It is, in fact, radically the same with the word damage. A detail of the variations of meaning which it has undergone in both languages would make a long history. In French also it anciently bore the same sense (that of mischief) which it has here. Sometimes, again, in both languages, it signified power to do mischief or to injure; as when Portia, in The Merchant of Venice (iv. 1), speaking to Antonio of Shylock, says, “ You stand within his danger, do you not ?"

147. The abuse of greatness is, etc.—The meaning apparently is, “ The abuse to which greatness is most subject is when it deadens in its possessor the natural 'sense of humanity, or of that which binds us to our kind; and this I do not say that it has yet done in the case of Cæsar; I have never known that in him selfish affection, or mere passion, has carried it over reason." Remorse is generally used by Shakespeare in a wider sense than that to which it is now restricted.

147. But 'tis a common proof.-A thing commonly proved or experienced (what commonly, as we should say, proves to be the case).

147. Whereto the climber upward, etc.—There is no hyphen in the original text connecting climber and upward, as there is in some modern editions; but if there could be any doubt as to whether the adverb should be taken along with climber or with turns, it would be determined by the expression in Macbeth, iv. 2:—“Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward 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 col

lation 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. By which he did ascend.—It is not the syntax of our modern English to use the auxiliary verb in such a case as this. Vid. 16.

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. Vid. 161 and 707.

147. Will bear no colour for the thing he is.-Will take no show, no plausibility, no appearance of being a just quarrel, if professed to be founded upon what Cæsar at present actually is. The use of colour, and colourable, 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). Vid. 109.

147. Think him as.-We do not now use think in this sense without a preposition.

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.

K

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 whether or no upon the authority of his MS. annotator does not appear.-Mr. Knight, I apprehend, must be mistaken in saying that Shakespeare found“ the first of March” in North's Plutarch: the present incident is not, I believe, anywhere related by Plutarch.

153. Brutus, thou sleep'st; awake !--I have endeavoured 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. 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.-Vid. 46.

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153. Speak, strike, redress!—Am I entreated? 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.?

153. I make thee promise.-I make promise to thee. In another connexion, the words might mean I make thee to promise. The Second Folio has "the promise." The heading that follows this speech, and also 155, in the First Folio is Enter Lucius.

153. Thou receivest.-Mr. Collier prints receiv'st,— it is not easy to conjecture why.

154. March is wasted fourteen days.—In all the old editions it is fifteen. The correction was made by Theobald. Vid. 149. Mr. Collier has also fourteen. Does he follow his MS. annotator?-The heading which precedes is "Enter Lucius" in the original text.

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 fellow conspirators on the manner in which they should dispatch their mighty victim, not as blood-thirsty 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.

155. And the state of a man.—This is the original 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.-The Exit Lucius attached to the first line of this speech is modern.

156. Your brother Cassius.—Cassius had married Junia, the sister of Brutus.

158. No, Sir, there are mo'e with him.-Moe, not more,

is the word here and in other passages, not only