The manner of his fpeech: for it cannot be,
We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
So differing in their acts. Yet, if I knew

What hoop fhould hold us ftaunch, from edge to edge
O' the world I would purfue it.

Agr. Give me leave, Cæfar,

Caf. Speak, Agrippa.

Agr. Thou haft a fifter by the mother's fide,
Admir'd Octavia: great Mark Antony
Is now a widower.

Caf. Say not fo, Agrippa2;

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
Were well deferv'd3 of rashness.

Ant. I am not married, Cæfar: let me hear
Agrippa further speak.

Agr. To hold you in perpetual amity,
To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
With an unflipping knot, take Antony
Octavia to his wife: whose beauty claims
No worse a husband than the best of men ;
Whofe virtue, and whofe general graces, fpeak
That which none elfe can utter. By this marriage,
All little jealoufies, which now feem great,

1 I do not much diflike the matter, but

The manner of bis fpeech:-] I do not, fays Cæfar, think the man wrong, but too free of his interpofition; for it cannot be, we shall remain in friendship: yet if it were poffible, I would endeavour it. JOHNSON. Say not fo, Agrippa;] The old copy has-Say not fay. Mr. Rowe made this neceffary correction. MALONE.

your proof

Were well deferv'd

which Mr. Theobald, with his ufual triumph, changes to approof, which he explains, allowance. Dr. Warburton inferted reproof very properly into Hanmer's edition, but forgot it in his own. JOHNSON.

The emendation is certainly right. The error was one of many which are found in the old copy, in confequence of the tranfcriber's ear deceiving him. So, in another fcene of this play, we find in the firft copy-mine nightingale, inftead of my nightingale; in Coriolanus, news is coming, for news is come in; in the fame play, higher for hire, &c. &c. MALONE.

And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
Would then be nothing: truths would be tales,
Where now half tales be truths: her love to both,
Would, each to other, and all loves to both,
Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke ;
For 'tis a studied, not a prefent thought,
By duty ruminated.

Ant. Will Cæfar speak?

Caf. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd With what is fpoke already.

Ant. What power is in Agrippa,

If I would fay, Agrippa, be it fo

To make this good?

Caf. The power of Cæfar, and His power unto Octavia.

Ant. May I never

To this good purpose, that so fairly fhews,
Dream of impediment!-Let me have thy hand:
Further this act of grace; and, from this hour,
The heart of brothers govern in our loves,

And sway our great designs!

Caf. There is my hand.

A fifter I bequeath you, whom no brother

Did ever love fo dearly: Let her live

To join our kingdoms, and our hearts; and never

Fly off our loves again!

Lep. Happily, amen!

Ant. I did not think to draw my fword 'gainst Pompey;

For he hath laid ftrange courtefies, and great,

Of late upon me: I must thank him only,

Left my remembrance suffer ill report*;

At heel of that, defy him.

Lep. Time calls upon us :

Of us must Pompey presently be fought,
Or else he feeks out us.

4 Left my remembrance fuffer ill report;] Left I be thought too willing to forget benents, I muft barely return him thanks, and then I will defy him. JoHNSON.

s Of us, &c.] in the language of Shakspeare's time, means-by us.

.

MALONE.

Ant.

Ant. Where lies he?

Caf. About the Mount Mifenum.

Ant. What is his ftrength by land?
Caf. Great, and increafing: but by fea
He is an abfolute mater.

Ant. So is the fame.

"Would, we had spoke together! Hafte we for it: Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we The bufinefs we have talk'd of.

Caf. With most gladness;

And do invite you to my fifter's view,
Whither straight I will lead you.
Ant. Let us, Lepidus,

Not lack your company.
Lep. Noble Antony,

Not fickness fhould detain me.

[Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR, ANTONY, and LEPIDUS. Mec. Welcome from Egypt, fir.

Eno. Half the heart of Cæfar, worthy Mecenas !-my honourable friend, Agrippa!

Agr. Good Enobarbus!

Mec. We have caufe to be glad, that matters are fo well digefted. You ftay'd well by it in Egypt.

Eno. Ay, fir; we did fleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

Mec. Eight wild boars roafted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve perfons there; Is this true?

Eno. This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feaft, which worthily deserved noting.

