Friends am I with you all, and love you all;
Upon this hope, that you fhall give me reasons,
Why, and wherein, Cæfar was dangerous.

Bru. Or elfe were this a favage fpectacle:
Our reasons are fo full of good regard,
That were you, Antony, the fon of Cæfar,
You should be fatisfied.

Ant. That's all I feek:

And am moreover fuitor, that I may
Produce his body to the market-place;
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.
Bru. You fhall, Mark Antony.
Caf. Brutus, a word with you.

You know not what you do; Do not confent, [Afide.
That Antony speak in his funeral:

Know you how much the people may be mov'd
By that which he will utter?

Bru. By your pardon ;

1 will myself into the pulpit first,

And fhew the reafon of our Cæfar's death:
What Antony fhall fpeak, I will protest
He fpeaks by leave and by permiffion;
And that we are contented, Cæfar fhall
Have all true rites, and lawful ceremonies.
It fhall advantage more than do us wrong.

Caf. I know not what may fall; I like it not.
Bru. Mark Antony, here, take you Cæfar's body.
You fhall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devife of Cæfar;
And fay, you do't by our permiffion;
Elfe fhall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral: And you fhall speak
In the fame pulpit whereto I am going,
After my speech is ended.

Ant. Be it fo;

I do defire no more.

Bru. Prepare the body then, and follow us.

[Exeunt Confpirators.

Manet Antony.

Ant. O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the nobleft man,

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this coftly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophefy 2,-
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue ;-
A curfe fhall light 3 upon the limbs of men;
Domeftick fury, and fierce civil ftrife,
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy:

-in the tide of times.] That is, in the course of times.

2 Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,-
Which like dumb mouths, &c.]

JOHNSON.

Shakspeare had, perhaps, in his thoughts an old play, called, A Warning for faire Women, 1599. It was once very popular, and appears to have been written fome years before it was printed: -I gave him fifteen wounds,

"Which now be fifteen mouths that do accufe me:
"In every wound there is a bloody tongue

"Which will all speak although he hold his peace."

MALONE.

-thefe lymms of men;

That is, thefe bloodhounds of men.

The uncommonnefs of the

word ymm easily made the change. JOHNSON.

I think the old reading may very well ftand. Antony means only, that a future curfe fhall commence in diftempers feizing on the limbs of men, and be fucceeded by commotion, cruelty, and defolation over all Italy. STEEVENS.

Blood

Blood and deftruction fhall be so in use,

And dreadful objects fo familiar,

That mothers fhall but fimile, when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choak'd with custom of fell deeds:
And Cæfar's fpirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his fide, come hot from hell,
Shall in thefe confines, with a monarch's voice,
"Cry Havock, and let flip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

+ And Cæfar's fpirit, ranging for revenge, &c.]

66 -

Lucan, lib. 1.

-umbraque erraret Craffus inulta."
"Fatalem populis ultro pofcentibus horam
"Admovet atra dies; Stygiifque emiffa tenebris
"Mors fruitur cœlo, bellatoremque volando
Campum operit, nigroque viros invitat hiatu."

Stat. Theb. VIII.

Furiæ rapuerunt licia Parcis." Ibid. STEEVENS. 5 Cry Havock,-] A learned correfpondent has informed me, that, in the military operations of old times havock was the word by which declaration was made, that no quarter fhould be given.

In a tract intitled, The Office of the Conftable and Marefchall in the Tyme of Werre, contained in the Black Book of the Admiralty, there is the following chapter:

"The peyne of hym that crieth havock and of them that followeth hym, etit. v."

Item Si quis inventus fuerit qui clamorem inceperit qui vocatur Havok."

"Alfo that no man be fo hardy to crye Havok upon peyne that he that is begynner thal be deede therefore: & the remanent that doo the fame or folow, fhall lofe their horfe & harneis: and the perfones of fuch as followeth and efcrien fhal be under arrest of the Coneftable and Marefchall warde unto tyme that they have made fyn; and founde furetie no morr to offende; and his body in prison at the Kyng wyll." JOHNSON.

Let flip] This is a term belonging to the chafe. Manhood, in his Foreft Laws, c. XX. f. 9. fays, “ -that when any pourallee man doth find any wild beafts of the foreft in his pourallee, that is, in his owne freehold lands, that he hath within the pourallee, he may let flippe his dogges after the wild beaftes, and hunt and chafe them there, &c." EDITOR.

Sir Francis Bacon, in his fpeech on the arraignment of the earl of Somerset, faid, "He is not the hunter alone that lets flip the dog at the deer, but he that lodgeth him. HENDERSON. With

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With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Enter a Servant.

You ferve Octavius Cæfar, do you not?
Serv. I do, Mark Antony.

Ant. Cæfar did write for him, to come to Rome. Serv. He did receive his letters, and is coming: And bid me fay to you by word of mouth,

O Cæfar!

[Seeing the body. Ant. Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep. Paffion, I fee, is catching; for mine eyes, Seeing those beads of forrow ftand in thine, Began to water. Is thy mafter coming?

Serv. He lies to-night within feven leagues of Rome.

Ant. Poft back with speed, and tell him what hath chanc'd:

Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,
No Rome of fafety for Octavius yet";

Hie hence, and tell him fo. Yet, stay a while;
Thou shalt not back, 'till I have borne this corfe
Into the market-place: there fhall I try,

In my oration, how the people take
The cruel iffue of thefe bloody men;
According to the which, thou fhalt difcourfe
To young Octavius of the ftate of things.

Lend me your hand. [Exeunt, with Cafar's body.

7 No Rome of fafety, &c.] If Shakspeare meant to quibble on the words Rome and room, in this and a former passage, he is at leaft countenanced in it by other authors:

So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1638:

66

You fhall have my room,

My Rome indeed, for what I seem to be,
"Brutus is not, but born great Rome to free."

STEEVENS,

SCENE

SCENE II.

The Forum.

Enter Brutus, and Caffius, with the Plebeians.

Pleb. We will be fatisfied; let us be fatisfied. Bru. Then follow me, and give me audience, friends.

Caffius, go you into the other street,

And part the numbers.

Thofe that will hear me fpeak, let them ftay here; Those that will follow Caffius, go with him; And publick reafons fhall be rendered

Of Cæfar's death.

1 Pleb. I will hear Brutus fpeak.

2 Pleb. I will hear Caffius; and compare their reafons,

When feverally we hear them rendered.

[Exit Caffius, with fome of the Plebeians:

Brutus goes into the roftrum. 3 Pleb. The noble Brutus is afcended: Silence! Bru. Be patient till the laft.

countrymen, and lovers! hear me for

my

8 countrymen, and lovers! &c.] There is no where, in all Shakfpeare's works a stronger proof of his not being what we call a fcholar than this; or of his not knowing any thing of the genius of learned antiquity. This fpeech of Brutus is wrote in imitation of his famed laconic brevity, and is very fine in its kind; but no more like that brevity, than his times were like Brutus's. The ancient laconic brevity was fimple, natural, and easy; this is quaint, artificial, gingling, and abounding with forced antitheses. In a word, a brevity, that for its falfe eloquence would have fuited any character, and for its good fenfe would have become the greatest of our author's time; but yet, in a stile of declaiming, that fits as ill upon Brutus as our author's trowfers or collar-band would have done. WARBURTON.

This artificial jingle of short sentences was affected by most of the orators in Shakspeare's time, whether in the pulpit or at the

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bar.