And dangers are to me indifferent.

Cafea. You fpeak to Cafca, and to fuch a man, That is no flearing tell-tale. (6) Hold my hand: (7) Be factious for redrefs of all thefe griefs,

And I will fet this foot of mine as far,

As who goes fartheft.

Caf. There's a bargain made.

Now know you, Cafea, I have mov'd alreadyHogan Some certain of the nobleft-minded Romans, me

To undergo, with me, an enterprize

Of honourable dang'rous confequence;
And I do know, by this they ftay for me

In Pompey's Porch. For now, this fearful night,
There is no ftir, or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the elements

(8) In favour's, like the work we have in hand;
Moft bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

Enter Cinna.

Cafca. Stand clofe a while, for here comes

hafte.

one

Caf. "Tis Ginna, I do know him by his gait;

He is a friend. Cinna, where hafte you fo?

Cin. To find out you. Who's that, Metellus. Cimber?

Caf. No, it is Cafca, one incorporate

To our attempts.

Am I not ftaid for, Cinna? Cin. I'm glad on't. What a fearful night is this? There's two or three of us have feen ftrange fights? Caf. Am I not ftaid for? Tell me.

Cin. Yes, you are. O Caffius! if you could l But win the noble Brutus to our party

(6)-Hold my hand:] Is the fame as here's my hand. 21. (7) Be factious for redress Factious feems here to mean guide ofro

active.

(8) Is fev'rous, like the work+] The old edition reads, work

It favours,

I think we fhould read,

In favour's, like the work we have have in hand; V
Moft bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
Favour is look, countenance, appearance.

Caf

Caf. Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper, And look you lay it in the Prætor's chair, Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this In at his window; fet this up with wax Upon old Brutus Statue. All this done, Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us. Is Decius Brutus, and Trebonius there?

Cin. All, but Metellus Cimber, and he's gone, To feek you at your houfe. Well, I will hie, And fo beftow thefe papers, as you bade me. Caf. That done, repair to Pompey's Theatre. baile dhot 20

[Exit Cinna.

Come, Cafea, you and I will, yet,
ere day,
See Brutus at his houfe; three parts of him
Is ours already, and the man entire

Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

har b Cafca. O, he fits high in all the people's hearts; And that, which would appear offence in us, His countenance, like richest alchymy, zitandi muut Will change to virtue and to worthines, silvie

d

Caf. Him, and his worth, and our great need of him, kom

You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight; and, ere day,
We will awake him, and be fure of him.

[Exeunt

A CTIL

SCENE I.

BRUTUS'S Garden.

Enter BRUTUS.

BRUTUS.

W

HAT, Lucius how ede gall
I cannot by the progrefs of the stars,

Give guess how near to day

Lucius, I fay! -I would, it were my fault to fleep fo foundly When, Lucius, when awake, A fay; what, Lucius!

T

Enter

Enter Lucius.

Luc. Call'd you, my Lord?

Bru. Get me a taper in my ftudy, Lucius : When it is lighted, come and call me here.Dio Luc. I will, my Lord.

[Exit.

Bru. It must be by his death; and, for my part, el I know no personal cause to spurn at him;

But for the general. He would be crown'd;
How that might change his nature, there's the quef-
tion.
ob id f
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking: Crown him---that---
And then I grant we put a fting in him, in uw p62
That at his will he may do danger with.

Th' abuse of Greatnefs is, when it disjoins de
(9) Remorfe from Power: and, to fpeak truth of Cafar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reafon. But 'tis a (1) common proof,
That lowlinefs is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his faces
But when he once attains the upmoft round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, fcorning the (2) bafe degrees
By which he did afcend. So Cefar may:

Then left he may, prevent. And fince the quarrel
Will bear no colour, for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these, and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a ferpent's egg,
Which, hatch'd, would, (3) as his kind, grow mis-
chievous;

And kill him in the fhell.

Enter Lucius.

Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, Sir:
Searching the window for a flint, I found

(9) Remorfe from Power:] Remorse, for mercy.
(1) common proof,] Common experiment.
(2)bafe degrees] Low steps.