Mec. She's a moft triumphant lady, if report be fquare

to her ".

Eno. When the first met Mark Antony, fhe purfed up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.

Agr. There the appear'd indeed; or my reporter devis'd well for her.

6

Eno. I will tell you:

be fquare to ber.] i. e. if report quadrates with her, or fuits with her merits. STEEVENS.

The

The barge fhe fat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the fails, and fo perfum'd, that

The winds were love-fick with them: the oars were fil

ver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water, which they beat, to follow fafter,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all defcription: fhe did lie
In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tiffue,)
O'er-picturing that Venus, where we fee

The fancy out-work nature: on each fide her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like fmiling Cupids,
With diverfe-colour'd fans, whofe wind did feem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did 3.

Agr. O, rare for Antony!

Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,

7 O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see, &c.] Meaning the Venus of Protogenes mentioned by Pliny, l. 35, c. 10. WARBURTON.

And what they undid, did.] It might be read less harshly:

And what they did, undid. JOHNSON.

The reading of the old copy is, I believe, right. The wind of the fans feemed to give a new colour to Cleopatra's cheeks, which they were employed to cool; and what they undid, i. e. that warmth which they were intended to diminish or allay, they did, i. e. they feem'd to produce. MALONE.

9-tended ber i' the eyes,] Perhaps tended ber by the eyes, discovered her will by her eyes. JOHNSON.

So, Spenfer, Faery Queen, B. I. C. III.

he wayted diligent,

"With humble service to her will prepar'd;
"From ber fayre eyes be tooke commandement,
"And by ber looks conceited ber intent."

Again, in our authour's 149th Sonnet,

Commanded by the motion of thine eyes."

The words of the text may, however, only mean, they performed their duty in the fight of their miftrefs. So, (as Mr. Steevens, if I recollect right, once obferved to me,) in Hamlet:

"We shall exprefs our duty in his eye,
"And let him know fo." MALONE.

And

And made their bends adornings': at the helm
A feeming mermaid fteers; the filken tackle

Swell

And made their bends adornings:] "This may mean," (fays Dr. Warburton,) "her maids bowed with so good an air, that it added new graces to them."-Not choofing to encumber my page with fanciful conjectures, where there is no difficulty, I have omitted the remainder of his idle note.

A passage in Drayton's Mortimeriados, quarto, no date, may serve to illuftrate that before us:

"The naked nymphes, fome up, fome downe defcending,
"Small scattering flowres one at another flung,

"With pretty turns their lymber bodies bending,"

I once thought, their bends referred to Cleopatra's eyes, and not to her gentlewomen. Her attendants, in order to learn their mistress's will, watched the motion of ber eyes, the bends or movements of which added new luftre to ber beauty. See the quotation from Shakspeare's 149th Sonnet, above.

In our authour we frequently find the word bend applied to the eye. Thus, in the first Act of this play :

"thofe his goodly eyes

" now bend, now turn," &c.

Again, in Cymbeline:

"Although they wear their faces to the bent

"Of the king's looks."

Again, more appofitely in Julius Cæfar:

"And that fame eye, whofe bend doth awe the world."

Mr. Mafon, remarking on this interpretation, acknowledges that "their bends may refer to Cleopatra's eyes, but the word made must refer to her gentlewomen, and it would be abfurd to say that they made the bends of her eyes adornings." Affertion is much easier than proof. In what does the abfurdity confift? They thus ftanding near Cleopatra, and discovering her will by the eyes, were the cause of her appearing more beautiful, in confequence of the frequent motion of her eyes; i. e. (in Shakspeare's language,) this their fituation and office was the caufe, &c. We have in every page of this authour fuch diction.-But I fhall not detain the reader any longer on fo clear a point; especially as I now think that the interpretation of these words given originally by Dr. Warburton is the true one.

Bend being formerly fometimes ufed for a band or troop, Mr. Tollet very idly fuppofes that the word has that meaning here. MALONE.

The whole paffage is taken from the following in fir Thomas North's tranflation of Plutarch: "She difdained to fet forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the poope whereof was of gold, the failes of purple, and the owers of filuer, which kept stroke in rowing after the founde of the muficke of flutes, howboyes, eitherns, violls, and fuch other inftruments as they played vpon in the barge. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed vnder a pauillion

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of