which gives the terrible grace to Shakspeare's description :

Are then in council-
The genius, and the mortal inftruments,

For kingdoms, in the poetical theology, befide their good, have their evil geniuffes likewife, reprefented here, with the moft daring stretch of fancy, as fitting in council with the confpirators, whom he calls the mortal inftruments. But this would have been too great an apparatus for the intended rape of Marcia and desertion of Syphax and Sempronius.

Comparing the mind of a confpirator to an anarchy, is just and beautiful; but the interim compared to a hideous

death!

Mr. Guthrie, in his Effay on Tragedy, makes an excellent diftinction between a poet and a genius; a diftinction, of which this paraphrase must ever remind the reader. That nice critic, Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus, has obferved, that he could not find those great ftrokes, which he calls the terrible graces, any where so frequent as in Homer.' The fuccefs, perhaps, would be the same, if we fought for them in any other of our authors befide our British Homer, Shakspeare. This description of the condition of confpirators has a pomp and terror in it, that perfectly aftonishes. In the paraphrafe of Mr. Addison (whofe modefty made him fometimes diffident in his own genius, but whose exquisite judgment always led him to the fafelt guides) we are no longer to expect thofe terrible graces, which he could not hinder from evaporating in the transfufion. It has been justly observed, however, that the fubjects of these two confpiracies being so very different, (the fortune of Cæfar and the Roman empire being concerned in the firft, and that of a few auxiliary troops only in the other) Mr. Addifon could not, with that propriety, bring

fully natural, and lays the human foul fo open, that we cannot but be furprifed, that any poet, who had not himself been fome time or other engaged in a confpiracy, could ever have given fuch force of colouring to truth and nature.

Confpiracy.

Brutus. O Confpiracy! Sham'st thou to fhew thy dangerous brow When evils are most free? Q, then, by by night, day,

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough,

To

mask thy monftrous vifage? Seek
none, Confpiracy;

Hide it in fmiles and affability:
For if thou path thy native femblance
on*,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

Difguife and concealment are fo ab'horrent to the open ingenuity of his nature, that Brutus, juft and praifeworthy as he thinks the cause in which he is going to engage, on hearing that his friends are come to him muffled up at midnight, cannot refrain from breaking out into the above apoftrophe to Confpiracy.

Oaths unneceffary among honourable Men. Brutus. Give me your hands all over, one by one.

Caffius. And let us fwear our refolution. Brutus. No, not an oath: If not the

face of men

The fufferance of our fouls, the time's abufe

If thefe be motives weak, break off betimes,

And every man hence to his idle bed; So let high-fighted Tyranny range on, Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,

As I am fure they do, bear fire enough To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour The melting fpirits of women; then, countrymen,

What need we any fpur, but our own cause,

To prick us to redrefs? What other bond, Than fecret Romans, that have spoke the word,

And will not palter†? And what other oath,

Than honefty to honefty engag'd,

That this fhall be, or we will fall for it? Swear priests, and cowards, and men eautelous,

Old feeble carrions, and fuch fuffering fouls

That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes (wear

Such creatures as men doubt: but do not

ftain

The even virtue of our enterprise ‡,

Nor the infuppreffive mettle of our fpirits, To think, that, or our caufe, or our performance,

Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,

That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a feveral bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pafs'd from him.

The inutility of oaths to bind compacts between honourable perfons (to which, indeed, may be added their infufficiency to bind dishonest men) is well urged in this fpeech; and Brutus rifes far above his friend and affociate Caffius, when, with a noble difdain, he thus rejects his propofal of fwearing

deeds:

It fhall be faid, his judgment rul'd our hands;

Our youth and wildness shall no whit appear,

But all be buried in his gravity.

Brutus. O, name him not; let us not
break with him §,

For he will never follow any thing
That other men begin.

In this fpeech, Metellus Cimber, one of the confpirators, propofes to add Cicero to their league, and for a reafon apparently very good and prudent: but Brutus objects to this, on account of a trait in his character, which is not uncommon in life, and is juftly defcriptive alfo of the perfon to whom it is applied; who, though certainly a very great man, was, notwithstanding, very vain and felf-opinionated..

When that the poor have cry'd, Cæfar

hath wept :

Ambition fhould be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus fays, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did fee, that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice prefented him with a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refufe. Was this
ambition?

