ページの画像
PDF
ePub

judgment and genius of the artists. Brutus and Cinna are drawn in the fame fituation, confpiring against the foremost man of all this world in the one we have the features and complexion of a villain, in the other the high-finished form of a noble patriot.

UPON

UPON THE

DE AT H

O F

JULIUS CESAR.

UPON THE

DE A TH

OF

JULIUS CÆSAR.

TH

HE tragedies of Cinna, and Julius Cæfar, are each of them the reprefentation of a confpiracy; but it cannot be denied, that our countryman has been by far more judicious in his choice of the story. An abortive scheme, in which fome people of obfcure fame were engaged, and even in whom, as they are reprefented, the attempt was pardoned, more from contempt of their abilities and power, than the clemency of the emperor, makes a poor figure in contraft with that confpiracy, which, formed by the first characters in Rome, effected

[ocr errors]

the deftruction of the greatest man the world ever produced, and was fucceeded by the most memorable confequences. History furnishes various examples of base and treacherous natures, of diffolute manners, ruined fortunes, and loft reputations, uniting in horrid affociation to destroy their prince. Ambition often cuts itself a bloody way to greatnefs.Exafperated mifery sometimes plunges its defperate dagger in the breast of the oppreffor. The cabal of a court, the mutiny of a camp, the wild zeal of fanatics, have often produced events of that nature. But this confpiracy was formed of very different elements. It was the genius of Rome, the rights of her conftitution, the spirit of her laws, that rofe against the ambition of Cæfar; they steeled the heart, and whetted the dagger of the mild, the virtuous, the I gentle Brutus, to give the mortal wound, not to a tyrant, who had faftened fetters on his fellow-citizens, but to the conqueror, who had made the world wear their chains. one empire only remained unfubjected to them, and that he was preparing to fubdue.

« 前へ次へ »