remark, "This is most likely," Isabella replies, “O, that it were as like as it is true.' 259. The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon. Yearns is earnes in the original text. It has been generally assumed that yearn and earn are radically the same; the progress of the meaning probably being, it has been supposed, to feel strongly-to desire or long for-to endeavour after to attain or acquire. But Mr Wedgwood has lately, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Philological Society, V. 33 (No. 105, read 21 Feb., 1851), stated strong reasons for doubting whether there be really any connexion between earn and either yearn or earnest. The fundamental notion involved in earn, according to the view taken by Mr Wedgwood, is that of harvest or reaping. The primary and essential meaning of yearn and earnest, again (which are unquestionably of the same stock), may be gathered from the modern German gern, willingly, readily, eagerly, which in our Original English was georn, and was used as an adjective, signifying desirous, eager, intent. We now commonly employ the verb to yearn only in construction with for or after, and in the sense of to long for, or desire strongly. Perhaps the radical meaning may not be more special than to be strongly affected. In the present passage it evidently means to be stung or wrung with sorrow and regret. Shakespeare's construction of the word yearn, in so far as it differs from that now in use, may be illustrated by the following examples : "It yearns me not if men my garments wear." "O, how it yearned my heart, when I beheld." Rich. II., v. 5. This is the exclamation of the groom. So Mrs Quickly, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 5 (speaking also, perhaps, in the style of an uneducated person), " Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it.” "To think upon that every like is" would not have been said in Shakespeare's day, any more than it would be in ours, except under cover of the inversion. SCENE III.-The same. A street near the Capitol. Enter ARTEMIDORUS, reading a Paper. 260. Art. Cæsar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber; Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Cæsar. If thou be'st not immortal, look about you: Security gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee! Thy lover, Artemidorus. Here will I stand, till Cæsar pass along, And as a suitor will I give him this. My heart laments, that virtue cannot live If thou read this, O Cæsar, thou mayest live; [Exit. 260. Security gives way to.-In this sense (of leaving a passage open) we should now rather say to make way for. To give way has come to mean to yield and break under pressure. The heading of this scene in the original text is merely, Enter Artemidorus. Artemidorus, who was a lecturer on the Greek rhetoric at Rome, had, according to Plutarch, obtained his knowledge of the conspiracy from some of his hearers, who were friends of Brutus, that is, probably, through expressions unintentionally dropt by them. 260. Thy lover.-As we might still say "One who loves thee." It is nearly equivalent to friend, and was formerly in common use in that sense. Thus in Psalm xxxviii. 11, we have in the old version "My lovers and my neighbours did stand looking upon my trouble," and also in the common version, "My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore."-So afterwards in 375 Brutus begins his address to the people, "Romans, countrymen, and lovers." See other instances from private letters in Chalmers's Apology, 165. Another change which has been undergone by this and some other words is that they are now usually applied only to men, whereas formerly they were common to both sexes. This has happened, for in stance, to paramour and villain, as well as to lover. But villain, as already noticed (186), is still a term of reproach for a woman as well as for a man in some of the provincial dialects. And, although we no longer call a woman a lover, we still say of a man and woman that they are lovers, or a pair of lovers. I find the term lover distinctly applied to a woman in so late a work as Smollett's Count Fathom, published in 1754:-"These were alarming symptoms to a lover of her delicacy and pride." Vol. I. ch. 10. 260. Out of the teeth of emulation.— As envy (Vid. 187) is commonly used by Shakespeare in the sense of hatred or malice, so emulation, as here, is with him often envy or malicious rivalry. There are instances, however, of his employing the word, and also the cognate terms emulator, emulate, and emulous, not in an unfavourable sense. 260. With traitors do contrive.-The word contrive in the common acceptation is a very irregular derivative from the French controuver, an obsolete compound of trouver (to find). The English word appears to have been anciently written both controve and contreve (Vid. Chaucer's Rom. of the Rose, 4249 and 7547). Spenser, however, has a learned contrive of his own (though somewhat irregularly formed too), meaning to spend, consume, wear out, from the Latin contero, contrivi (from which we have also contrite). And Shakespeare also at least in one place uses the word in this sense : "Please you we may contrive this afternoon." Tam. of Shrew, i. 2. SCENE IV.-The same. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus. Enter PORTIA and LUCIUS. 261. Por. I pr'ythee, boy, run to the senate-house; Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone : Why dost thou stay? Luc. To know my errand, madam. 263. Por. I would have had thee there, and here again, Ere I can tell thee what thou should'st do there.— O constancy, be strong upon my side! Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! Luc. Madam, what should I do? Run to the Capitol, and nothing else? And so return to you, and nothing else? Por. Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well, For he went sickly forth: And take good note, What Cæsar doth, what suitors press to him. Luc. I hear none, madam. 267. Por. Pr'ythee, listen well; I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray, 268. Luc. Sooth, madam, I hear nothing. Enter THE SOOTHSAYER. 269. Por. Come hither, fellow; Which way hast thou been? Sooth. At mine own house, good lady. 271. Por. What is 't o'clock ? Sooth. About the ninth hour, lady. Por. Is Cæsar yet gone to the Capitol ? Sooth. Madam, not yet; I go to take my stand, To see him pass on to the Capitol. Por. Thou hast some suit to Cæsar, hast thou not? To be so good to Cæsar as to hear me, I shall beseech him to befriend himself. 277. Por. Why, knowest thou any harm's intended towards him? 278. Sooth. None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance. Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow: The throng that follows Cæsar at the heels, I'll get me to a place more void, and there 279. Por. I must go in.-Ay me! how weak a thing O Brutus ! The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise !— And bring me word what he doth say to thee. [Exit. [Exeunt. Scene IV.-The heading of this scene in the original text is only "Enter Portia and Lucius." 261. Get thee gone.-An idiom; that is to say, a peculiar form of expression the principle of which cannot be carried out beyond the particular instance. Thus we cannot say either Make thee gone, or He got him (or himself) gone. Phraseologies, on the contrary, which are not idiomatic are paradigmatic, or may serve as models or moulds for others to any extent. All expression is divided into these two kinds. And a corresponding division may be made of the inflected parts of speech in any language. Thus, for instance, in Greek or Latin, while certain parts of speech are indeclinable, those that are declined are either paradigmatic (that is, exemplary), such as the noun and the verb, or non-exemplary, such as the articles and the pronouns. They might be distinguished as reproductive and non-reproductive. And such an arrangement of them might be found convenient for some purposes. 263. O constancy.-Not exactly our present constancy; rather what we should now call firmness or resolution. In the same sense afterwards, in 297, Brutus says, "Cassius, be constant." The French have another use of constant,-Il est constant (It is certain),-borrowed from the |