-F. 1 reads thus: "all that I liue by, is with the Aule: I meddle with no Tradesmans matters, nor womens matters; but withal I am indeed Sir, a Surgeon to old shooes;" a reading which, to my mind, is utterly indefensible. It is quite clear that there is a pun intended on with awl and with all; but that the full stop or colon has been omitted in the Folio, and that withal is a misprint for with all. If withal be joined on to the following sentence, I cannot see what possible meaning it can have. The actor, in speaking the words, must pause after withal; and therefore it would show a most foolish and pedantic adherence to the old text if the very slight alteration adopted by nearly all modern editors were rejected. As to the question of printing "with awl," or "with all," that is a matter of no importance. To the ear the pun is clear enough, and that is the great point to be considered. Many instances might be noticed of this excessively primeval and obvious play upon words; in fact, I believe that no one, who has ever been guilty of a pun at all, has failed to make this one.-F. A. M.

24. Lines 28, 29: As proper men as ever trod upon neat's leather. This expression was proverbial. In The Tempest (ii. 2. 62, 73) the drunken Stephano cuts it in two, and mixes the halves up with other familiar phrases: "As proper a man as ever went on four legs;" and " "any emperor that ever trod on neat's leather."

25. Line 36: his triumph.-This was Caesar's fifth and last triumph, celebrated in honour of his defeat of the sons of Pompey in Spain, at the battle of Munda, March 17th, B.C. 45.

26. Line 47: To see great Pompey PASS THE STREETS of Rome. For a similar elliptical use of the verb to pass compare King John, v. 6. 40: "Passing these flats;" and Richard III. i. 4. 45:

I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood.

Rolfe very aptly quotes a parallel expression, Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4. 20, "To reel the streets at noon."

27. Line 50: Tiber trembled underneath HER banks.A Roman would have said "his banks;" but there is no ground for changing the gender either here or in i. 2. 101 below, as some editors have done. Shakespeare undoubtedly wrote her in both passages.

28. Line 56: That comes in triumph over Pompey's BLOOD. That is, "over Pompey's offspring;" not, as might be supposed, over Pompey's death or murder. The elder of Pompey's sons, Cnæus Pompey, was slain after the battle of Munda; but there is no specific reference to that fact in the present passage. Blood, in the sense of relations by blood, or lineal descent, is often used by Shakespeare. Compare Richard II. i. 3. 57, 58:

Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

[This certainly seems to me rather a strained interpretation of the text. "Pompey's blood" may be equivalent here to "Pompey's blood relations;" but I can only find two passages, besides the one quoted, where blood is used by Shakespeare to signify "relations by blood," and not merely "relationship." In the passage from Richard II.,

quoted above, King Richard is addressing Hereford, and it is evident that blood is there used in a double sense. In I. Henry VI. iv. 5. 16, 17, John Talbot says to his father:

The world will say, he is not Talbot's blood,

That basely fled when noble Talbot stood; where the expression is simply elliptical of Talbot's blood, though there it might be taken to mean "offspring." The remaining passage is in Richard III. ii. 4. 61–63: themselves, the conquerors,

Make war upon themselves; brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self against self;

where blood certainly means blood relationship. As for blood being equivalent to "blood-shed," we may quote Macbeth, iii. 4. 126: "The secret'st man of blood."—F. A. M.] 29. Line 66: See WHETHER.-The Ff. print where, as in v. 4 30 below, and some modern editors have whe'r or wher; but whether is equally common in the early editions when the word is metrically equivalent to a monosyllable (as in ii. 1. 194 below), and, in our day, it had better be read or recited as a dissyllable in all cases. The unaccented extra syllable is common enough in Shakespeare's verse.

30. Line 72: the feast of LUPERCAL. --The Lupercal was a cavern in the Palatine Hill, sacred to the old Italian god Lupercus, who came to be identified with Pan. Virgil refers to it in the Æneid, viii. 344:

sub rupe Lupercal

Parrhasio dictum Panos de more Lycæi.

