The critics say that Shakspere makes Brutus express himself inconsistently. He will await the determination of Providence, but he will not go bound to Rome. Mr. Courtenay explains how "the inconsistency arises from Shakspere's misreading of the first speech; for Brutus, according to North, referred to his opinion against suicide as one that he had entertained in his youth, but had now abandoned." This writer in a note also explains that the perplexity consists in North saying I trust, instead of using the past tense. He then adds,-"Shakspere's adoption of a version contradicted not only by a passage immediately following, but by the event which he presently portrays, is a striking instance of his careless use of his authorities."* Very triumphant, no doubt. Most literal critics, why have you not rather confided in Shakspere than in yourselves? When he deserts Plutarch, he is true to something higher than Plutarch. In Brutus he has drawn a man of speculation; one who is moved to kill the man he loves upon no personal motive, but upon a theory; one who fights his last battle upon somewhat speculative principles; one, however, who, from his gentleness, his constancy, his fortitude, has subdued men of more active minds to the admiration of his temper and to the adoption of his opinions. Cassius never reasons about suicide: it is his instant remedy; a remedy which he rashly adopts, and ruins therefore his own cause. reasons against it; and he does not revoke his speculative opinions even when the consequences to which they lead are pointed out to him. Is not this nature? and must we be told that this nicety of characterization resulted from Shakspere carelessly using his authorities; trusting to the false tense of a verb, regardless of the context? "But he contradicts himself," says the critic, "by the event which he presently portrays." Most wonderfully has Shakspere redeemed his own *Commentaries on the Historical Plays,' vol. ii. p.255.

Brutus

speculative man is not only utterly subdued by adverse circumstances, but bowed down before the pressure of supernatural warnings, that he deliberately approaches his last fatal resolve. What is the work of an instant with Cassius is with Brutus a tentative process. Clitus, Dardanius, Volumnius, Strato, are each tried. The irresistible pressure upon his mind, which leads him not to fly with his friends, is the destiny which hovers over him:

"Bru. Come hither, good Volumnius: list a
word.

Vol. What says my lord?
Bru.

Why, this, Volumnius:
The ghost of Cæsar hath appear'd to me
Two several times by night: at Sardis, once;
And, this last night, here in Philippi fields.
I know my hour is come."

The exclamation of Brutus over the body of

Cassius is

"The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!"

Brutus himself is the last assertor of the old
Roman principles:—

"This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them."

The scene is changed. The boldest, perhaps the noblest, of the Roman triumvirs has almost forgotten Rome, and governs the Asiatic world with a magnificence equalled only by the voluptuousness into which he is plunged. In Rome, Octavius Cæsar is almost supreme. It is upon the cards which shall govern the entire world. The history of individuals is henceforth the history of Rome.

"Of all Shakspere's historical plays," says Coleridge, "Antony and Cleopatra' is by far the most wonderful." He again says, assigning it a place even higher than that of being the most wonderful of the historical plays, "The highest praise, or rather form of praise, of this play, which I can offer in my own mind, is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether the 'Antony and Cleopatra' is not, in all exhibitions of

a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of 'Macbeth,' 'Lear,' 'Hamlet,' and 'Othello.' The epithet "wonderful" is unquestionably the right one to apply to this drama. It is too vast, too gorgeous, to be approached without some prostration of the understanding. It pours such a flood of noonday splendour upon our senses, that we cannot gaze upon it steadily. We have read it again and again; and the impression which it leaves again and again is that of wonder. We can comprehend it, reduce its power to some standard, only by the analysis of a part. Mrs. Jameson has adopted this course in one of her most brilliant 'Characteristics of Women.' Treading in her steps timidly, we may venture to attempt a companion sketch to her portrait of Cleopatra. It is in the spirit of the play itself, as the last of the Roman series, that we shall endeavour to follow it, by confining ourselves as much as may be to an individual. We use the word in the sense in which Mr. Hare uses it, after some good-natured ridicule of the newspaper "individuals:"'—a man “is an individual, so far as he is an integral whole, different and distinct from other men; and that which makes him what he is, that in which he differs and is distinguished from other men, is his individuality, and individualizes him."+ The ANTONY of this play is of course the Antony of Julius Cæsar;'-not merely the historical Antony, but the dramatic Antony drawn by the same hand. He is the orator that showed dead Cæsar's mantle to the Roman people; he is the soldier that after his triumph over Brutus said, "This was a man." We have seen something of his

