ENGLISH CLASSICS BIBLIOTECA J. ROVIRALTA BORROLL BARCELONA JULIUS CÆSAR W. A. WRIGHT J. ROVIRALTA BORRELL MÉDICO CIRUJANO Travesera, núm. 20, 1° a SHAKESPEARE SELECT PLAYS JULIUS CÆSAR EDITED BY WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT, M. A. HON. D. C. L. AND LL.D. FELLOW, AND VICE-MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS MDCCCCI [All rights reserved] PREFACE. THE Tragedy of Julius Cæsar appeared for the first time in the folio edition of Shakespeare's Works which was brought out by Heminge and Condell the players in 1623. If it was printed earlier than this no copies are known to survive. But the play was probably written at least twenty years before. Malone fixed upon 1607 as the date, mainly on the ground that a play called The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar was in that year published by William Alexander of Menstrie, afterwards Earl of Stirling, who he thinks would have been unlikely to attempt such a subject if it had been already handled by Shakespeare. On the other hand he considers that Julius Cæsar was written before Antony and Cleopatra, which was entered at Stationers' Hall, May 2, 1608. 'Not to insist,' he says, 'on the chronology of the story, which would naturally suggest this subject to our author before the other, in Julius Cæsar Shakespeare does not seem to have been thoroughly possessed of Antony's character. He has indeed marked one or two of the striking features of it, but Antony is not fully delineated till he appears in that play which takes its name from him and Cleopatra. The rough sketch would naturally precede the finished picture.' (Shakespeare, ed. Boswell, 1821; ii. 447, 448.) According to Mr. Collier (Shakespeare, vii. 5) there was an earlier edition of Lord Stirling's tragedy in 1604, but I have only been able to see that of 1607. The fact, however, is of no importance as regards the date of our play, to which Lord Stirling's work has not the smallest resemblance. Mr. Collier maintains that there is good ground for believing |