P 346. c. 1. l. 2. -can no more atone To atone, in the active sense, is to reconcile, and 18 so used by our author. To atone here, is in the neutral sense, to come to reconciliation To atone is to unite.

Id. 35. Upon the voice of occupation, Occu for mechanics, men pation is here used occupied in daily business.

Id. 1. 40. As Hercules, &c. A ludicrous allusion to the apples of the Hesperides.

Id. l. 44. Do smilingly revolt; To revolt smilingly is to revolt with signs of pleasure, or with marks of contempt.

Id. c. 2, 1. 21

you and your cry!] Alluding So in Hamlet, a com

to a pack of hounds. pany of players are contemptuously called a cry of players.

SCENE VIL

Id. l. 76. As is the osprey,

eagle, ossifraga.

P. 347. c. 1. 7. 2.

Osprey a kind of

whether 'twas pride. Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man; whether, &c.] Aufidius assigns three probable reasons of the miscarriage of Coriolanus; pride, which easily follows an uninterrupted train of success; unskilfulness to regulate the consequences of his own victories; a stubborn uniformity of nature, which could not make the proper transition from the casque or helmet to the cushion or chair of civil authority; but acted with the same despotism in peace as in war.

Id. 1. 10. As he hath spices of them all, not all.] i. e. not all complete, not all in their full

extent.

Id. l. 13.

he has a merit,

To choke it in the utterance. He has a merit, for no other purpose than to destroy it by boasting it.

Id . 19. "founder,"-MALONE.

noun 1.

Id e. 2. l. 7. He was not taken well; he had not din'd: &.; This observation is not only from nature, and finely expressed, but admirably befits the mouth of one, who in the beginning of the play had told us, that he loved convivial doings.

Id. l. 23. I tell you, he does sit in gold: He is enthroned in all the pomp and pride of imperial splendour.

Id 1 29. Bound with an oath. to yield to his the conditions: What he would do, i. e. conditions on which he offered to return, he sent in writing after Cominius, intending that he should have carried them to Menenius. What he would not, i. e. his resolution of neither dismissing his soldiers, nor capitu lating with Rome's mechanics, in case the terms he prescribed should be refused, he If bound himself by an oath to maintain. these conditions were admitted, the oath of course, being grounded on that proviso must yield to them, and be cancelled.

Subtle

writers. Id. 1. 72.

Id.c. 2, l. 6.

by himself,] i, e. by his own hands

SCENE III.

how plainly

I have borne this business.) That is, how openly, how remotely from artifice or cocealment.

Id. 1. 49. The sorrow, that delivers us thus chang'd, Makes you think so.] Virgilia makes a vo luntary misinterpretation of her husband's words. He says, These eyes are not the same, meaning that he saw things with other eyes, or other dispositions. She lays hold on the word eyes, to turn his attention on their present appearance. JOHNSON.

Id. 1. 56. Now by the jealous queen of heaven. That is, by Juno.

Id 1. 71. --on the hungry beach- The Aungry beach is the sterile unprolific beach.

P. 349, c. 1. l. 2. "curdied"-MALONE. Id. 1. 11. Like a great sea mark, standing every flaw,] That is, every gust, every storm. Id. 1. 30. That, if you fail in our request, That is, if you fail to grant us our request; if you are found failing or deficient in love to your country, and affection to your friends, when our request shall have been made to you, the blame, &c.

Id. 161. These wars determine :) i. e. conelade,

end.

Id. c 2, l. 16. the fine strains- The nice ties, the refinements.

Id 1. 18. And yet to charge thy sulphur-The meaning of the passage is, To threates mueb and yet he merciful.

Id. 1. 28. Like one i the stocks.) Keeps me in a state of ignominy talking to no purpose. Id. l. 44 Does reason our petition-- Does argue for us and our petition.

Id. 1. 62. say" is omitted by Mr. Malone, who considers heard as a dissyllable.

i

Id. l. 74. — a former fortuny.j e. restire myself to my former credit and power.

