Like a phantafma, or a hide ous dream :
The genius, and the mortal inftruments,
Are then in council; and the ftate of man,
Like to a little kingdom, fuffers then
The nature of an infurrection.

Re-enter Lucius.

Luc. Sir, 'tis your brother Caffius at the door, Who doth defire to fee you.

care of fafety, keep the mind in continual fluctuation and difturbance. JOHNSON.

The foregoing was perhaps among the earliest notes written by Dr. Warburton on Shakspeare. Though it was not inferted by him in Theobald's editions, 1732 and 1740, (but was referved for his own in 1747) yet he had previously communicated it, with little variation, in a letter to Matthew Concanen in the year 1726. See a note on Dr. Akenfide's Ode to Mr. Edwards, and the end of this play. STEEVENS.

Initead of inftruments, it should, I think, be inftrument, and explained thus:

The genius, i. e. the foul or fpirit, which fhould govern; and the mortal inftrument, i. e. the man, with all his bodily, that is, earthly paffions, fuch as envy, pride, malice, and ambition, are then in council, i. e. debating upon the horrid action that is to be done, the foul and rational powers diffuading, and the mortal inftrument, man, with his bodily paffions, prompting and pushing on to the horrid deed, whereby the ftate of man, like to a little kingdom, fuffers then the nature of an infurrection,. the inferior powers rifing and rebelling against the fuperior. See this exemplified in Macbeth's foliloquy, and alfo by what King John fays, act IV:

"Nay, in the body of this fleshly land,

"This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,

Hoftility and civil tumult reigns

Between my conscience and my cousin's death." SMITH. • A phantafma,] Suidas maketh a difference between phantafma and phantafia, faying that phantafma is an imagination, or appearance, or fight of a thing which is not, as are thofe fightes whiche men in their fleepe do thinke they fee: but that phantafia is the feeing of that only which is in very deeds." Lavaterus, 1572. HENDERSON.

your brother Caffius-] Caffius married Junia, Brutus fifter, STEEVENS,

Bru.

Bru. Is he alone?

Luc. No, fir, there are more with him.
Bru. Do you know them?

Luc. No, fir; their hats are pluck'd about their

ears,

And half their faces bury'd in their cloaks,

That by no means I may difcover them
By any mark' of favour.

Bru. Let them enter.

They are the faction. O confpiracy!

[Exit Lucius.

Sham'ft thou to fhew thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then, by day,

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough,
To mask thy monftrous vifage? Seek none, confpi-

racy;

Hide it in fimiles, and affability:

2

For if thou path, thy native femblance on,

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Enter Caffius, Cafca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus, and Trebonius.

Caf. I think, we are too bold upon your reft: Good morrow, Brutus; Do we trouble you?

Bra. I have been up this hour; awake, all night. Know I these men, that come along with you?

Caf. Yes, every man of them; and no man here, But honours you: and every one doth wish, You had but that opinion of yourself,

Which every noble Roman bears of you.

1

of favour.] Any diftinction of countenance. JOHNSON. 2 For if thou path thy native femblance on,] If thou walk in thy true form. JOHNSON.

The fame verb is used by Drayton in his Polyclbion, Song II: Where, from the neighbouring hills, her paffage Wey doth path."

Again, in his Epiftle from Duke Humphrey to Elinor Cobham : "Pathing young Henry's unadvifed ways." STEEVENS.

VOL. VIII.

D

This

This is Trebonius.

Bru. He is welcome hither:
Caf. This, Decius Brutus.
Bru. He is welcome too.

Caf. This, Cafca; this, Cinna;
And this, Metellus Cimber.

Bru. They are all welcome.

What watchful cares do interpofe themselves
Betwixt your eyes and night?

Caf. Shall I entreat a word?

[They whisper.

Dec. Here lies the eaft: Doth not the day break

here?

Cafca. No.

Cin. O, pardon, fir, it doth; and yon grey lines, That fret the clouds, are meffengers of day.