Here the feast of the Lupercalia was annually celebrated in February. After certain rites and sacrifices, the Luperci, or priests of Lupercus, ran through the city, wearing only a goat-skin cincture, and striking with thongs of leather all whom they met. This symbolized a purification of the land and the people. The day of the cere mony was called dies februata (from februo, purify), and the month Februarius.

31. Line 78: fly an ordinary PITCH.-For pitch as a technical term of falconry compare I Henry VI. ii. 4. 11: Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch; and for its metaphorical use, as here, Richard II. i. 1. 109: How high a pitch his resolution soars!

ACT I. SCENE 2.

32. Line 4: When he doth RUN HIS COURSE-Compare North's Plutarch1 (Life of Cæsar): "At that time the feast Lupercalia was celebrated, the which in old time men say was the feast of shepherds or herdmen, and is much like unto the feast of Lycæans in Arcadia, But, howsoever it is, that day there are divers noble men's sons, young men, (and some of them magistrates themselves that govern then), which run naked through the city, striking in sport them they meet in their way with leather thongs, hair and all on, to make them give place. And many noblewomen and gentlewomen also go of purpose to stand in their way, and do put forth their

1 For the convenience of the reader we have taken the references from Skeat's Shakespeare's Plutarch, as the text from North's Plutarch contained therein is a most careful collation of all the best editions of that book.

hands to be stricken, as scholars hold them out to their schoolmaster to be stricken with the ferula; persuading themselves that, being with child, they shall have good delivery; and so, being barren, that it will make them to conceive with child. . . . Antonius, who was Consul at that time, was one of them that ran this holy course" (pp. 95, 96).

33. Line 19: the IDES of March.-In the Roman calendar the Ides fell on the 15th of March, May, July, and October, and on the 13th of the other months.

34 Line 29: that quick spirit that is in Antony.—Similar references to Antony's reputation for levity and profligacy (e.g. below, ii. 1. 188, 189) are skilfully introduced by the dramatist, to make the contrast of his behaviour after the death of Cæsar more impressive.

35. Line 39: MERELY upon myself. This emphatic sense of merely and the adjective mere is common in Elizabethan writers, but it has sometimes been a stumbling-block to editors. For example, Bacon in his 58th Essay (Of Vicissitude of Things) remarks: "As for conflagrations and great draughts, they do not merely dispeople and destroy" (that is, do not entirely do so); but Montague, Whately, and others, mistaking and perverting the meaning, have changed "and destroy" to "but destroy." Compare Hamlet, i. 2. 135-137:

O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.

36. Line 42: Which give some soil, perhaps, to my BEHAVIOURS.-There is no reason for suspecting the plural to be a misprint. Compare Much Ado, ii. 3. 8: "seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love;" and again, in line 100 of the same scene: "whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor." Shakespeare uses the plural in five other passages, but more frequently the singular.

37. Line 52: for the eye sees not itself, &c.-Compare Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3. 105, 106:

nor doth the eye itself,

That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself. Steevens quotes Sir John Davies, Nosce Teipsum, 1599: the mind is like the eye,

Not seeing itself, when other things it sees.

(It may be worth noting that there is a curious optical experiment, by means of which the eye may be said to see itself. If in a darkened room, against any level plain. coloured surface (such as a drawn blind or a distempered wall), a lighted candle be waved vertically in front of the eye, you will presently see, projected on the plain surface behind the candle, a map of the interior of the eye, somewhat magnified, in which the small blood-vessels and a dark cavity, representing the pupil of the eye, can be clearly distinguished.-F. A. M.]

38 Line 53: But by reflection by some other things.— This is the reading of the Ff. and is easily explicable as meaning "only by being reflected by something else." Pope, however, changed it to "reflection from some other things; and Walker made the further alteration of thing for things, which Dyce adopts. [I think there can be no

doubt that the clumsy repetition of by is a printer's mistake for from or in. It is unfortunate that there is no other passage in Shakespeare in which he uses either the verb reflect or the noun reflection with a preposition after it in a similar sense. The plural may be allowed to stand.-F. A. M.]

