That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs: unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,

Nor th' insuppressive mettle of our spirits,

To think, that or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood

That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,

If he doth break the smallest particle

Of any promise that hath past from him.

Is it not wonderful to see a poor player thus ennoble the sentiments, and give full expansion to the magnanimity of the man styled the Deliverer of Rome?

Mr. Voltaire is so little sensible of the noble delicacy of this speech, that he says the conspirators are not Romans, but a parcel of country-fellows of a former age who conspire in a tippling-house.-Surely there is no partiality in saying our author has given to Brutus Roman sentiments, with a tincture of the Platonic philosophy; and, besides

besides these more general characteristics, has added many nice touches, which specify his personal qualities. We behold on the stage the Marcus Brutus of Plutarch rendered more amiable and more interesting. A peculiar gentleness of manners, and delicacy of mind, distinguish him from all the other conspirators; and we cannot refuse to concur with the confession of his enemies, and the words of Antony.

ANTONY.

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.
His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man!

The following soliloquy, prophetic of the civil war, subsequent to the death of Cæsar, spoken by Antony addressing himself to the dead body, is sublime and solemn.

ANTONY.

O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man,

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men ;
Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife,
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;

Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile, when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of War:
All pity choak'd with custom of fell deeds;
And Cæsar's spirit raging for revenge.
With Até by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry Havock, and let slip the dogs of war.

This speech shews the secret enmity Antony bears to the conspirators, and prepares us for the inflammatory oration, which at the obsequies of Cæsar he pronounces before the people.I shall cite it at length, for as this tragedy has been brought by Mr.

Voltaire

Voltaire into a comparison with the Cinna of Corneille, and he is pleased to call our English piece a monstrous spectacle, and takes not the least notice of a speech which may be considered as one of the finest pieces of rhetoric that is extant, I am desirous to set it before the reader. It is presumed that he will hardly find any thing monstrous in its form, or absurd in its matter, but quite the reverse. I suppose a popular address and manner, in an oration designed for the populace, would be deemed the most proper by the best critics in the art of rhetoric.

ANTONY.

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! 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 ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cry'd, 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 with-holds 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 PLEBEIAN.

Methinks, there is much reason in his sayings, &c.

ANTONY.