359

us with our own expenses; making the cost of war its recompense.

Id. 1. 60. For certain drops of salt,] For certain

tears.

Id. c. 2, l. 1. Auf. No more.] By these words Aufidius does not mean to put a stop to the altercation; but to tell Coriolanus that he was no more than a "boy of tears."

Id. l. 30. his fame folds in

This orb o'the earth.] His fame overspreads the world.

Id. 1. 31. judicious hearing.] Perhaps judicious, in the present instance, signifies judicial; such a hearing as is allowed to criminals in courts of judicature. Thus imperious is used by our author for imperial.

Id. l. 59 that ever herald

Did follow to his urn.] This allusion is to a custom unknown, I believe, to the ancients, but observed in the public funerals of English princes, at the conclusion of which a herald proclaims the style of the deceased. STEEVENS, Id. 1. 70. a noble memory.] Memory for memorial.

It appears from Peck's Collection of divers curious historical Pieces, etc. (appended to his Memoirs, etc. of Oliver Cromwell) p. 14, that Latin play on this subject had been written : Epilogus Cæsaris interfecti, quomodo in scenam prodiit ea res, acta, in Ecclesia Christi, Oxon. Qui Epilogus a Magistro Ricardo Eedes, et scriptus et in proscenio ibidem dictus fuit, A. D. 1582." Meres, whose Wit's Commonwealth was published in 1598, enumerates Dr. Eedes among the best tragic writers of that time. STEEVENS.

From some words spoken by Polonius in Hamlet, I think it probable that there was an English play on this subject, before Shakspeare commenced a writer for the stage.

Stephen Gosson, in his School of Abuse, 1579, mentions a play entitled The History of Cæsar and Pompey.

William Alexander, afterwards earl of Sterline, wrote a tragedy on the story, and with the title of Julius Cæsar. It may be presumed that Shakspeare's play was posterior to his; for lord Sterline, when he composed his Julius Cæsar, was a very young author, and would hardly have ventured into that circle, within which the most eminent dramatic writer of England had already walked. The death of Cæsar, which is not exhibited but related to the audience, forms the catastrophe of his piece. In the two plays many parallel passages are found, which might, perhaps, have proceeded only from the two authors drawing from the same source. However, there are some reasons for thinking the coincidence more than accidental.

A passage in The Tempest seems to have been copied from one in Darius, another play of lord Sterline's, printed at Edinburgh, in 1603, His Julius Cæsar appeared in 1607, at a

time when he was little acquainted with English writers; for both these pieces abound with scotticisms, which, in the subsequent folio edition, 1637, he corrected. But neither The Tempest nor the Julius Cæsar of our author was printed till 1623.

It should also be remembered, that our author has several plays, founded on subjects which had been previously treated by others. Of this kind are King John, King Richard II., the two parts of King Henry IV., King Henry V., King Richard III., King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Measure for Measure, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and, I believe, Hamlet, Timon of Athens, and the Second and Third Part of King Henry VI., whereas no proof has hitherto been produced, that any contemporary writer ever presumed to new model a story that had already employed the pen of Shakspeare. On all these grounds it appears more probable, that Shakspeare was indebted to lord Sterline, than that lord Sterline borrowed from Shakspeare. If this reasoning be just, this play could not have appeared before the year 1607. I believe it was produced in that year. MALONE.

The real length of time in Julius Cæsar is as follows: About the middle of February, A. U. C. 709, a frantic festival, sacred to Pan, and callen Lupercalia, was held in honour of Cæsar, when the regal crown was offered to him by Antony. On the 15th of March in the same year, he was slain. November 27, A. U. C. 710, the triumvirs met at a small island, formed by the river Rhenus, near Bononia, and there adjusted their cruel proscription.-A. U, C. 711, Brutus and Cassius were defeated near Philippi. UPTON.