39. Line 56: mirrors.-Walker, followed by Dyce, reads mirror.

40. Line 60: Except immortal Cæsar.-This is said significantly, if not ironically.

41. Line 62: Have wish'd that noble Brutus had HIS eyes. Whether his refers to Brutus, or to his friends, has been disputed. On the whole, the former is the preferable explanation, as it avoids the necessity of making his equivalent to their, while it gives as good a sense. The friends of Brutus have wished that he could see himself as he is, or as in the mirror which Cassius would hold up to him.

42. Line 66: Therefore, good Brutus, &c.-Craik (English of Shakespeare, ad loc.) remarks: "The eager, impatient temper of Cassius, absorbed in his own idea, is vividly expressed by his thus continuing his argument as if without appearing to have even heard Brutus's interrupting question; for such is the only interpretation which his therefore would seem to admit of."

43. Line 72: a common LAUGHER.-The Ff. have "common laughter;" emended by Pope, who has been followed by all the recent editors. Lover has been plausibly suggested as in keeping with the context. "A common lover" would be "everybody's friend."

44. Line 77: profess myself.-That is, "make protestations of friendship."

45. Line 86: Set honour in one eye, &c.-Coleridge says: "Warburton would read death for both; but I prefer the old text. There are here three things-the public good, the individual Brutus's honour, and his death. The latter two so balanced each other that he could decide for the first by equipoise; nay-the thought growing-that honour had more weight than death. That Cassius understood it as Warburton is the beauty of Cassius as contrasted with Brutus" (Notes on Shakespeare, p. 102, Harper's ed.). Craik remarks: "It does not seem to be necessary to suppose any such change or growth either of the image or the sentiment. What Brutus means by saying that he will look upon honour and death indifferently, if they present themselves together, is merely that, for the sake of the honour, he will not mind the death, or the risk of death, by which it may be accompanied; he will look as fearlessly and steadily upon the one as upon the other. He will think the honour to be cheaply purchased even by the loss of life; that price will never make him falter or hesitate in clutching at such a prize. He must be understood to set honour above life from the first; that he should ever have felt otherwise for a moment would have been the height of the unheroic."

46. Line 95: I had as LIEF not be as LIVE to be.-There is a play upon lief, which was always pronounced and often printed lieve, and live.

47. Line 98: We have both fed as well.-That is, "have been bred as well, brought up as well." Our birth and training have been as good as his. It is a characteristic Roman touch to lay so much stress on physical strength and endurance as Cassius does in this passage.

48. Line 100: For once, upon a raw and gusty day, &c.Cæsar was a famous swimmer. Wright (Clarendon Press ed.) quotes the following passage from Holland's translation of Suetonius (already referred to by Malone, Var. Ed. vol. xii. p. 15): "At Alexandria being busie about the assault and winning of a bridge where by a sodaine sallie of the enemies he was driven, to take a boat, & many besides made hast to get into the same, he lept into the sea, and by swimming almost a quarter of a mile recouered cleare the next ship: bearing up his left hand all the while, for feare the writings which he held therein should take wet, and drawing his rich coate armour after him by the teeth, because the enemie should not have it as a spoyle" (Life of Julius Cæsar, ed. 1606, p. 26). Plutarch's account makes the feat still more difficult: "The third danger was in the battle by sea, that was fought by the tower of Phar: where meaning to help his men that fought by sea, he leapt from the pier into a boat. Then the Egyptians made towards him with their oars on every side: but he, leaping into the sea, with great hazard saved himself by swimming. It is said, that then, holding divers books in his hand, he did never let them go, but kept them always upon his head above water, and swam with the other hand, notwithstanding that they shot marvellously at him, and was driven somtime to duck into the water; howbeit the boat was drowned presently" (p. 86).

49. Lines 107-109:

The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside,

And stemming it with hearts of controversy. Compare the spirited description of Ferdinand swimming, in Tempest, ii. 1. 114-120:

I saw him beat the surges under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To the shore.

50. Lines 112-114:

I, as ENEAS, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The OLD ANCHISES BEAR.