(3)—as his kind—] According to his nature,

WARB.

This paper, thus feal'd up: and, I am fure,
It did not lie there, when I went to bed.

[Gives him the letter. Bru. Get you to bed again, it is not day: (4) Is not to-morrow, boy, the Ides of March? Luc. I know not, Sir.

Bru. Look in the kalendar, and bring me word.
Luc. I will, Sir.

air,

Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the Give fo much light, that I may read by them.

[Exit.

[Opens the letter and reads.

Brutus, thou fleep' ft; awake, and fee thyself:

Shall Rome, Speak, ftrike, redress.

Brutus, thou fleep'ft: awake.

Such inftigations have been often dropt,
Where I have took them up:

Shall Rome,

-thus muft I piece it

out,

Shall Rome ftand under one man's awe? what!

Rome?

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome

"The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a King." Speak, ftrike, redrefs, am I entreated then

To fpeak, and ftrike? O Rome! I make thee promise, If the redrefs will follow, thou receiv't

Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus !

Enter Lucius.

Luc. (5) Sir, March is wafted fourteen days.

'','

[knocks within.

(4) Is not to-morrow, boy, the RIRST of March?] We should read IDES: For we can never fuppofe the fpeaker to have loft fourteen days in his account. He is here plainly ruminating on what the footh fayer told Cæfar [Act I. Scene 2.1 in his prefence. -Beware the Ides of March.] The boy comes back and fays, Sir, March is wafted fourteen days. So that the morrow was the Ides of March, as he fuppofed. For March, May, July, and October, had fix nones each, fo that the fifteenth of March was the Ides of that month. WARBURTON.

(5) In former editions,

Sir, March is wafted fifteen days.

The editors are flightly mistaken: It was wafted but fourteen days; this was the dawn of the 15th, when the boy makes his report.sess

THEOBALD.
Bru.

Bru. "Tis good. Go to the gate; fome body

knocks.

[Exit Lucius. Since Caffius firft did whet me against Cæfar,

I have not flept.
(6) Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
And the first motion, all the interim is

(6) Between the acting of a dreadful thing,

૩૪ (૩)

Like

And the firft motion, &c.] That nice critic, Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus, complains, that, of all kind of beauties, those great ftrokes, which he calls the terrible graces, and which are fo frequent in Homer, are the rareft to be found in the following writers. Amongst our countrymen it seems to be as much confined to the British Homer. This defcription of the condition of confpirators, before the execution of their defign, has a pomp and terror in it that perfectly aftonishes. The excellent Mr. Addison, whofe modesty made him fometimes diffident in his own genius, but whofe true judgment always led him to the fafest guides, (as we may fee by thofe many fine ftrokes in his Cato borrowed from the Philippics of Cicero) has paraphrafed this fine description; but we are no longer to expect those terrible graces which animate his original.

O think, what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their laft fatal periods.
Oh, 'tis a dreadful interval of time,

Fill'd up with horror all, and big with death.

Cato.

-I fhall make two remarks on this fine imitation. The first is, that the fubjects of the two confpiracies being fo very different, (the fortunes of Cafar and the Roman Empire being concerned in the one; and that of a auxiliary troops only in the other) Mr. Addifon could not, with propriety, bring in that magnificent circumstance which gives one of the terrible graces of ShakeSpeare's defcription;

The Genius and the Mortal Inftruments

Are then in Council

For Kingdoms, in the Pagan Theology, besides their good, had their evil Genius's, likewife, reprefented here, with the most daring ftretch of fancy, as fitting in confultation with the confpirators, whom he calls their Mortal Inftruments. But this, as we fay, would have been too pompous an apparatus to the rape and defertion of Syphax and Sempronius. The other thing obfervable is, that Mr. Addison was fo ftruck and affected with thefe terrible graces in his original, that inftead of imitating his author's fentiments, he hath, before he was aware, given us only the copy of his own impreffions made by them. For, Oh, is a dreadful interval of time,

346

Fill'd up with Horror all, and big with death, 18

are but the affections raised by fuch forcible Images as thefe,