good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my ⚫ death.

CIT. Live, Brutus, live! live!

1 CIT. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

2 CIT. Give him a statue with his ancestors.

3 CIT. Let him be Cæsar.

4 CIT.

Cæsar's better parts

Shall now be crown'd in Brutus.3

This term, which cannot but sound disgustingly to modern ears, as here applied, Mr. Malone considers (see p. 219, n. 6,) as the language of Shakspeare's time; but this opinion, from the want of contemporary examples to confirm it, may admit of a doubt. It is true it occurs several times in our author, who probably found it in North's Plutarch's Lives, andtransferred a practice sanctioned by Lycurgus, and peculiar to Sparta, to Rome, and to other nations. It was customary in the former country for both males and females to select and attach themselves to one of their own sex, under the appellation of lovers and favourers. These, on one part, were objects to imitate, and on the other, to watch with constant solicitude, in order to make them wise, gentle, and well conditioned. "To the lovers" (says Mr. Dyer, in his revision of Dryden's Plutarch, Vol. I. p. 131,)" they (the elders of Lacedemon) imputed the virtues or the vices which were observed in those they loved; they commended them if the lads were virtuous, and fined them if they were otherwise. They likewise fined those who had not made choice of any favourite. And here we may observe Lycurgus did not copy this instruction from the practice observed in Crete, thinking without doubt such an example of too dangerous a tendency." See Strabo, L. X. Since writing this note I have met with several instances which satisfy me of the truth of Mr. Malone's observation. I therefore retract my doubt on this subject. REED.

3 Shall now be crown'd in Brutus.] As the present hemistich, without some additional syllable, is offensively unmetrical, the adverb-now, which was introduced by Sir Thomas Hanmer, is here admitted. STEEVENS.

1 CIT. We'll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours.

BRU. My countrymen,

2 CIT.

Peace; silence! Brutus speaks.

1 CIT. Peace, ho!

BRU. Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:
Do grace to Cæsar's corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Cæsar's glories; which Mark Antony,
By our permission is allow'd to make.

I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

[Exit.

1 CIT. Stay, ho! and let us hear Mark Antony. 3 CIT. Let him go up into the publick chair; We'll hear him :-Noble Antony, go up. ANT. For Brutus' sake, I am beholden to you.* 4 CIT. What does he say of Brutus ?

3 CIT.

He says, for Brutus' sake,5 He finds himself beholden to us all.

4 CIT. 'Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus

here.

1 CIT. This Cæsar was a tyrant.

3 CIT.

Nay, that's certain : We are bless'd, that Rome is rid of him.

4

2 CIT. Peace; let us hear what Antony can say.

- beholden to you.] Throughout the old copies of Shakspeare, and many other ancient authors, beholden is corruptly spelt-beholding. STEEVENS.

He says, for Brutus' sake,] Here we have another line rendered irregular, by the interpolated and needless words-He says. STEEVENS.

Peace, ho! let us hear him.

ANT. You gentle Romans,

CIT.

ANT. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men ;)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me :
But Brutus says, he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransomes did the general coffers fill :
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious}

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see, that on the Lupercal,

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;

And, sure, he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason!-Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me."

1 CIT. Methinks, there is much reason in his sayings.

2 CIT. If thou consider rightly of the matter, Cæsar has had great wrong.

3 CIT. Has he, masters? I fear, there will a worse come in his place.

4 CIT. Mark'd ye his words? He would not take the crown;

Therefore, 'tis certain, he was not ambitious.

1 CIT. If it be found so, some will dear abide it. 2 CIT. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.

3 CIT. There's not a nobler man in Rome, than

Antony.

4 CIT. Now mark him, he begins again to speak. ANT. But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might Have stood against the world: now lies he there,

"My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.] Perhaps our author recollected the following passage in Daniel's Cleopatra,

1594:

"As for my love, say, Antony hath all;

Say that my heart is gone into the grave

"With him, in whom it rests, and ever shall."

MALONE.

The passage from Daniel is little more than an imitation of part of Dido's speech in the fourth Æneid, v. 28 & seq:

"Ille, meos- amores

"Abstulit, ille habeat secum, servetque sepulchro."

STEEVENS.

And none so poor" to do him reverence.
O masters! if I were dispos'd to stir

you,

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men:
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar,
I found it in his closet, 'tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament,
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,)
And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,

Unto their issue.

4 CIT. We'll hear the will: Read it, Mark An

tony.

CIT. The will, the will; we will hear Cæsar's will.

ANT. Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;

It is not meet you know how Cæsar lov'd you. You are not wood, you are not stones, but men ; And, being men, hearing the will of Cæsar,

7 And none so poor-] The meanest man is now too high to do reverence to Cæsar. JOHNSON.

8 their napkins-] i. e. their handkerchiefs. Napery was the ancient term for all kinds of linen. STEEVENS.

Napkin is the Northern term for handkerchief, and is used in this sense at this day in Scotland. Our author frequently uses

the word. See Vol. VIII. p. 155,

n. 6.

MALONE.

n. 2; and Vol. X. p. 121,