Yet Brutus fays, he was ambitious;
And, fure, he is an honourable man.
I fpeak not to difprove what Brutus
spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without caufe;

What cause withholds you then to mourn for him, &c.

the day in which he had gained a victheir enemics. He excites tender pity, tory over the Nervii, the fiercest of by mentioning the ftab given by his beloved Brutús. The remark that he fell as a victim at the foot of Pompey's ftatue, whom the lower fort confidered as of a party unfavourable to them, is another happy stroke in this piece. As the illiterate people are afraid of, being impofed upon by the arts of the learned and eloquent, he very judicioufly affures them he is no orator; while, on the other hand, the fickle humour of the populace, and the influence of eloquence upon their minds, bited *. are very naturally and truly exhi

It is with great regret that I find my limits will not allow me to proceed through the whole of this admirable fpeech. It may be confidered, indeed, as one of the fineft pieces of rhetoric that is extant. But I will imagine the reader to have it before him, and to confider that a popular addrefs and manner, in an oration defigned for the populace, must be deemed the most proper by the beft critics in the art of oratory, as well as by the beft judges of human nature. Is there any oration extant in which the topics are more fkilfully felected for the minds and tempers of the perfons to whom it is spoken? Does it not, by the most gentle gradations, arrive at the point to which it was directed? Antony firft fooths his audience, by affuring them, that Cæfar loved the poor, and sympathized with their diftreffes. By reminding them, that he had rejected the proffered crown, he removes, from their fhallow underftandings, all apprehenfion of that ambition in him, which the confpirators alleged as the motive of their act. After these managements, he proceeds farther, and tells them of Cæfar's will. There is a delicate touch in the obfervation, that Cæfar received the mortal wound in the mantle he wore on

Indications of Friendship cooling.

How he received you, let me be refolv'd.
Brutus. A word, Lucilius;
Lucilius. With courtesy, and with_re-
spect enough;

?

But not with fuch familiar inftances,
Nor with fuch free and friendly conference,
As he hath us'd of old.

Brutus. Thou haft defcrib'd

A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,

It ufeth an enforced
When love begins to ficken and decay,
There are no tricks in plain and fimple
ceremony.

faith:

Brutus having fent Lucilius with a meffage to Caffius, 'enquires, on his return, what reception he had met with, and, from his answer, draws the conclufion above. This paffage, indeed, may be added to the many inftances of our author's knowledge of human nature, collected from his clofe obfervations on mankind.

Difintereftredness.

your threats

For I am arm'd fo ftrong in honesty,
That they pals by me as the idle wind,
Which I refpect not.
I did fend to you
For certain fums of gold, which you deny'd

me;

and, befide thefe more general characteristics, he has added many nice touches, which fpecify his perfonal qualities. We behold on the stage the Marcus Brutus of Plutarch' rendered more amiable and more interefting.. A peculiar gentleness of manners, and delicacy of mind, diftinguish him from all the other confpirators; and we cannot refufe to concu. both with the confeffion of his enemies, and the character given above by Antony.

The principal object of our poet was to intereft the spectator for Brutus. To do this he was to fhew, that his

temper was the fartheft imaginable from any thing ferocious or fanguinary, and by his behaviour to his wife, his friends, his fervants, to demonftrate, that, out of refpect to public liberty, he made as difficult a conqueft over his natural difpofition, as his great ancestor, Lucius Junius Brutus, had done, in the like caufe, over natural affection. Clemency and humanity add luftre to the greatest hero; but, here, thefe fentiments determine the whole character of the man, and the colour of his deed. The victories of Alexander, Hannibal, and Cæfar (whether their wars were juft or unjuft) must obtain for them the laurel wreath, which is the ambition of conquerors; but the act of Brutus, in killing Cæfar, was of fuch an ambiguous kind, as to receive its denomination from the motive by which it was fuggefted: it is that which muft fix upon him the name of patriot or affaffin. Our author, therefore, evinces great judgment, in taking various opportunities to display the foftnefs and gentlenefs of Brutus. The little circumftance of his forbearing to wake the fervant, who had been playing to him on the lute, but was overcome by fleep, is very beautiful; for we cannot conceive, that he, whofe tender humanity refpected the flumber of his boy Lucilius, would, from malice or cruelty, cut fhort the important and illuftrious course of Cæfar's life.