Supplied with worthy men! plant love among us! 1 Sen. Men. A noble wish. Amen, amen! Re-enter Edile, with Citizens. Sic. Draw near, ye people. Ed. List to your tribunes; audience: Peace, I say. Cor. First, hear me speak. Both Tri. Well, say.-Peace, ho. Cor. Shall I be charg❜d no further than this present? Must all determine here? 1 Sic. Cor. I am content. The warlike service he has done, consider; Cur. Scars to move laughter only. 6 -plant love among us! Scratches with briars, Throng our large temples with the shows of peace, And not our streets with war!] [The old copy-Through.] We should read: Throng our large temples The other is rank nonsense. Warburton. The emendation was made by Mr. Theobald. The shows of peace are multitudes of people peaceably assembled, either to hear the determination of causes, or for other poses of civil government. Malone. pur The real shows of peace among the Romans, were the olivebranch and the caduceus; but I question if our author, on the present occasion, had any determinate idea annexed to his words. Mr. Malone's supposition, however, can hardly be right; because the "temples" (i. e. those of the gods) were never used for the determination of civil causes, &c. To such purposes the Senate and the Forum were appropriated. The temples indeed might be thronged with people who met to thank the gods for a return of peace. Steevens. 7 Well, say.-Peace, ho.] As the metre is here defective, we might suppose our author to have written: Well, sir; say on.-Peace, ho. Steevens.. Men. Consider further, That when he speaks not like a citizen, Com. Well, well, no more. Cor. What is the matter, That being pass'd for consul with full voice, Sic. Answer to us. Cor. Say then: 'tis true, I ought so. Sic. We charge you, that you have contriv'd to take From Rome all season'd office,1 and to wind Yourself into a power tyrannical; For which, you are a traitor to the people. Men. Nay; temperately: Your promise. Cor. The fires i' the lowest hell fold in the people! Call me their traitor!-Thou injurious tribune! Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths, In thy hands clutch'd2 as many millions, in Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say, Thou liest, unto thee, with a voice as free As I do pray the gods. Sic. Mark you this, people? 8 His rougher accents-] The old copy reads-actions. Mr. Theobald made the change. Steevens. His rougher accents are the harsh terms that he uses. Malone. 9 Rather than envy you.] Envy is here taken at large for malignity or ill intention. Johnson. According to the construction of the sentence, envy is evidently used as a verb, and signifies to injure. In this sense it is used by Julietta in The Pilgrim: "If I make a lie "To gain your love, and envy my best mistress, Rather than envy you.] Rather than import ill will to you. 1 season'd office,] All office establihsed and settled by time, and made familiar to the people by long use. Johnson. 2 clutch'd] i. e. grasp'd. So Macbeth, in his address fo the "air-drawn dagger:' "Come, let me clutch thee." Steevens. Cit. To the rock with him; to the rock with him!3 We need not put new matter to his charge: Peace. What you have seen him do, and heard him speak, Deserves the extremest death. Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death, For that he has Sic. The present reading is therefore formed out of the two copies. Steevens. 4 Envied against the people,] i. e. behaved with signs of hatred to the people. Steevens. 5 as now at last -] Read rather: has now at last. Johnson. I am not certain but that as in this instance, has the power of as well as. The same mode of expression I have met with among our ancient writers. Steevens. 6 not in the presence-] Not stands again for not only. Johnson. Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers From off the rock Tarpeian, never more To enter our Rome gates: I' the people's name, Cit. It shall be so, It shall be so; let him away: he 's banish'd, And so it shall be." Com. Hear me, my masters, and my common friends;-Sic. He's sentenc'd: no more hearing. Com. Let me speak : I have been consul, and can show from Rome,3 Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love My country's good, with a respect more tender, More holy, and profound, than mine own life, My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase, And treasure of my loins; then if I would Speak that Sic. We know your drift: Speak what? Bru. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd, As enemy to the people, and his country: It shall be so. It shall be so, it shall be so. Cit. It is thus used in The New Testament, 1 Thess. iv, 8: "He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man but God," &c. Steevens. 7 And so it shall be.] Old copy, unmetrically-And it shall be so. Steevens. 8 show from Rome,] Read—“ show for Rome." M. Mason. He either means, that his wounds were got out of Rome, in the cause of his country, or that they mediately were derived from Rome, by his acting in conformity to the orders of the state. Mr. Theobald reads-for Rome; and supports his emendation by these passages: Again: "To banish him that struck more blows for Rome," &c. "Good man! the wounds that he does bear for Rome." Malone. My dear wife's estimate,] I love my country beyond the rate at which I value my dear wife. Johnson. You common cry of curs!] Cry here signifies a troop or pack. So, in a subsequent scene in this play: As reek o' the rotten fens,2 whose loves I prize - You have made good work, "You and your cry.” Again, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Shakspeare and Fletcher, 1634: "I could have kept a hawk, and well have holla'd 2 As reek o' the rottens fens,] So, in The Tempest: "Ant. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen." Steevens. 3 1 banish you;] So, in Lyly's Anatomy of Wit, 1580: "When it was cast in Diogenes' teeth that the Sinopenetes had banished him Pontus, yea, said he, I them." Our poet has again the same thought in King Richard II: "Think not, the king did banish thee, "But thou the king." Malone. Have the power still To banish your defenders; till, at length, Your ignorance, (which finds not, till it feels,) &c.] Still retain the power of banishing your defenders, till your undiscerning folly, which can foresee no consequences, leave none in the city but yourselves, who are always labouring your own destruction. It is remarkable, that, among the political maxims of the speculative Harrington, there is one which he might have borrowed from this speech. The people, says he, cannot see, but they can feel. It is not much to the honour of the people, that they have the same character of stupidity from their enemy and their friend. Such was the power of our author's mind, that he looked through life in all its relations private and civil. Johnson. "The people, (to use the comment of my friend Dr. Kearney, in his ingenious LECTURES ON HISTORY, quarto, 1776,) cannot nicely scrutinize errors in government, but they are roused by galling oppression."-Coriolanus, however, means to speak still more contemptuously of their judgment. Your ignorance is such, that you cannot see the mischiefs likely to result from your actions, till you actually experience the ill effects of them.-In stead, however, of "Making but reservation of yourselves," which is the reading of the old copy, and which Dr. Johnson very rightly explains, leaving none in the city but yourselves, I have no doubt that we should read, as I have printed, "Making not VOL. XIII. M |