The political reasoning, and still more, the political painting, with which CORIOLANUS abounds, appears to me to offer some good grounds for conjecture as to its date, which have not attracted the notice of former com mentators. With the exception of two or three transient risings of the people against the insufferable oppression of the nobles, there had never been in England any thing like a political struggle for popular rights until the last year of the parliament dissolved by King James in 1610, nor any thing like an election into which political principles were openly carried, as between the people and the prerogative of government, until that of the parliament of 1614. The former divisions of the English nation had turned either upon personal parties, like the wars of York and Lan caster, or upon the religious questions and collisions following or just preceding the Reformation. But from 1610, and especially about the time of the election of the second short-lived parliament of James I., and during its single session-for it presented the remarkable contrast to our modern legislation of not having passed a single law, having been dissolved in its first year-the rights of the commons were boldly and eloquently asserted, and the great writers and events of ancient liberty quoted and appealed to. The elections, too, had been held with unusual excitement; and great efforts had been made by the court, without success, to carry its candidates and defeat the champions of English liberty. Now, without at all supposing that Shakespeare meant to influence the public mind through the drama, it yet appears natural that his own mind should now for the first time have been directed to those topics that agitated the nation; while he was equally sure that his audience, whatever their political bias might be, would now find interest in political subjects and scenes to which, but a few years before, they would have been quite indifferent. His own observation, too, of electioneering movements might well have furnished him with much of that living truth in the exhibition of popular feeling, which could hardly have been drawn from books alone or general speculation without personal knowledge, and which gives a reality to his scenes of this kind, such as we look for in vain in the splendid dramas of Corneille or Voltaire, on the same or similar subjects. At least it is certain that, wide as had previously been the Poet's range of observation and exhibition of man individually and socially, it is only in the plays that may have been written after 1608 we perceive that the great topics of human rights and political policy had been much in his thoughts. In these, and especially in CORIOLANUS, (as Hazlitt remarks,) "the arguments for and against aristocracy or democracy, or the privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty and slavery, power and the abuse of it, are ably handled, with the spirit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher." Whether Hazlitt's inference be also true, that the Poet "had a leaning to the arbitrary side of the question," can be considered better by placing Coriolanus side by side with Brutus. (See JULIUS CESAR, Introductory Remarks.) The text of the original edition is in the main accurately printed, but here and there it appears as if printed from a manuscript with accidental omissions or obliterations. The text is, therefore, generally clear enough; but in four or five passages we must rely upon conjectural insertions or corrections, and in at least two of them, these are not at all satisfactory. Many of the editors, from Pope to Malone, have varied boldly from the old edition in altering the assignment of the dialogue to the several persons. Stevens, and those of his school, have laboured to regulate the dramatic freedom of the verse into the regular heroic measure of the epic. The present edition, like those of the last two English editors, has returned to the older readings, in both respects, with a few slight exceptions, where the correction seemed incontrovertibly right. 1 Cit. We are accounted poor citizens; the patricians good. What authority surfeits on, would relieve us if they would yield us but the superfluity, while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely; but they think, we are too dear: the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a gain to them.-Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. 2 Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius? All. Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty. 2 Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country? 1 Cit. Very well; and could be content to give him good report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud. 2 Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously. 1 Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud; which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue. 2 Cit. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. 1 Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations: he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other side o' the city is risen: why stay we prating here? to the Capitol! 2 Cit. Our business is not unknown to the senate: they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know, we have strong arms too. Men. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves? 2 Cit. We cannot, sir; we are undone already. Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your wants, Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them Against the Roman state; whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong link asunder, than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it; and Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack! You are transported by calamity Thither where more attends you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies. 2 Cit. Care for us?-True, indeed!-They ne'er Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it :— I' the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 2 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? 2 Cit. Your belly's answer? What! The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye, The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier, Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter, With other muniments and petty helps In this our fabric, if that they— Men. What then? 'Fore me, this fellow speaks!-what then? what then? 2 Cit. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd. Who is the sink o' the body, Men. Well, what then? 2 Cit. The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly answer? Men. I will tell you, If you'll bestow a small (of what you have little) Patience a while, you'll hear the belly's answer. 2 Cit. Y'are long about it. Men. Note me this, good friend; Your most grave belly was deliberate, Not rash like his accusers, and thus answer'd:-"True is it, my incorporate friends," quoth he, "That I receive the general food at first, Which you do live upon; and fit it is, Because I am the store-house, and the shop Of the whole body: but if you do remember, I send it through the rivers of your blood, Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain; And through the cranks and offices of man, The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins, From me receive that natural competency Whereby they live. And though that all at once, You, my good friends," this says the belly, mark me, 66 2 Cit. Ay, sir; well, well. Men. Though all at once cannot See what I do deliver out to each, Yet I can make my audit up, that all From me do back receive the flour of all, And leave me but the bran." What say you to't? 2 Cit. It was an answer. How apply you this? Men. The senators of Rome are this good belly, And you the mutinous members: for examine Their counsels, and their cares; digest things rightly, Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find, But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you, 2 Cit. I the great toe? Why the great toe? Men. For that being one o' the lowest, basest, curs, That like nor peace, nor war? the one affrights you; The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you, Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is To make him worthy, whose offence subdues him, And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness, Deserves your hate; and your affections are With every minute you do change a mind, matter, That in these several places of the city Would feed on one another?-What's their seeking? Men. For corn at their own rates; whereof, they say, The city is well stor❜d. give out Conjectural marriages; making parties strong, And feebling such as stand not in their liking Shouting their emulation. Men. Of their own choice: one's Junius Brutus, Mess. Where's Caius Marcius? |