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Of honourable-dangerous consequence;

And I do know, by this, they stay for me

In Pompey's porch; for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir, or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the element,

In favour's 13, like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

Enter CINNA.

Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

Cas. "Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait:
He is a friend.-Cinna, where haste you so?
Cin. To find out you: Who's that? Metellus
Cimber?

Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate
To our attempts. Am I not staid for, Cinna?

Cin. I am glad on't. What a fearful night is this!
There's two or three of us have seen strange sights.
Cas. Am I not staid for, Cinna? Tell me..
Cin.

You are.

O, Cassius, if you could but win The noble Brutus to our party

Cas. Be you content: Good Cinna, take this

And look you lay it in the prætor's chair,

Yes,

paper,

Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
In at his window: set this up with wax
Upon old Brutus' statue: all this done,

Repair to Pompey's porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus, and Trebonius, there?

Cin. All but Metellus Cimber; and he's gone

To seek you at your house.

And so bestow these papers

Well, I will hie, as you bade me.

Cas. That done, repair to Pompey's theatre.

[Exit CINNA.

13 The old copy reads, 'Is favours. Favour here is put for appearance, look, countenance: to favour is to resemble.

Come, Casca, you and I will, yet, ere day,
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already; and the man entire,
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.

Casca. O, he sits high in all the people's hearts: And that, which would appear offence in us, His countenance, like richest alchymy,

Will change to virtue, and to worthiness.

Cas. Him, and his worth, and our great need of him,

You have right well conceited. Let us go,

For it is after midnight; and, ere day,

We will awake him, and be sure of him. [Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

The same.

Brutus's Orchard1.

Enter BRUTUS.

Bru. What, Lucius! ho!—

I cannot, by the progress of the stars,

Give guess how near to day.-Lucius, I say!-
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.-
When, Lucius, when?? Awake, I say: What,
Lucius!

1 Orchard and garden appear to have been synonymous with our ancestors. In Romeo and Juliet Capulet's garden is twice called orchard. The word was anciently written hort-yard; but it is a mistake to suppose this points at the Latin hortus. The word is from the Saxon optgeand, which is itself put for pyrtgeard, a place for herbs. In a subsequent scene of this play orchard is again used for garden:

he hath left you all his walks,

His private arbours, and new planted orchards

On this side Tyber.'

2 See vol. i. p. 25; and note on King Richard II. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Call'd you, my lord?

Bru. Get me a taper in my study, Lucius: When it is lighted, come and call me here.

Luc. I will, my lord. [Exit. Bru. It must be by his death: and, for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him, But for the general. He would be crown'd::How that might change his nature, there's the ques

tion.

It is the bright day, that brings forth the adder;
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?
That;-

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power: And to speak truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof*,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend5: So Cæsar may;
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

3 Shakspeare usually uses remorse for pity, tenderness of heart. 4 i. e. a matter proved by common experience.

5

'The aspirer once attain'd unto the top,

Cuts off those means by which himself got up:
And with a harder hand, and straighter rein,
Doth curb that looseness he did find before:
Doubting the occasion like might serve again;
His own example makes him fear the more.'
Daniel's Civil Wars, 1602.

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these, and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mis-
chievous,

And kill him in the shell.

Re-enter LUCIUS.

Luc. The taper burneth in your closet, sir. Searching the window for a flint, I found This paper, thus seal'd up; and, I am sure, It did not lie there, when I went to bed.

Bru. Get you to bed again, it is not day. Is not to-morrow, boy, the ides of March? Luc. I know not, sir.

Bru. Look in the calendar, and bring me word. Luc. I will, sir.

[Exit. Bru. The exhalations, whizzing in the air, Give so much light, that I may read by them.

[Opens the Letter, and reads.
Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake, and see thyself.
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!
Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake,-

Such instigations have been often dropp'd
Where I have took them

up.

Shall Rome, &c. Thus, must I piece it out;
Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? What!

Rome?

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome

The Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king.
Speak, strike, redress!-Am I entreated

6 As his kind,' like the rest of his species. Thus in Antony and Cleopatra:- You must think this, look you, the worm [i. e. serpent] will do his kind.'

7 The old copy erroneously reads, the first of March.' The correction was made by Theobald; as was the following.

:

To speak, and strike? O Rome! I make thee pro

mise,

If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus !

Re-enter LUCIUS.

Luc. Sir, March is wasted fourteen daysR.

[Knock within.

[Exit LUCIUS.

Bru. "Tis good. Go to the gate; somebody

knocks.

Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,

I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of man9,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection 10.

8 Here again the old copy reads, fifteen. This was only the dawn of the fifteenth when the boy makes his report.

9 The old copy reads:

'Are then in council, and the state of a man,' &c.

10 There is a long and fanciful, but erroneous note by Warburton on this passage, which is curious, as being one of his earliest comments on Shakspeare, addressed to Concanen, when, in league with Theobald and others, he made war against Pope. The following note, by the Rev. Mr. Blakeway, is quite of another character, and takes with it my entire concurrence and approbation :

'The genius, and the mortal instruments,' &c.

Mortal is assuredly deadly; as it is in Macbeth :

Come, you spirits,

That tend on mortal thoughts.'

By instruments, I understand our bodily powers, our members: as Othello calls his eyes and hands his speculative and active instruments; and Menenius, in Coriolanus, Act i. Sc. 1, speaks of the

cranks and offices of man,

The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins.' So intending to paint, as he does very finely, the inward conflict

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