taken along with climber or with turns might be held to be determined by the expression in Macbeth, iv. 2: 66 Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upwards To what they were before."

147. The upmost round. The step of a ladder has come to be called a round, I suppose, from its being usually cylindrically shaped. Mr. Knight (whose collation of the old copies is in general so remarkably careful) has here (probably by a typographical error) utmost.

147. The base degrees. The lower steps of the ladder les bas degrés (from the Latin gradus) of the French. The epithet base, however, must be understood to express something of contempt, as well as to designate the position of the steps.

147. Then, lest he may, prevent.-We should not now say to prevent lest. But the word prevent continued to convey its original import of to come before more distinctly in Shakespeare's day than it does now. See 161 and 708.

147. Will bear no colour for the thing he is. Will take no appearance of being a just quarrel, if professedly founded upon what Cæsar at present actually is. The use of color, and colorable, in this sense is still familiar.

147. What he is, augmented. —What he now is, if augmented or heightened (as it is the nature of things that it should be).

147. Would run to these, etc. To such and such extremities (which we must suppose to be stated and

explained). See 109.

147. Think him as.

The verb to think has now

lost this sense, though we might still say

"Think

him a serpent's egg," "Think him good or wicked," and also "To think a good or evil thought."

147. As his kind. Like his species.

147. And kill him in the shell. It is impossible not to feel the expressive effect of the hemistich here. The line itself is, as it were, killed in the shell.

148. This speech is headed in the Folios " Enter Lucius." The old stage direction, "Gives him the Letter," is omitted by most of the modern editors.

149. The ides of March. The reading of all the ancient copies is, "the first of March." It was Theobald who first made the correction, which has been adopted by all succeeding editors (on the ground that the day was actually that of the ides). At the same time, it does not seem to be impossible that the poet may have intended to present a strong image of the absorption of Brutus by making him forget the true time of the month. The reply of Lucius after consulting the Calendar-"Sir, March is wasted fourteen days". sounds very much as if he were correcting rather than confirming his master's notion. Against this view we have the considerations stated by Warburton: "We can never suppose the speaker to have lost fourteen days in his account. He is here plainly ruminating on what the Soothsayer told Cæsar (i. 2) in his presence (Beware the ides of March)." Mr. Collier also prints "the ides;" but the correction does not appear to be made by his MS. annotator. Mr. Knight, I apprehend, must be in error in saying that Shakespeare found "the first of March" in North's Plutarch: the present incident is not related by Plutarch. [Knight may have referred to this passage in North's Plutarch (Life of Brutus): "Cassius did first of all speak to Brutus,

and asked him if he were determined to be in the senate-house, the first day of the month of March, because he heard say that Cæsar's friends should

move the Council that day that Cæsar should be called king by the senate," etc.]

153. Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake. I have endeavored to indicate by the printing that the second enunciation of these words is a repetition by Brutus to himself, and not, as it is always made to appear, a further portion of the letter. [Collier agrees with Craik; Dyce, Hudson, and White do not.] The letter unquestionably concluded with the emphatic adjuration, "Speak, strike, redress!" It never, after this, would have proceeded to go over the ground again. in the same words that had been already used. They would have only impaired the effect, and would have been quite inappropriate in their new place. We see how the speaker afterwards repeats in the like manner each of the other clauses before commenting upon it.

153. Where I have took. See 46.

153. Speak, strike, redress! - Am I entreated, etc.— The expression is certainly not strengthened by the then which was added to these words by Hanmer, in the notion that it was required by the prosody, and has been retained by Steevens and other modern editors. At the same time Mr. Knight's doctrine, that "a pause, such as must be made after redress, stands in the place of a syllable," will, at any rate, not do here; for we should want two syllables after redress. The best way is to regard the supposed line as being in reality two hemistichs; or to treat the words repeated from the letter as no part of the verse. How otherwise are we to manage the preceding quotation, "Shall Rome, etc."? [See 54, 55.]

153. I make thee promise. — I make promise to thee. In another connection, the words might mean

I make thee to

"the promise."

promise. The Second Folio has The heading that follows this speech, and also 155, in the First Folio is Enter Lucius.

154. March is wasted fourteen days. In all the old editions it is fifteen. made by Theobald. See 149. fourteen; but he does not here authority of his MS. annotator. precedes is "Enter Lucius” in the original text.

The correction was
Mr. Collier has also
appear to have the
The heading which

155. The genius and the mortal instruments. The commentators have written and disputed lavishly upon these celebrated words. Apparently, by the genius we are to understand the contriving and immortal mind, and most probably the mortal instruments are the earthly passions. The best light for the interpretation of the present passage is reflected from 186, where Brutus, advising with his fellowconspirators on the manner in which they should despatch their mighty victim, not as bloodthirsty butchers, but as performing a sacrifice of which they lamented the necessity, says,

Let our hearts, as subtle masters do,

Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide 'em.

The servants here may be taken to be the same with the instruments in the passage before us. It has been proposed to understand by the mortal instruments the bodily powers or organs; but it is not obvious how these could be said to hold consultation with the genius or mind. Neither could they in the other passage be so fitly said to be stirred up by the heart. [See page 382.]

The bodily organs, however, seem to be distinctly designated the instruments and agents, in Coriola

nus, i. 1, where, first, Menenius Agrippa says, in his apologue of the rebellion of the other members of the body against the belly,

The other instruments

Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And mutually participate, did minister

Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body, —

and, shortly after, the Second Citizen asks,

The former agents, if they did complain,

What could the belly answer?

So again in Macbeth, i. 7: —

I am settled, and bent up

Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

[On this passage compare Troilus and Cressida,

ii. 3:

"Twixt his mental and his active parts Kingdomed Achilles in commotion rages, And batters 'gainst himself.]

This is the origi

155. And the state of a man. nal reading, in which the prosodical irregularity is nothing more than what frequently occurs. The common reading omits the article. There is certainly nothing gained in vividness of expression by so turning the concrete into the abstract. We have elsewhere, indeed, in Macbeth, i. 3, “My single state of man ;" and Falstaff, in the Second Part of Henry IV. iv. 4, speaks of "This little kingdom, man;"

[Collier, Dyce, the a, which is Knight retains

but in neither of these cases is the reference in the word man to an individual, as here. Hudson, Staunton, and White omit obviously a misprint of the Folio. it, but Dyce reminds him that in his (K.'s) Nationa. Edition of Shakespeare, his own printer has accidentally inserted an a in Julius Cæsar, iv. 3:—