character; we have learnt a little of his voluptuousness; we have heard of the "masker and the reveller;" we have beheld the unscrupulous politician. But we cannot think meanly of him. He is one great either for good or for evil. Since he fought at Philippi he has passed through various fortunes: Cæsar thus apostrophizes him :

"When thou once

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

*Literary Remains,' vol. ii. p. 142.
Guesses at Truth.'

Did Famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,

Though daintily brought up, with patience

more

Than savages could suffer."

There came an after-time when, at Alexandria, "Our courteous Antony,

Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,

Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast. And, for his ordinary, pays his heart.” This is the Antony that Shakspere, in the play before us, brings upon the scene. Rome is to him nothing. He will not hear its ambassadors:

"There's not a minute of our lives should stretch

Without some pleasure now."

But "a Roman thought hath struck him." He does hear the messenger. Labienus has overrun Asia. He winces at the thought of his own inertness, but he will know the

truth:

"Where died she?"

The comment shows the man:

"There's a great spirit gone: Thus did I desire it."

We learn why he did desire it, in the scene with Cleopatra, in which he announces his departure. Often has he heard, from the same lips, the bitter irony of

"What says the married woman?" He has been bound to Cleopatra not only by her "infinite variety," but by her caprice and her force of ridicule. His moral power is as weak as his physical courage is strong Cleopatra paints the magnificent soldier and the infatuated lover in a few words :

"The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm

And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,

Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'

For so he calls me."

His cocks do win the battle still of mine, When it is all to nought; and his quails ever Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds."

his messenger :

"All the east,

Say thou, shall call her mistress."

"I will to Egypt."

The interview between Antony and Cæsar is most masterly. The constrained courtesy on each side-the coldness of Cæsar-the frank apologies of Antony-the suggestion of Agrippa, so opportune, and yet apparently so unpremeditated the ready assent of Antony-all this -matter for rhetorical flourishes of at least five hundred lines in the hands of an ordinary dramatist-may be read without a start or an elevation of the voice. It is solid business throughout. Antony, we might think, was a changed man. Enobarbus, who knows him, is of a different opinion. Wonderfully has he described Cleopatra; and when Mecenas says,

"Now Antony must leave her utterly," the answer is prophetic :—

"Never; he will not:

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety"

Against this power Enobarbus knows that the "beauty, wisdom, modesty," of Octavia will be a fragile bond. And Antony knows this himself. He knows this while he protests,

"I have not kept my square; but that to come Shall all be done by the rule."

And yet he is not wholly a dissembler. Shakspere has most skilfully introduced the soothsayer, at the moment when Antony's

moral weakness appears to have put on some show of strength. He found the incident in Plutarch; but he has made his own application of it:

"Be it art, or hap, He hath spoken true: The very dice obey him;

And in our sports my better cunning faints Under his chance: if we draw lots, he speeds:

"And though I make this marriage for my peace,

I' the east my pleasure lies."

The reckless short-sighted voluptuary was never drawn more truly. His entire policy is shaped by his passion. The wonderful scene in which his marriage with Octavia is made known to Cleopatra assures us that in the extremest intemperance of self-will he will have his equal. Cleopatra would have Antony unmarried,

"So half my Egypt were submerged, and made A cistern for scaled snakes." According to Enobarbus, the unmarrying will scarcely be necessary for her gratification:

"Eno. Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.

Men. Who would not have his wife so? Eno. Not he, that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony."

