. MALONE. There is a paffage in Troilus and Creffida, which bears fome refem blance to this: - imagin'd worth "Holds in his blood such swoln and hot discourse, •your brother Cassius-] Caffius married Junia, Brutus' fifter. STEEVENS. By By any mark of favour 7. Bru. Let them enter. They are the faction. O confpiracy! [Exit Lucius. Sham'ft thou to fhew thy dangerous brow by night, When evils are moft free? O, then, by day, Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough, To mafk thy monftrous vifage? Seek none, confpiracy; Hide it in fmiles, and affability: For if thou path, thy native semblance on, Not Erebus itself were dim enough To hide thee from prevention. Enter CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS. Caf. I think, we are too bold upon your reft: Good morrow, Brutus; Do we trouble you? Bru. I have been up this hour; awake, all night. Caf. Yes, every man of them; and no man here, Bru. He is welcome hither. Caf. This Decius Brutus. Bru. He is welcome too. Caf. This, Cafca; this, Cinna; And this, Metellus Cimber. Bru. They are all welcome. What watchful cares do interpofe themselves Betwixt your eyes and night? Caf. Shall I entreat a word? [They whisper. Dec. Here lies the eaft: Doth not the day break here? 7-any mark of favour.] Any diftinction of countenance. JOHNSON. 8 For if thou path, thy native femblance on,] If thou walk in thy true form. JOHNSON. The fame verb is ufed by Drayton in his Polyolbion, Song II: "Where, from the neighbouring hills, her paffage Wey doth Again, in his Epiftle from Duke Humphrey to Elinor Cobham: Cafca, Casca. No. Cin. O, pardon, fir, it doth; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are meffengers of day. Cafca. You fhall confefs, that you are both deceiv'd. Here, as I point my fword, the fun arifes ; Which is a great way growing on the fouth,, Some two months hence, up higher toward the north Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one. Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face of men 9, As 9 No, not an oath: If not the face of men, &c.] Dr. Warburton would read fate of men; but his elaborate emendation is, I think, erroneous. The face of men is the countenance, the regard, the esteem of the publick; in other terms, bonour and reputation; or the face of men may mean the dejected look of the people. JOHNSON. So, Tully in Catilinam :-Nibil borum ora vultufque moverunt ? Shakspeare form'd this fpeech on the following paffage in fir T. North's tranflation of Plutarch: "The confpirators having never taken oaths together, nor taken or given any caution or affurance, nor binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they kept the matter fo fecret to themselves," &c. STEEVENS. In this fentence, as in feveral others, Shakspeare, with a view perhaps to imitate the abruptnefs and inaccuracy of difcourfe, has conftructed the latter part without any regard to the beginning. "If the face of men, the fufferance of our fouls, &c. if these be not fufficient; if these be motives weak," &c. So, in the Tempest: "I have with such provision in mine art, If the text be Mr. Mafon would read-if not the faith of men-. Corrupt, faiths is more likely to have been the poet's word; which might have been cafily confounded by the ear with face, the word exhibited in the old copy. MALONE. ▪ Till each man drop by lottery.] Perhaps the poet alluded to the cuftom |