Compare II. Henry VI. v. 2. 62, 63:

As did neas old Anchises bear,
So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders.

51. Line 122: His coward lips did from their colour fly. -The meaning may be simply "lose their colour;" but Craik remarks: "There can, I think, be no question that Warburton is right in holding that we have here a pointed allusion to a soldier flying from his colours." Possibly the dramatist had both ideas in his mind at the same time; and the double meaning of the sentence is intentional.

52. Line 136: Like a COLOSSUS.-For other allusions to the famous Colossus of Rhodes, see I. Henry IV. v. 1. 123, where Falstaff asks Prince Hal to bestride him if he is struck down in the battle; and the Prince replies: "Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship;" and Troilus and Cressida, v. 5. 7-9:

bastard Margarelon

Hath Doreus prisoner,

And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam, &c.

53. Line 155: wide WALLS.-The Ff. have "wide Walkes," which some editors retain. Rowe's emendation of walls is, however, generally adopted.

54. Line 156: ROME indeed, and ROOM enough.—There is an evident play on Rome and room, as in iii. 1. 289 below: No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.

The two words were probably pronounced alike in Shakespeare's day; but that the modern pronunciation of Rome was beginning to be heard appears from I. Henry VI. iii. 1. 51, where the Bishop of Winchester says, "This Rome shall remedy," and Warwick replies, "Roam thither, then." For the play on room, compare King John, iii. 1. 180: "I have room with Rome to curse awhile;" and Hawkins, Apollo Shroving, p. 88: "We must have roome, more than the whole City of Rome." Dyce, in his Glossary (p. 367), quotes other examples of this pronunciation.

55. Line 160: The ETERNAL devil.-Johnson took eternal to be a misprint or corruption of infernal. Walker (Criti cal Examination, vol. i. p. 63), followed by Abbott (Grammar, p. 16), regards it as used inaccurately in the sense of infernal. Schmidt explains it as "used to express extreme abhorrence;" as in "eternal villain" (Othello, iv. 2. 130) and "eternal cell” (Hamlet, v. 2. 376). According to Wright and Halliwell's Archaic Dictionary, eternal is used in the east of England for "infernal, damned;" and the Yankee tarnal is probably the same provincialism. In the present passage it seems to be used in this way, or as a familiar intensitive.

56. Line 188: by some SENATORS.-Dyce reads senator, which was suggested by Walker.

57. Line 192: Let me have men about me that are FAT.— Compare North's Plutarch (Life of Cæsar): Cæsar also had Cassius in great jealousy, and suspected him much: whereupon he said upon a time to his friends, what will Cassius do, think ye? I like not his pale looks.' Another time when Cæsar's friends complained unto him of Antonius and Dolabella, that they pretended some mischief towards him: he answered them again, As for those fat men and smooth-combed heads,' quoth he, 'I never reckon of them; but these pale-visaged and carrion lean people, I fear them most,' meaning Brutus and Cassius." So also in Life of Brutus: "For, intelligence being brought him one day, that Antonius and Dolabella did conspire against him: he answered, 'That these fat long-haired men made him not afraid, but the lean and whitely-faced fellows,' meaning that by Brutus and Cassius" (p. 97).

58. Line 220: Why, there was a crown offer'd him, &c.— Compare North (Life of Antonius): "When he [Antony] was come to Caesar, he made his fellow-runners with