The drinking scene between the Triumvirs and Pompey is one of those creations which render Shakspere so entirely above, and so utterly unlike, other poets. Every line is a trait of character. We here see the solemn "unmeritable" Lepidus; the cautious Cæsar; the dashing, clever, genial Antony. His eye dances; his whole visage "doth cream and mantle;" the corners of his mouth are drawn down, as he hoaxes Lepidus with the most

admirable fooling ::

"Lep. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?

Ant. It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs," &c.

"Lep. "T is a strange serpent."

The revelry grows louder and louder, till "the Egyptian bacchanals" close the scene.

Who can doubt that Antony bears "the holding" the loudest of all?—

"As loud

As his strong sides can volley." These are not the lords of the world of the French tragedy. Grimm, who, upon the whole, has a leaning to Shakspere, says—“Il est assez ridicule sans doute de faire parler les valets comme les héros; mais il est beaucoup plus ridicule encore de faire parler aux héros le langage du peuple." To make them drunk is worse even than the worst of the ridiculous. It is impossible to define such a sin. We think, with Dogberry, it is "flat burglary as ever was committed." Upton has a curious theory, which would partly make Shakspere belong to the French school. The hero of this play, according to this theory, does not speak "the language of the people." Upton says-" Mark Antony, as Plutarch informs us, affected the Asiatic manner of speaking, which much resembled his own temper, being ambitious, unequal, and very rhodomontade. * * * * * This style our poet has very artfully and learnedly interspersed in Antony's speeches."+ Unquestionably the language of Antony is more elevated than that of Enobarbus, for example. Antony was of the poetical temperament a man of high genius-an orator, who could move the passions dramatically— a lover, that knew no limits to his devotion, because he loved imaginatively. When sorrow falls upon him, the poetical parts of his character are more and more developed ; we forget the sensualist. But, even before the touch of grief has somewhat exalted his nature, he takes the poetical view of poetical things. What can be more exquisite than his mention of Octavia's weeping at the parting with her brother?—

"The April 's in her eyes: it is love's spring, And these the showers to bring it on."

And, higher still :

*

That stands upon the swell at the full of tide, And neither way inclines."

This, we think, is not "the Asiatic manner of speaking."

Cold is Antony's parting with Octavia:"Choose your own company, and command what cost

Your heart has mind to."

Rapid is his meeting with Cleopatra. She "hath nodded him to her." The voluptuary has put on his Eastern magnificence:— "I' the market-place, on a tribunal silver'd, Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold Were publicly enthroned."

He rejects all counsel :-" I'll fight at sea.”
And so

"The greater cantle of the world is lost
With very ignorance."

Now comes the generosity of his characterof the same growth as his magnificence and recklessness. He exhorts his friends to take his treasure and fly to Cæsar. His self-abasement is most profound :

"I have offended reputation."

But he has not yet learnt wisdom. Cleopatra is present, and then—

"Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates

All that is won and lost: Give me a kiss;
Even this repays me."

He then becomes a braggart; he will challenge Cæsar, "sword against sword." Profound is the comment of Enobarbus:

"I see, men's judgments are

A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward
Do draw the inward quality after them,
To suffer all alike."

Cæsar's ambassador comes to Cleopatra. He
tempts her; and it almost looks as if she
yielded to the temptation. He kisses her
hand, at the instant Antony enters :-
"Moon and stars!

Whip him." This is partly jealousy; partly the assertion of small power by one accustomed to unlimited command. Truly Enobarbus says

""T is better playing with a lion's whelp,
Than with an old one dying."

A diminution in our captain's brain Restores his heart: When valour preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek Some way to leave him."

Enobarbus does leave him. But he first wit

Ant. My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body; here I am Antony;

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave."

The images describe the Antony melting into nothingness; but the splendour of the imagery is the reflection of Antony's mind, which, thus enshrined in poetry, can never become "indistinct,"-will always "hold this visible shape." Dryden has also tried to produce a poetical Antony, precisely under We transcribe a the same circumstances. passage: