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The Tragedy of

by producing a rival Cæsar play, in 1602, to Digges' striking tribute prefixed to the First Folio.[1]

After the Restoration, Julius Cæsar is one of the three Shakespearean dramas listed by Downes ('Roscius Anglicanus,' 1708) among the 'Principal Old Stock Plays' given by Killigrew's company in the 1660's. Charles Hart (d. 1683), grandson of Shakespeare's sister Joan, was the great Brutus of this period, and was succeeded by the famous Thomas Betterton (1635 ?-1710); it is Betterton's cast (see the frontispiece to the present volume) that is given in the six Quarto editions published between 1684 and 1691, evidently printed as playgoers' guides (cf. 'Quarto Editions of Julius Cæsar,' by Miss H. C. Bartlett, The Library, 1913).

It is worthy of note that Julius Cæsar is one of the few Shakespearean plays that escaped mutilation at the hands of so-called adapters or revisers, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the abortive efforts in 1719 and 1722 had no success or significance (cf. F. W. Kilbourne's 'Alterations and Adaptations of Shakespeare,' Boston, 1906). A plausible sketch by Miss C. Porter ('How Shakespeare Set and Struck the Scene for Julius Cæsar in 1599,' Mod. Lang. Notes, 1916) gives a pleasant glimpse into Elizabethan stage procedure, and William Winter's 'Shakespeare on the Stage' (Second Series, 1915) supplies many illuminating hints about the stage 'business' in succeeding and modern productions; while Brander Matthews ('Shaksperian Stage Traditions' in 'Shaksperian Studies,' Columbia Univ. Press, 1916) gives a spirited picture of the Meiningen company's remarkable presentation of the Forum scene and Antony's oration.

  1. The Shakspere Allusion-Book' lists ten (should be eleven? Digges, p. 318, is not indexed) references to Julius Cæsar down to 1649, and twenty-five more between 1650 and 1700.