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INTRODUCTION.

The Shake-spearean dramas are studies in human nature. With the exception of the "Tempest," which has a motive of its own, they develop each a special trait of character. In the "Julius Cæsar," the trait at the root of the action is Envy. In this play the underlying passion shows itself at the very first. Cæsar had been awarded a triumph for his victory in Spain over the sons of Pompey and their Roman adherents, his previous triumphs having been for victories over aliens only. This explains the opposition of the tribunes at the beginning of Scene I., and why it is introduced therein, that is to say, we see envy here at its birth. Hence we trace it onward as it widens and gathers strength for commission of the crimes whither it naturally leads, and we do not part with it until retributive justice has overtaken alike its agents and its dupes. The drama begins with the beginning of envy against Cæsar among the people of Rome; it ends with the punishment of envy at Philippi. I deem it safe to say that in no other form of composition, and on no other stage of human life, can the baneful influence of this trait be so strongly impressed as it is here on the mind of a reader, provided, of course, that the drama be rightly understood. It is moral philosophy teaching by the most potent of all methods -by example. We now see why editors of "Julius Cæsar," demanding a hero in it, have demanded in vain. The play has no hero. It is feigned history, in which historical incidents and characters are moulded to suit an unhistorical purpose. That is to say, it carries us into the domain, not of history, but of ethics. "Properly speaking," says Goethe, "there are no historical personages in poetry. When a poet wishes to represent the moral world as he has conceived it, he does certain individuals he meets

with in history the honor of borrowing their names for the beings he has created." Cæsar, accordingly, is not a man of flesh and blood in the play. No such man as Shake-speare has depicted him ever existed, and it is utterly futile, even in company with all editors and commentators, to pretend that he did. The Julius Cæsar in the play is but a travesty on Julius Cæsar as he was in life. In the play he is cowardly, pompous, domineering, insolent, the precise character combined with power to excite envy; in life he was the bravest of the brave, the possessor of the most powerful intellect, always sane and consistent with itself, ever bestowed upon the children of men.

The same distinction is observable in Brutus. In the play, a man commended by friend and foe alike as a model of probity and honor, a self-sacrificing lover of mankind; in life, a grinding merciless money-lender ; a husband, divorcing one wife to marry another; a cruel, rapacious governor of provinces; a military commander, promising his soldiers on the eve of a battle as the reward of victory the privilege of looting two large cities, not parties to the contest; and a republican citizen of Rome, who, down to the time of the conspiracy and amid his own loud professions of loyalty to the Republic, was an official and armed supporter of Cæsar against Cato. It was partly, no doubt, in light of these facts, that Dante viewed the character of Brutus, for he tells us that in his visit to the infernal regions he beheld Satan perpetually crunching between the jaws of three mouths, Brutus, Cassius and Judas Iscariot. Brutus hung head downward, writhing and howling.

Shake-speare, on the contrary, draws us a noble Roman, for the purpose of demonstrating before our eyes the power of envy in seducing him.

If I can in any measure turn the attention of readers to the architectural principles upon which these Shake-spearean structures were built, away from the now all-absorbing but frivolous inquiries

where the materials came from, I shall consider myself abundantly rewarded.

The opening scene in the streets of Rome, with the entire population of the city celebrating Cæsar's triumph, strikes the key-note of the play.

Cf. Bacon: "The times when the stroke or percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt are when the party envied is beheld in glory or triumph." Cæsar had already been honored with several triumphs, awarded him, however, in consideration of victories over foreign foes only. This one, somewhat reluctantly given, was in consideration of a victory over Roman citizens, over friends of Pompey and of Pompey's sons, at Munda, in Spain. Consequently it excited, perhaps for the first time in public, a feeling of envy against Cæsar among the citizens of Rome. That is to say, it was intended by the dramatist to mark the beginning of that animosity, that finally led to the assassination of Cæsar. We may now understand why the play is opened with a triumph, and especially with the Munda triumph."

Cf. Bacon: "The first rule in setting forth these examples of inquiry and invention, is to take each one of them up at its beginning and prosecute it to its end in order that the entire process of the mind therein may thus be duly exhibited."-DISTRIBUTIO SPERIO.

Bacon here means that the inaugurative works which he was purposing to write, as parts of his philosophical system, shall thus one by one, be complete. This applies, of course, to the passion of envy, which he considered the worst of all passions, even styling it "the proper attribute of the devil." The great object in all his writings, as he often said, was to restore mankind to its original state of happiness, in which, naturally, envy can have no place. Hence his desire to illustrate in every possible way its true character, thus: "The office of dramatic poetry is to educate men's minds to virtue."

EDWIN REED.

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