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on the chronology of the ſtory, which would naturally ſuggeſt this ſubject to our author before the other, in Julius Cæsar, Shakſpeare does not ſeem to have been thoroughly poſſeſſed of Antony's character. He has indeed marked one or two of the ſtriking features of it, but Antony is not fully delineated till he appears in that play which takes its name from him and Cleopatra. The rough ſketch would naturally precede the finiſhed picture.
From a paſſage in the comedy of Every Woman in her Humour, which was printed in 1609, we learn, that a droll on the ſubject of Julius Cæſar, had been exhibited before that year. “I have ſeen, (ſays one of the perſonages in that comedy) the City of Nineveh, and Julius Cæſar, acted by mammets.” Moſt of our ancient drolls and puppet-ſhews are known to have been regular abridgments of celebrated plays, or particular ſcenes of them, only. It does not appear that lord Sterline’s Julius Cæſar was ever celebrated, or even acted; neither that nor his other plays being at all calculated for dramatick repreſentation. On the other hand, we know that Shakſpeare’s Julius Cæsar was a very popular piece; Digges, a contemporary writer, having, in his com-
NOTES.
hibited in Julius Cæſar, and of the events there dilated and enlarged upon, as Shakſpeare would neceſſarily have acquired from having previouſly written a play on that ſubject:
Pompey. “I do not know
Wherefore my father ſhould revengen want,
Having a ſon and friends, ſince Julius Cæſar,
Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghoſted,
There ſaw you labouring for him. What was’t
That mov’d pale Caſſius to conſpire? And what
Made all-honour'd, honeſt, Roman Brutus,
With the arm’d reſt, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
To drench the capitol, but that they would
Have one man but a man?”
So, in another place,
“When Antony found Julius Cæſar dead,
He cry’d almoſt to roaring; and he wept
When at Philippi he found Brutus ſlain.”
Again,
Ant. He at Philippi kept
His ſword ev’n like a dancer, while I ſtruck
The lean and wrinkled Caſiius; and ’twas I
That the mad Brutus ended.”
