undiscernible power he has converted the text into a drama, and made one of the most effective plays possible. Nowhere else has Shakespeare executed his task with such simple skill, combining his dependence on history with the greatest freedom of a poetic plan, and making the truest history at once the freest drama. "The play under consideration is a most striking variation on the theme of Hamlet and Macbeth, and gives us a new and remarkable proof of the depth and many-sidedness with which Shakespeare thought out and elaborated any problem he had once seized upon. A deed of greater weight than that demanded of Hamlet or planned by Macbeth is laid on this pattern of a manthe murder of a hero, who had increased the greatness of Rome as much as he had endangered her freedom. It is a deed of a nature doubtful in itself, which is required of him, not one decidedly right or decidedly wrong, like that to which Hamlet was called and to which Macbeth was tempted. The uncertainty, the doubt, the discord, lay in the other instances in the men themselves, here it lies in the thing itself, and is only from thence transferred to an even, clear, and right-judging mind. "Brutus is persuaded by his friends to take part in a murder and conspiracy, as he himself calls it; for the restoration of freedom, his task is to prevent an injustice as yet only apprehended on Cæsar's part; he desires the end, but only the means most necessary for attaining it; he takes the first step, but not the second and third; whereas he should either not have taken the first or he should also have taken the others. . . . "If Brutus erred more than Cassius in the means he employed in their undertaking, they both erred equally in the final aim of it. The restoration of the Republic was no longer possible; the people had become unfit for freedom. Shakespeare has not subjected this historical view to any discussion, unsuitable to a drama; but he found it in Plutarch, and with thorough understanding adopted it with artistic representation for his work of art. "Fortune, chance, Providence, says Plutarch, were against the republicans; it appeared as if the realm could no longer be governed by a plurality, but necessarily demanded one monarch. The gods had, therefore, given the people Cæsar as a mild physician, who was best fitted to restore them; this showed itself when, immediately after his death, they lamented him and would never forgive his murderers-as Shakespeare expresses it, when it pleased them to need the death of Brutus. "The poet has described this people according to Plutarch's view of them. First they shouted after Pompey, and when Cæsar came in triumph over Pompey's corpse, they shouted after Cæsar. Brutus kills Cæsar, and they shout after him also. . . . As soon as Antony advances, they begin to consider 'whether a worse may not come in Cæsar's place;' that another must come in his place, seems to be no longer a question. With such a people, Brutus's noble thought of restoration was but a lovely dream."-GERVINUS, Shakespeare Commentaries. "Shakespeare has in this play and elsewhere shown the same penetration into political character and the springs of public events as into those of everyday life. For instance, the whole design of the conspirators to liberate their country fails from the generous temper and overweening confidence of Brutus in the goodness of their cause and the assistance of others. Thus it has always been. Those who mean well themselves think well of others, and fall a prey to their security. "That humanity and honesty which dispose men to resist injustice and tyranny, render them unfit to cope with the cunning and power of those who are opposed to them. The friends of liberty trust to the professions of others because they are themselves sincere, and endeavor to reconcile the public good with the least possible hurt to its enemies, who have no regard to anything but their own unprincipled ends, and stick at nothing to accomplish them. Cassius was better cut out for a conspirator. His heart prompted his head. His watchful jealousy made him fear the worst that might happen, and his irritability of temper added to his inveteracy of purpose, and sharpened his patriotism. The mixed nature of his motives made him fitter to contend with bad men. The vices are never so well employed as in combating one another. Tyranny and servility are to be dealt with after their own fashion; otherwise they will triumph over those who spare them, and finally pronounce their funeral panegyric, as Antony did that of Brutus. ... "The truth of history in Julius Cæsar is very ably worked up with dramatic effect. The councils of generals, the doubtful turns of battles, are represented to the life. The death of Brutus is worthy of him; it has the dignity of the Roman senator with the firmness of the Stoic philosopher. But what is perhaps better than either, is the little incident of his boy, Lucius, falling asleep over his instrument, as he is playing to his master in his tent, the night before the battle. Nature had played him the same forgetful trick once before, on the night of the conspiracy. The humanity of Brutus is the same on both occasions."