of the ftory, which would naturally fuggest this fubject to our author before the other, in Julius Cafar Shakspeare does not feem to have been thoroughly poffeffed of Antony's character.

He has

indeed marked one or two of the ftriking features of it, but Antony is not fully delineated till he appears in that play which takes its name from him and Cleopatra. The rough sketch would naturally precede the finished picture.

Shakspeare's making the capitol the fcene of Cæfar's murder, contrary to the truth of hiftory, is cafily accounted for, in Hamlet, where it afforded an opportunity for introducing a quibble; but it is not eafy to conjecture why in Julius Cæfar he fhould have departed from Plutarch, where it is exprefsly faid that Julius was killed in Pompey's portico, whofe ftatue was placed in the centre. fufpect he was led into this deviation from hiftory by fome former play on the fubject, the frequent repetition of which before his own play was written probably induced him to infert thefe lines in his tragedy:

How many ages hence

"Shall this our lofty fcene be acted o'er,
"In ftates unborn, and accents yet unknown?
"How many times," &c.

So, in another place:

"When Antony found Julius Cæfar dead, "He cry'd almoft to roaring; and he wept, "When at Philippi he found Brutus flain. Again:

Ant. He at Philippi kept

"His fword ev'n like a dancer, while I ftruck
The lean and wrinkled Caffius; and 'twas I
66 That the mad Brutus ended."

I

The accents yet unknown" could not allude to Dr. Eedes's Latin play exhibited in 1582, and therefore may be fairly urged as a prefumptive proof that there had been fome English play on this fubject previous to that of Shakspeare. Hence I suppose it was, that in his earlier performance he makes Polonius say that in his youth he had enacted the part of the Roman Dictator, and had been killed by Brutus in the capitol; a fcenick exhibition which was then probably familiar to the greater part of the audience.

፡፡

From a paffage in the comedy of Every Woman in her Humour, which was printed in 1609, we learn, that there was an ancient droll or puppetfhew on the subject of Julius Cæfar. I have feen (fays one of the perfonages in that comedy,) the city of Nineveh and Julius Cæfar acted by mammets. I formerly fuppofed that this droll was formed on the play before us: but have lately obferved that it is mentioned with other "motions," (Jonas, Ninevie, and the Deftruction of Jerufalem,) in Marfton's Dutch Courtefan, printed in 1605, and was probably of a much older date.

In the prologue to The Falfe One, by Beaumont and Fletcher, this play is alluded to;' but in what year that tragedy was written, is unknown.

5. New titles warrant not a play for new,
"The fubje&t being old; and 'tis as true,
"Fresh and neat matter may with ease be fram'd
"Out of their ftories that have oft been nam'd
"With glory on the ftage. What borrows he-
From him that wrought old Priam's tragedy,
"That writes his love for Hecuba? Sure to tell
"Of Cæfar's amorous heats, and how he fell

If the date of The Maid's Tragedy by the fame authors, were ascertained, it might throw fome light on the present inquiry; the quarrelling fcene between Melantius and his friend, being manifeftly copied from a similar scene in Julius Cæfar. It has already been obferved that Philafter was the first play which brought Beaumont and Fletcher into reputation, and that it probably was represented in 1608 or 1609. We may therefore prefume that the Maid's Tragedy did not appear before that year; for we cannot suppose it to have been one of the unfuccefsful pieces which preceded Philafier. That the Maid's Tragedy was written before 1611, is afcertained by a MS. play, now extant, entitled The SECOND Maid's Tragedy, which was licenfed by Sir George Buck, on the 31ft of October, 1611. I believe it never was printed.

If, therefore, we fix the date of the original Maid's Tragedy in 1610, it agrees fufficiently well with that here affigned to Julius Cæfar.

It appears by the papers of the late Mr. George Vertue, that a play called Cæfar's Tragedy was acted at court before the 10th of April, in the year 1613. This was probably Shakspeare's Julius Cæfar, it being much the fashion at that time to alter the titles of his plays.

"In the Capitol, can never be the fame

"To the judicious." Prologue to The Falfe One.

This tragedy (as I learn from a MS. of Mr. Oldys) was formerly in the poffeffion of John Warburton, Efq. Somerset Herald, and is now in the library of the Marquis of Landsdown. It had no authors name to it, when it was licensed, but was afterwards afcribed to George Chapman, whose name is erased by another hand, and that of Shakspeare inserted.

30. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, 1608.

Antony and Cleopatra was entered on the Stationers' books, May 2, 1608; but was not printed till 1623.

In Ben Jonfon's Silent Woman, Act IV. fc. iv. 1609, this play feems to be alluded to:

Morofe. Nay, I would fit out a play that were nothing but fights at fea, drum, trumpet and target."

31. TIMON OF ATHENS, 1609.

32. CORIOLANUS, 1610.

These two plays were neither entered in the books of the Stationers' company, nor printed, till 1623. Shakspeare, in the course of fomewhat more than twenty years, having produced thirtyfour or thirty-five dramas, we may presume that he was not idle any one year of that time. Moft of his other plays have been attributed, on plaufible grounds at leaft, to former years. As we have no

proof to ascertain when the two plays under our confideration were written, it feems reasonable to afcribe them to that period, to which we are not led by any particular circumftance to attribute any other of his works; at which, it is fuppofed, he had not ceased to write; which yet, unless these pieces were then compofed, muft, for aught that now appears, have been unemployed. When once he had availed himfelf of North's Plutarch, and had thrown any one of the lives into a dramatick form, he probably found it fo eafy as to induce him to proceed, till he had exhausted all the subjects which he imagined that book would afford. VOL. II.

Hence the four plays of Julius Cæfar, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon, and Coriolanus, are supposed to have been written in fucceffion. At the time he was writing Cymbeline and Macbeth there is reason to believe he began to ftudy Plutarch with a particular view to the ufe he might make of it on the flage. The Lives of Cæfar and Antony are nearly connected with each other, and furnished him with the fables of two plays; and in the latter of thefe lives he found the fubject of a third, Timon of Athens.

There is a MS. comedy now extant, on the fub ject of Timon, which, from the hand-writing and the ftyle, appears to be of the age of Shakspeare. In this piece a fteward is introduced, under the name of Laches, who, like Flavius in that of our author, endeavours to reftrain his master's profufion, and faithfully attends him when he is forfaken by all his other followers.-Here too a mock-banquet is given by Timon to his false friends; but, inftead of warm water, ftones painted like arti chokes are ferved up, which he throws at his guests. From a line in Shakspeare's play, one might be tempted to think that something of this fort was introduced by him; though, through the omiffion of a marginal direction in the only ancient copy of this piece, it has not been customary to exhibit it:

"Second Senator. Lord Timon's mad.

66

3d Sen. I feel it on my bones.

4th Sen. One day he gives us diamonds, next day fones."

7 See p. 173, and p. 186.