and he was one of the leaders by whom Brutus and Cassius were defeated at Philippi.

The Roman world, which Julius Cæsar had all but made his own, fell, at his death into the hands of three men-Antony, Octavius and Lepidus. But, in the nature of things, it had ultimately to become the property of one of the three; and the question was, which of them was to be the favourite of destiny. Lepidus had little chance: he was a weak man and a drunkard: this is how Antony and Octavius speak of him, when they are alone together:

This is a slight, unmeritable man,

Meet to be sent on errands: is it fit,

The threefold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it ?

Though we lay these honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,
He shall but bear them as an ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way;
And, having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load and turn him off,
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears

And graze in commons.

The chances of Octavius were better, though his powers

were not brilliant.

But Antony appeared to be the

man. Pompey says of him, "His soldiership is twice the other twain". Of his great past even Octavius, his rival, confesses:

Antony, when thou once

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slewest
Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did famine follow; whom thou foughtst against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer

thy palate then did deign

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like a stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The bark of trees thou browsedst; on the Alps,
It is reported, thou didst eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on; and all this
Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
So much as lanked not.

Agrippa said of him: "A rarer spirit never did steer humanity".

After Cæsar's death the third part of the world was his; and the chances were more than even that he might win the whole. But, when the play called by his name opens, he is in Egypt, bound captive by his unlawful passion for Cleopatra, the queen of that country. They are passing their time in lust and revelry, and he has forgotten home, honour and fortune. His affairs urgently require his presence in Italy, where

his rivals are profiting by his absence; but he cannot drag himself away from the sensual stye in which he is wallowing.

At last he hears of his wife's death and, by a desperate effort, quits Egypt and appears in Italy. Here he soon picks up the threads of his affairs and takes his proper place. He renews his alliance with Octavius by marrying his sister. But, in no long time, the fatal spell drags him back to Egypt again. The deserted Octavia returns to her brother, who at once prepares for revenge; and to revenge Octavia is at the same time to grasp Antony's share of the Roman world. They meet at the battle of Actium, where Cleopatra accompanies Antony, confusing his brain and thwarting his counsels by her presence. In the height of the action she suddenly takes to flight; whereupon he,

like a doting mallard,

Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.

When he has time to reflect, he is overwhelmed with shame and remorse; but, as soon as Cleopatra rejoins him, he is quickly comforted and pronounces her kiss or one of her tears to be worth all that is won or lost.

Octavius pursues the pair to Alexandria, where Antony, turning at bay, fights so desperately that for one day fortune promises to crown him with victory. But the voluptuary, thus encouraged, abandons himself, even in this crisis, to his passion :

Come,

Let's have one other gaudy night; call to me
All my sad captains, fill our bowls once more;
Let's mock the midnight bell.

The next day the ships of Cleopatra desert in the midst of the battle, and all is lost. Antony sees that she, who has so long vowed to him infinite love, has betrayed him, and he curses her false heart in the terms it deserves. There is for him only one way of escape from the intolerable humiliation of being led through Rome at the wheel of Octavius' car of triumph; and, as with his own hand he gives away his life, it is with the horrible conviction that she for whom he has sacrificed everything-duty, empire and life itself—is about to cast herself into the arms of his rival. Yet even at this point his infatuation returns: the suicidal blow having been so awkwardly inflicted as not to terminate his life at once, he crawls once more to Cleopatra's feet and dies begging for one last kiss.

It is an awful picture of the infatuation of passion and its fatal consequences. Antony is the Prodigal Son of Shakspeare's works, but a prodigal who never comes home.1

1 When our viciousness grows hard

Oh misery on't!-the wise gods seal our eyes;

In our own filth drop our clear judgments;

Make us adore our errors; laugh at's, while we strut

To our confusion.

-Act iii. Scene II.

From the rich materials accumulated in these three dramas many other features might be selected.

For example, the prevalence of suicide is noteworthy. An extraordinary number of the characters terminate their existence with their own hands. Even Brutus, who expresses himself as opposed to suicide on principle, resorts to it when his affairs appear to be in desperation. This was the Roman way; and it is a characteristic trait of heathenism, in which the sense of responsibility for life was imperfectly developed.

omens.

Another outstanding feature is the regard paid to Where faith in the loving providence of God is undeveloped, superstition seizes eagerly on any hints by which the will of the gods and the secrets of the future may be supposed to be indicated; and the demand for these signs brings forth the supply. Events like the death of Cæsar were supposed to be portended by signs in the heavens and unusual disturbances in the frame of the world; and Shakspeare renders these rumours with weird sublimity.

A feature which these ancient historical plays possess, in common with the modern ones, is a fondness for pageants. To Shakspeare nothing is more congenial than to describe a holiday, when some great general returns from the wars, and the city pours itself into the streets to meet him, the onlookers swarming up posts and crowding roofs, windows and other