him lift him up, and so he did put his laurel crown "upon his head, signifying thereby that he had deserved to be king. But Caesar, making as though he refused it, turned away his head. The people were so rejoiced at it, that they all clapped their hands for joy. Antonius again did put it on his head: Cæsar again refused it; and thus they were striving off and on a great while together. As oft as Antonius did put this laurel crown unto him, a few of his followers rejoiced at it: and as oft also as Cæsar refused it, all the people together clapped their hands... Cæsar, in a rage, arose out of his seat, and plucking down the collar of his gown from his neck, he shewed it naked, bidding any man strike off his head that would. This laurel crown was afterwards put upon the head of one of Caesar's statues or images, the which one of the tribunes plucked off. The people liked his doing therein so well, that they waited on him home to his house, with great clapping of hands. Howbeit Cæsar did turn them out of their offices for it." In the Life of Cæsar, the tearing open his doublet, and offering his throat to be cut, is said to have been in his own house when "the Consuls and Prætors, accompanied with the whole assembly of the Senate, went unto him in the market-place, where he was set by the pulpit for orations, to tell him what honours they had decreed for him in his absence," and he offended them by "sitting still in his majesty, disdaining to rise up unto them when they came in." The historian adds that, "afterwards to excuse his folly, he imputed it to his disease, saying, 'that their wits are not perfit which have this disease of the falling evil, when standing on their feet they speak to the common people, but are soon troubled with a trembling of their body, and a suddain dimness and giddiness" (p. 95).

59 Line 245: the rabblement SHOUTED.-The Ff. have houted, which is clearly a misprint for showted-the spelling of the word above in "mine honest neighbours shorted." Johnson and Knight read hooted, which is out of place as expressing "insult, not applause."

60. Line 256: 'T is very like;- he hath the falling-sickness. -In the Ff. there is no point after like, but it is evident from North that Brutus must have known of Caesar's infirmity: "For, concerning the constitution of his body, he was lean, white, and soft skinned, and often subject to head-ach, and otherwhile to the falling-sickness (the which took him the first time, as it is reported, in CORDUBA, a City of SPAIN:) but yet therefore yielded not to the disease of his body, to make it a cloak to cherish him withal, but contrarily, took the pains of war as a medieine to cure his sick body, fighting always with his disease, travelling continually, living soberly, and commonly lying abroad in the field” (p. 57).

61 Line 263: I am no TRUE MAN. -In Shakespeare's day true man was the familiar antithesis to thief, as honest man now is. Compare (inter alia) Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 187: "A true man or a thief;" and Measure for Measure, iv. 2. 46: "Every true man's apparel fits your thief."

62. Line 268: he pluck'd ME ope his DOUBLET.-The me is the expletive dative, used generally to give a free and

easy tone to the discourse. Compare the confusion due to the use of it in the dialogue between Petruchio and Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew, i. 2. 8-17: “Villain, I say, knock me here soundly," &c.

The doublet is the English garment so called, which Shakespeare, with his usual carelessness in such matters, claps on the shoulders of his Romans.

63. Line 270: a man of any occupation.-Johnson explains the phrase as in the foot-note to the text. Grant White takes it to mean "a man of action, a busy man. The Clarendon Press edition suggests that both senses may be combined, which is barely possible.

64. Line 282: Ay, he spoke Greek. The absurdity of Cicero's speaking Greek in a popular assembly is sufficiently obvious; but it is introduced to prepare the way for the little joke, "it was Greek to me." According to Shakespeare's authority Casca knew Greek. See the quotation from North in note on iii. 1. 33, p. 147.

65. Line 300: He was quick METTLE. The reading of Collier's MS. Corrector is mettled. Walker would read metal on account of the blunt, but mettle and metal were used interchangeably in Shakespeare's time.

66. Line 304: This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, &c.-Compare Lear, ii. 2. 101-103:

This is some fellow,

Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness.

67. Line 319: HE should not humour me.-Johnson is clearly right in making he refer to Cæsar. He explains the passage thus: "Caesar loves Brutus, but if Brutus and I were to change places his love should not humour me, should not take hold of my affection, so as to make me forget my principles" (Var. Ed. xii. p. 24). Warburton says it is a reflection on Brutus's ingratitude; he renders the sentence thus: "He (Brutus) should not cajole me as I do him" (ut supra). Wright is inclined to agree with Warburton, because "Cassius is all along speaking of his own influence over Brutus, notwithstanding the difference of their characters, which made Cæsar dislike the one and love the other." To this Rolfe replies: "The chief objection to Warburton's explanation, in our opinion, is that it seems to leave the mention of Cæsar unconnected with what follows. We fancy that this occurred to Wright, and that what we have just quoted is an attempt to meet the objection; but, to our thinking, it is far from successful. If we accept Johnson's interpretation, he should not humour me naturally follows what precedes, and is naturally followed by what comes after: Cæsar should not cajole me as he does Brutus; and I am going to take measures to counteract the influence Cæsar has over him

ACT I. SCENE 3.