-HAZLITT, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays. "Shakespeare's drama rests entirely upon the character of Brutus; and he has even been blamed for not having entitled his work Marcus Brutus instead of Julius Cæsar. But if Brutus is the hero of the play, the power and death of Cæsar form its subject. Cæsar alone occupies the foreground; the horror felt for his power, and the necessity of deliverance from it, fill the whole of the first part of the drama; the other half is consecrated to the recollection and consequences of his death. It is, as Antony says: Cæsar's spirit, ranging on revenge; and, that his sway may not be lost sight of, it is still his spirit which, on the plains of Sardis and Philippi, appears to Brutus as his evil genius. "The picture of this great catastrophe, however, finishes with the death of Brutus. Shakespeare desired to interest us in the event of his drama only as it related to Brutus, just as he presented Brutus to us only in relation to the event. The fact which furnishes the subject of the tragedy, and the character which accomplishes it, the death of Cæsar and the character of Brutus,—this is the union which constitutes Shakespeare's dramatic work, just as the union of soul and body constitutes life, both elements being equally necessary to the existence of the individual. Before the death of Cæsar was planned, the play does not begin; after the death of Brutus, it ends."-GUIZOT, Shakespeare and His Times. CÆSAR "Cæsar need not condescend to the ordinary ways of obtaining acquaintance with facts. He asks no question of the soothsayer. He takes the royal road to knowledge-intuition. This selfindulgence of his own foibles is, as it were, symbolized by his physical infirmity, which he admits in lordly fashion-‘Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf.' Cæsar is entitled to own such a foible as deafness; it may pass well with Cæsar. If men would have him hear them, let them come to his right ear. Meanwhile, things may be whispered which it were well for him if he strained an earright or left to catch. In Shakespeare's rendering of the character of Cæsar, which has considerably bewildered his critics, one thought of the poet would seem to be this: that unless a man continually keeps himself in relation with facts, and with his present person and character, he may become to himself legendary and mythical. The real man Cæsar disappears for himself under the greatness of the Cæsar myth. He forgets himself as he actually is, and knows only the vast legendary power named Cæsar. He is a numen to himself, speaking of Cæsar in the third person, as if of some power above and behind his consciousness. And at this very momentso ironical is the time-spirit-Cassius is cruelly insisting to Brutus upon all those infirmities which prove this god no more than a pitiful mortal. . . "It is the spirit of Cæsar which is the dominant power of the tragedy; against this-the spirit of Cæsar-Brutus fought; but Brutus, who forever errs in practical politics, succeeded only in striking down Cæsar's body; he who had been weak now rises as pure spirit, strong and terrible, and avenges himself upon the conspirators. The ghost of Cæsar (designated by Plutarch only the 'evill spirit' of Brutus), which appears on the night before the battle of Philippi, serves as a kind of visible symbol of the vast posthumous power of the dictator. ... Finally, the little effort of the aristocrat republicans sinks to the ground foiled and crushed by the force which they had hoped to abolish with one violent blow. . . . Brutus dies; and Octavius lives to reap the fruit whose seed had been sown by his great predecessor. With strict propriety, therefore, the play bears the name of Julius Cæsar." -DOWDEN, Shakespeare, His Mind and Art. BRUTUS AND CASSIUS "Shakespeare has scarcely created anything more splendid than the relation in which he has placed Cassius to Brutus. Closely as he has followed Plutarch, the poet has by slight alterations skilfully placed this character, even more than the historian has done, in the sharpest contrast to Brutus-the clever, politic revolutionist opposed to the man of noble soul and moral nature. ... "According to Plutarch, public opinion distinguished between Brutus and Cassius thus: that it was said that Brutus hated tyranny, Cassius tyrants; yet, adds the historian, the latter was inspired with a universal hatred of tyranny also. Thus has Shakespeare represented him. His Cassius is imbued with a thorough love of freedom and equality; he groans under the prospect of a monarchical time more than the others; he does not bear this burden with thoughtful patience like Brutus, but his ingenious mind strives with natural opposition to throw it off. . . . With his hatred of tyrants there is mixed the envy of Cæsar belonging to the more meanly endowed man; he remembers that he had once saved the life of the emperor in a swimming match, that he had seen him sick and subject to human infirmities, and now he is to bow before this man as before a god, he is to see him 'bestride the narrow world, like a Colossus,' while 'petty men walk under his huge legs.' He seems inclined to measure rank by bodily strength rather than by power of mind. . . . ... "The difference, therefore, between his nature and the character of Brutus comes out on every occasion: Brutus appears throughout just as humanely noble as Cassius is politically superior; each |