Cafca. You fhall, confefs, that you are both de

ceived.

Here, as I point my fword, the fun arises;
Which is a great way growing on the fouth,
Weighing the youthful feafon of the year.
Some two months hence, up higher toward the north
He first presents his fire; and the high eaft
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

Bru. Give me your hands all over, one by one.
Caf. And let us fwear our refolution.

3

Bru. No, not an oath: If not the face of men,
The

3 No, not an oath. If that the face of men, &c.] Dr. War burton would read fate of men; but his elaborate emendation is, I think, erronecas. The face of men is the countenance, the regard, the efieem of the publick; in other terms, honour and reputation; or the face of men may mean the dejected look of the people.

He reads, with the other modern editions:
if that the face of men:

but the old reading is,

if not the face, &c. JOHNSON.

So, Tully in Catilinam-Nihil horum ora vultufque moverunt ?

STEEVENS.

4 No, not an oath.] Shakspeare formed this fpeech on the

following

The fufferance of our fouls, the time's abufe,→
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-fighted tyranny range on,

5 'Till each man drop by lottery. But if thefe,
As I am fure they do, bear fire enough

To kindle cowards, and to fteel with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any fpur, but our own caufe,
To prick us to redrefs? what other bond,
Than fecret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath,
Than honefty to honefty engag'd,

That this fhall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priefts, and cowards, and men cautelous 7,
Old feeble carrions, and fuch fuffering fouls

following paffage in fir T. North's tranflation of Plutarch "The confpirators having never taken oaths together, nor taken or given any caution or affurance, not binding themselves one to another by any religious oaths, they kept the matter fo fecret to themfelves, &c." STEEVENS.

'Till each man drop by lottery.] Perhaps the poet alluded to the custom of decimation, i. e. the selection by lot of every tenth foldier, in a general mutiny, for punishment.

He fpeaks of this in Coriolanus:

By decimation, and a tythed death,

"Take thou thy fate." STEEVENS.

• Swear priests, &c.] This is imitated by Otway:

"When you would bind me, is there need of oaths?" &c.

Venice Preserved.
JOHNSON.

-cautelous] Is here cautious, fometimes infidious.

So, in Woman is a Weathercock, 1612: "Yet warn you be as cautelous not to wound my integrity."

Again, in Drayton's Miferies of Queen Margaret:

اور

Witty, well-fpoken, cautelous, though young." Again, in the fecond of these two fenfes in the romance of Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, 1610:

66

a fallacious polycy and cautelous wyle.” Again, in Holinfhed, p. 945-the emperor's councell thought by a cautell to have brought the king in mind to fue for a licence from the pope." STEEVENS.

That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize,

Nor the infuppreffive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our caufe, or our perforrnance,
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood,
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a feveral baftardy,

If he do break the fmalleft particle

Of any promife that hath paft from him.

Caf. But what of Cicero? Shall we found him? I think, he will stand very strong with us. Cafca. Let us not leave him out.

Cin. No, by no means.

Met. O, let us have him; for his filver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's voices to commend our deeds:
It fhall be faid, his judgment rul'd our hands;
Our youths, and wildnefs, fhall no whit appear,
But all be bury'd in his gravity.

Bru. O, name him not let us not break with him;
For he will never follow any thing
That other men begin.

Caf. Then leave him out.

Cafta. Indeed, he is not fit.

Dec. Shall no man else be touch'd, but only Cæfar? Caf. Decius, well urg'd:-I think, it is not meet, Mark Antony, fo well belov'd of Cæfar,

Should out-live Cæfar: We fhall find of him
A fhrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well ftretch so far,
As to annoy us all: which to prevent,

Let Antony, and Cæfar, fall together.

Bru. Our courfe will feem too bloody, Caius Caffius, To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs; Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards: For Antony is but a limb of Cæfar.

Let us be facrificers, but not butchers, Caius.

We