but it must be observed that he utters these derogatory sentiments in the presence of Brutus and Cassius without rebuke or protest on their part. They must, therefore, be held answerable for participating in them.

In the second scene of the second act, when several strange portents warn Cæsar not to go forth upon the 15th of March (the Ides of March) to the Senate-house, where the conspirators, fixed in their fell purpose, are awaiting him, he is entreated by his wife Calphurnia not to venture out of doors.

Nevertheless, Cæsar, in his sublime willfulness, goes forth, and holds his levee in the Senate-house. The conspirators make their opportunity to slay him, by pleading for the repeal of banishment against the brother of Metellus Cimber, one of their number. Metellus puts the first appeal. He is followed by Brutus and Cassius, who, considering their pretensions and the dark purpose which animates their hearts, address him in a not very worthy manner:

BRU. I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Cæsar;

Desiring thee, that Publius Cimber may
Have an immediate freedom of repeal.

CES. What, Brutus!

CAS.

Pardon, Cæsar: Cæsar, pardon;

As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,

To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.

CES. I could be well moved, if I were as you;

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;

But I am constant as the northern star,

Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there's but one in all doth hold his place:
So, in the world: 'Tis furnish'd well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive.
Yet, in the number, I do know but one

That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshak'd of motion: and, that I am he,

Let me a little show it, even in this:

That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

CIN. O Cæsar,—

CES.

Hence! Wilt thou lift up Olympus?

DEO. Great Cæsar,-
CAS.

Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA. Speak, hands, for me.

[CASCA stabs CESAR in the neck. CESAR catches hold of his arm. He is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by MARous Brutus.

Cæs. Et tu, Brute?
[Dies.

Then fall, Cæsar.

The senators and people retire in confusion.
CIN. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
CAS. Some to the common pulpits, and cry out,
Liberty, freedom, enfranchisement!

BRU. People, and senators! be not affrighted;
Fly not; stand still:-ambition's debt is paid.

Then follow the wonderful appeals made by Brutus and Mark Antony to the people, in which the masses are represented by our author to be base, ignorant, and changeful (accordingly as they are swayed by the accents of the respective orators), and he makes them wind up by tearing to pieces a harmless poet who goes by because he happens to bear the name of one of the conspirators. It will be perceived by the last of the above extracts that it is Casca, the bitter contemner of the laboring classes, and Cinna, and not Brutus or Cassius, who utter these misleading cries for liberty, only to inflame and mislead the people.

Another poet is introduced in the fourth act, at the end of the famous quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, who, though he forces himself upon them with the worthy purpose of reconciling the angry conflict between the two kinsmen, is most contemptuously received, and ignominiously disposed of:

Enter POET.

CAS. How now! What's the matter?

POET. For shame, you generals! what do you mean?

Love, and be friends, as two such men should be:
For I have seen more years, I am sure, than ye.

CAS. Ha, ha; how vilely doth this cynic rhyme!
BRU. Get you hence, sirrah; saucy fellow, hence.
CAS. Bear with him, Brutus; 'tis his fashion.
BRU. I'll know his humour, when he knows his time:
What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
Companion, hence.

[Exit POET.

It is difficult to conceive what object Shakespeare has in snubbing this innocent mediator, except it be, as in "Timon of Athens," to degrade the occupation of a poet. This might be natural in Bacon, but it seems very strange in Shakespeare; therefore, as far as it goes, it scores a point, light though it be, for the Baconians.

At the end of the fourth act, Mark Antony, taking advantage of the success which he has gained through his oration to the people, makes a political combination with Octavius Cæsar, a son of Cæsar's niece, whom he had made his heir, and with Lepidus, Cæsar's Master of Horse. These three declared themselves, in triplicate, the masters of the world. In the fifth act, Brutus and Cassius (according to the play) raise an army to confront the new triumvirs. The general conflict takes place at Philippi, where Brutus and Cassius, being defeated, commit suicide by falling upon their own swords. No Catholic scruple is here interposed by Shakespeare as to "the canon 'gainst self-slaughter," so it might seem that our poet, after all his preference for Brutus, intends that rebellion, even for any form of liberty, shall be punished by endless torment in a future state. Lord Campbell finds no evidences in "Julius Cæsar" of the legal acquirements of Shakespeare.

แ ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA."

This play contributes but little to our inquiry. It was probably written in immediate connection with "Julius Cæsar" and "Coriolanus," and it carries the fortunes of Antony to their melancholy close. It consists of one long revel of luxury and passion with Cleopatra, that "serpent of old Nile," who having been, in turn, the mistress of Pompey and of Cæsar, died for Antony.

The first phrase we find worthy of our attention occurs in Scene 2 of Act I:

ANTONY.

Our slippery people (Whose love is never link'd to the deserver, Till his deserts are past) begin to throw

Pompey the Great, and all his dignities,

Upon his son.

OCTAVIUS CÆSAR.

Let's grant it is not

Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;

To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;

To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet

With knaves that smell of sweat: say, this becomes him.

This common body,

Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to, and back, and lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

POMPEY.

Act I, Scene 4.

What was it

That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire? And what
Made the all-honour'd, honest, Roman Brutus,
With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
To drench the Capitol; but that they would
Have one man but a man?

Act II, Scene 6.

This is only the same beauteous freedom of which we have heard Brutus and Cassius and Casca and Cinna discourse before. It simply means freedom for nobles from a king, and is no nearer true political freedom than the howl for liberty which Caliban set up in "The Tempest" was akin to an aspiration for popular enfranchisement. The liberty which the island monster sighed for was release from durance, such as might have been yearned for by a galley-slave. I mention this latter illustration only, because it is one of the four instances in which Shakespeare permits the words "liberty" and "freedom" to slip from his pen. In Act IV, Scene 4, an officer in Antony's Egyptian palace remarks to Antony:

"The morn is fair. Good morrow, general."

My comment upon this is, that the morn is always fair in Egypt. I have been assured by Egyptians that it never rains above Cairo, on the Nile, and so seldom at Alexandria (say

• Old residents of Egypt will tell us that it never rains at Cairo, and so they told me when I was there, in the winter of 1870; but, unfortu

six or seven times a year) that a fair sky is not a matter for remark. Bacon would not have fallen into this mistake.

ENOBARBUS (a follower of Antony, who has deserted him).
But let the world rank me in register

CLEO.
ANT.

ANTONY (to CLEopatra). Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!
Why is my lord enraged against his love?
Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,
And blemish Cæsar's triumph. Let him take thee,
And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians;
Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
For poor'st diminutives, for doits; and let
Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
With her prepared nails. [Exit CLEO.]

CLEO.

'Tis well thou'rt gone. Act IV, Scene 10.

Now, Iras, what think'st thou ?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shall be shown
In Rome, as well as I; mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,

Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
And forc'd to drink their vapour.

Act V, Scene 2.

And here falls the veil upon this astounding drama, leaving Cleopatra to be added to Cressida as the only two completed female portraitures that Shakespeare ever drew. They were not portraitures from the cold and studied pen of Bacon, but such only as could have sprung from the singular experience of a man of Shakespeare's life and nature.

LEGAL EVIDENCES.

In searching this play for evidences of the legal acquirements of Shakespeare, Lord Campbell remarks:

nately for the exactness of the statement, I was caught in a smart shower in Cairo, in March of that year, and was well wet through. It lasted but a few minutes, it is true, but I was assured afterward, on all sides, that such a thing had not happened for years before-the usual assurance, in all countries, of the "oldest inhabitant."