Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look ;

He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

ANTONY.

Fear him not, Cæsar, he's not dangerous;

He is a noble Roman, and well given.

CESAR.

Would he were fatter. But I fear him not:

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid,

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;

He is a great observer; and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,

As thou do'st, Antony; he hears no musick;
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort,

As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit,
That could be mov'd to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease,

Whilst they behold a greater than themselves;

And therefore are they very dangerous.

Casca's blunt recital of the offer of a crown to Cæsar, in the next scene, is much censured by the critic, accustomed to the decorums of the French theatre. It is not

improbable the poet might have in his eye some person of eminence in his days,

who

was

was distinguished by such manners. Many allusions and imitations which please at the time, are lost to posterity, unless they point at transactions and persons of the first consequence. Whether we approve such a character on the stage or not, we must allow his narration represents the designs of Cæsar's party, and the aversion of the Roman people to that royalty, which he affected; and it was right to avoid engaging the parties in more deep discourse, as Shakspeare intended, by a sort of historical process, to shew how Brutus was led on to that act, to which his nature was averse.

The first scene of the second act presents Brutus debating with himself, upon the point on which Cassius had been urging him. Cassius in his soliloquy, scene third, act first, seems to intimate, that resentment had a share in his desire to take off Cæsar. Brutus, on the contrary, informs us, that no personal motives sway him, but such as are derived from an hereditary aversion to tyranny, and the pledge, which the virtue of his ancestors had given the commonwealth, that a Bru

tus would not suffer a king in Rome; these considerations compel him to take the following resolution :

BRUTUS.

It must be by his death; and, for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him

;

But for the general. He would be crown'd:

How that might change his nature, there's the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

And that craves wary walking: Crown him-thatAnd then I grant we put a sting in him,

That at his will we may do danger with.

Th' abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power; and to speak truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Cæsar may;
Then lest he may, prevent.

How averse he is to the means, by which

he

he is to deliver his country from the danger apprehended, appears in the following words:

BRUTUS.

Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,

I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing,

And the first motion, all the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

Disguise and concealment are so abhorrent from the open ingenuousness of his nature, that righteous as he thinks the cause, in which he is going to engage, on hearing his friends are come to him muffled up at midnight, he cannot help breaking out in the following manner:

BRUTUS.

O Conspiracy!

Sham'st thou to shew thy dang'rous brow by night,

When evils are most free? O then, by day

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough,

Το

To mask thy monstrous visage ? Seek none, Conspiracy,

Hide it in smiles and affability;

For if thou put thy native semblance on,

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.

Brutus rises far above his friend and associate Cassius, when, with a noble disdain, he rejects his proposal of swearing to their resolution.

BRUTUS.

No, not on oath. If not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And ev'ry man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-sighted tyranny rage on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards, aud to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur, but our own cause,
To prick us to redress ? what other bond,
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath,
Than honesty to honesty engag'd,

That