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Of these forty four corrections, thirty two are adopted in the present text; and, of the remaining twelve, only one or two can be regarded, I think, as clearly wrong.

I have not thought it necessary to distinguish the cases in which the verbal affix -ed is to be united in the pronunciation with the preceding syllable by the usual substitution of the apostrophe in place of the silent vowel. Why should the word loved, for example, so sounded be represented differently in verse from what it always is in prose? It is true that the cases in which the -ed makes a separate syllable are more numerous in Shakespeare than in the poetry of the present day; but the reader who cannot detect such a case on the instant is disqualified by some natural deficiency for the reading of verse. If any distinction were necessary, the better plan would be to represent the one form by "loved," the other by "lov-ed.”

I have not thought it necessary in the present revision to make the numerous typographical rectifications which would have been required in the margin of every page, and also in many of the references, to remove the traces of an unimportant error of one in the numbering of the speeches from 249 (on p. 180), which ought to be 248, onwards to the end of the play.-1863.

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SCENE, during a great part of the Play, at Rome; afterwards at Sardis; and near Philippi.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Rome. A Street.

Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and a Rabble of CITIZENS.

1. Flav. Hence; home, you idle creatures, get you home; Is this a holiday? What! know you not,

Being mechanical, you ought not walk,

Upon a labouring day, without the sign

Of your profession?-Speak, what trade art thou?

1 Cit. Why, Sir, a carpenter.

Mar. Where is thy leather apron, and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on ?—

You, Sir; what trade are you?

2 Cit. Truly, Sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler.

Mar. But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

6. 2 Cit. A trade, Sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, Sir, a mender of bad soles.

8.

7. Mar. What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade? 2 Cit. Nay, I beseech you, Sir, be not out with me: yet if you be out, Sir, I can mend you.

9.

Mar. What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow ? 2 Cit. Why, Sir, cobble you.

Flav. Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

12. 2 Cit. Truly, Sir, all that I live by is, with the awl: I meddle with no tradesman's matters, nor women's matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, Sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather have gone upon my handiwork.

Flav. But wherefore art not in thy shop to-day?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

2 Cit. Truly, Sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But, indeed, Sir, we make holiday to see Cæsar, and to rejoice in his triumph.

15. Mar. Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O, you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome :
And, when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way,

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

16. Flav. Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault,
Assemble all the poor men of your sort;

Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.
See, whe'r their basest metal be not moved!
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
This way will I: Disrobe the images,
If you do find them deckt with ceremonies.
17. Mar. May we do so?

You know, it is the feast of Lupercal.
18. Flav. It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Cæsar's trophies. I'll about,
And drive away the vulgar from the streets;
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluckt from Cæsar's wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch;

Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

[Exeunt CITIZENS.

[Exeunt Act I. Scene I., etc.-The heading here in the original text is:-"Actus Primus. Scoena Prima. Enter Flavius, Murellus, and certaine Commoners over the Stage." Murellus stands throughout not only in all the Folios, but also in the editions of both Rowe and Pope. The right name was first inserted by Theobald.

This opening scene may be compared with the first part of that of Coriolanus, to which it bears a strong general resemblance.

1. You ought not walk.-The history and explanation of this now disused construction may be best collected from a valuable paper by Dr Guest "On English Verbs, Substantive and Auxiliary," read before the Philological Society, 13th March, 1846, and printed in their Proceed

ings, II. 223. "Originally," says Dr Guest, "the to was prefixed to the gerund, but never to the present infinitive; as, however, the custom gradually prevailed of using the latter in place of the former, the to was more and more frequently prefixed to the infinitive, till it came to be considered as an almost necessary appendage of it. Many idioms, however, had sunk too deeply into the language to admit of alteration; and other phrases, to which the popular ear had been familiarized, long resisted the intrusive particle." The ancient syntax is still retained in all cases with the auxiliary verbs, as they are called, shall, will, can, may, do, and also with must and let, and oftener than not with bid, dare, hear, make, see, and perhaps some others. Vid. 634. Cause is frequently so used; and so is help, sometimes, as in Milton's Sonnet to his friend Lawrence:

"Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire

Help waste a sullen day?"

But, even since the language may be said to have entered upon the stage of its existence in which it still is, several of the verbs just enumerated as not admitting the to are occasionally found following the common example and taking it; and others, again, which at the present day have completely conformed to the ordinary construction, formerly used now and then to dispense with it. One of Dr Guest's quotations exemplifies both these archaisms; it is from the portion of The Mirror for Magistrates contributed by John Higgins in 1574 (King Albanact, 16) :—

"And, though we owe the fall of Troy requite,
Yet let revenge thereof from gods to light."

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That is, "Though we ought to requite, yet let revenge light," as we should now say. Here we have let with the to, and owe (of which ought. or owed is the preterite), as in Shakespeare's expression before us, without it. Others of Dr Guest's citations from the same writer

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