p. 400.

p. 401.

SCENE III.

and did take it from him : 'Ensign,' or 'ancient,' was used of old, as now, to mean either the flag or him who bore it. Here, by a not very happy license, it is used at once for both.

"The last of all the Romans": - Rowe and many editors after him read, "Thou last," &c., which is specious. But here Shakespeare followed North's Plutarch very closely: "So when he [Brutus] was come thither, after he had lamented the death of Cassius, calling him the last of all the Romanes, being vnpossible that Rome should ever breede againe so noble and valliant a man as he: he caused his bodie to be buried," &c. Ed. 1579, p. 1076.

to Thassos send his body": The folio, "to Tharsus," &c. - a misprint for "to Thassos," (properly Thasos,) which Shakespeare found in North's Plutarch. "His funerals": - The plural was the commoner form in Shakespeare's day, and is generally used by him.

SCENE V.

"Hold thou my sword-hilts" :— As in the case of funerals,' the plural form was generally used.

some smack of honour": - The folio, "smatch" - a mere irregularity in the spelling of smack.' "His life was gentle; and the elements

So mix'd in him,” &c. : There is a likeness between this passage and the 40th stanza of the Third Book of Drayton's Barons' Wars, which appears in this form in the edition of 1603:

“Such one he was (of him we boldly say)

In whose rich soule all sovereign powers did sute,

In whom in peace the elements all lay

So mixt, as none could sovereigntie impute;

As all did gouerne, yet all did obey,

His liuely temper was so absolute,

That 't seem'd, when Heaven his modell first began,
In him it shew'd perfection in a man."

This stanza appeared unaltered in four subsequent edi-
tions; but in a fifth (in folio, 1619) it was given with the
following slight variations: -

"He was a man (then boldly dare to say,) In whose rich Soule the Virtues well did sute :

In whom, so mix'd, the Elements all lay,
That none to one could Sou'reigntie impute;
As all did gouerne, so did all obay;

He of a temper was so absolute,

As that it seem'd, when Nature him began,
She meant to shew all that might be in Man."

In the original version of the Barons' Wars, (Mortermeriados, 1596,) which Drayton entirely recast before 1603, there is no trace of this stanza. From these facts Malone concluded that " Drayton was the copyist [of Shakespeare] as his verses originally stood," and that in the altered stanza he certainly was." But even if the likeness between the passages in question must necessarily be the consequence of imitation on the part of one poet, it would not follow that Drayton was the copyist. For we know that Shakespeare was ready enough to take a hint or even a thought from any quarter; and a decision that he did not do so in this case (imitation being presumed) must rest upon the previous establishment of the fact that Julius Caesar was written before 1603; as to conclude, from the resemblance, that the play was produced before the recasting of the poem is to beg the question in the most palpable manner. But this resemblance implies no imitation on either side. notion that man was composed of the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water, and that the well-balanced mixture of these produced the perfection of humanity, was commonly held during the sixteenth, and the first half, at least, of the seventeenth century, the writers of which period worked it up in all manner of forms. Malone himself pointed out the following passage in Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, (Act II. Sc. 3,) which was acted in 1600, three years before the publication of the recast Barons' Wars: "A creature of a most perfect and divine temper, one in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency." And see the Mirror for Magistrates, Part I., 1575 :

For the

"If wee consider could the substance of a man
How he composed is of Elements by kinde," &c.
King Ferrex, Stan. 9.

And The Optick Glass of Humours: "Wee must know
that all natural bodies have their composition of the
mixture of the Elements, fire, aire, water, earth." p. 76.
See also Nares' Glossary, &c., and Richardson's English
Dictionary in v. Elements.' It is not improbable that
Drayton, in correcting his poem again for the edition of
1619, changed "Heaven his model first began to "Na-

ture him began with the passage from Julius Cæsar, consciously or unconsciously, in mind. But this is a matter of no present interest; for at the appearance of that edition Shakespeare had been dead three years; and the question is of importance only in relation to the date of the production of this play, on which account it would have been examined in the Introduction, were the point of sufficient consequence. Imitation of one poet by the other might have been much more reasonably charged by any editor or commentator who had happened to notice the following similarity between a speech of Antony's and another passage in the Barons' Wars:

"I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Shew you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me; but were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue

In every wound of Cæsar," &c. Act III. Sc. 2.

66

That now their wounds (with mouthes euen open'd wide) Lastly inforc'd to call for present death,

breath."

That wants but Tongues, your Swords doe giue them
Barons' Wars, Book II.
St. 38, ed. 1603.

Which was thus altered for the edition of 1619, in which it is a part of stanza 39:

"So that their Woundes, like Mouthes, by gaping wide, Made as they meant to call for present Death,

Had they but Tongues, their deepnesse giues them breath."

МАСВЕТН.

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Macbeth occupies twenty-one pages in the folio of 1623, viz., from p. 131 to p. 151 inclusive, in the division of Tragedies. It is divided into Acts and Scenes, but has no list of Dramatis Personæ. This was first supplied by Rowe

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