68. Line 10: a tempest dropping fire.-The Ff. reading is "a Tempest-dropping-fire." Rowe was the first to delete the hyphens.

69. Line 14: any thing more wonderful.--That is, "anything more that was wonderful," as Craik explains it; not "anything more wonderful than usual," as Abbott, in his Shakespearian Grammar (§ 6), makes it.

70. Line 15: YOU KNOW him well by sight.—A "graphic touch" that has needlessly vexed the souls of commentators. Dyce suggests "you'd know him," and Craik "you knew him" (that is, would have known him); but the slaves had no distinctive dress by which one would recognize them as such.

[The only distinction was that the males were not allowed to wear the toga nor the females the stola; otherwise they were dressed like other poor people of the time, in dark-coloured clothes and crepida (slippers). It had been proposed in the senate to give them a distinctive dress; but it was decided not to do so, lest they should learn how numerous they were. Cicero in his oration in Pisonem (38, 92), speaks of vestis servilis.-F. A. M.]

For the context, compare North (Life of Cæsar): "Certainly destiny may easier be foreseen than avoided, considering the strange and wonderful signs that were said to be seen before Caesars death. For, touching the fires in the element, and spirits running up and down in the night, and also the solitary birds to be seen at noondays sitting in the great market-place, are not all these signs perhaps worth the noting, in such a wonderful chance as happened? But Strabo the philosopher writeth, that divers men were seen going up and down in fire: and furthermore, that there was a slave of the soldiers that did cast a marvellous burning flame out of his hand, insomuch as they that saw it thought he had been burnt: but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Cæsar self also doing sacrifice unto the gods, found that one of the beasts which was sacrificed had no heart: and that was a strange thing in nature: how a Beast could live without a heart" (pp. 97, 98).

71. Line 21: GLAR'Dupon me.-The Ff. have "glaz'd vpon me," which Pope was the first to correct.

72. Lines 22, 23:

and there were drawn

UPON A HEAP a hundred ghastly women. For the use of upon or on, compare Henry V. iv. 5. 18: Let us on heaps go offer up our lives; and Exodus viii. 14: "And they gathered them together upon heaps." For heap, applied to persons, compare also Richard III. ii. 1. 53: "Among this princely heap," &c.

73. Line 35: CLEAN from the purpose.-This use of clean is common in the Authorized Version of the Bible. See Psalms lxxvii. 8; Isaiah xxiv. 19; Joshua iii. 17, &c. Compare also Ascham's Scholemaster (Mayor's ed. p. 37): "This fault is clean contrary to the first."

74. Line 42: WHAT NIGHT is this!-Craik prints "what a night is this!" but the omission of the a in such exclamations was not unusual. Compare Two Gentlemen of Verona, i. 2. 53, 54:

What fool is she, that knows I am a maid,
And would not force the letter to my view!

and Twelfth Night, ii. 5. 123-126:

Fab. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him!

Sir To. And with what wing the staniel checks at it!

75. Line 49: the THUNDER-STONE.-The ancients believed that such a solid body fell with the lightning and did the mischief. It is called brontia by Pliny in his Natural History (xxxvii. 10). Compare Cymbeline, iv. 2. 270, 271:

Guid. Fear no more the lightning-flash. Arv. Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone. and Othello, v. 2. 234, 235:

Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?

It is said that the fossil shell known as the belemnite, or finger-stone, gave rise to this superstition. [Brontia has generally been identified with those roundish masses of crystallized iron pyrites (sulphuret of iron), often found in the neighbourhood of iron ore, which are still commonly known by the name of thunder-stones. Pliny's description is as follows: "Brontia is shaped in manner of a Tortoise head: it falleth with a cracke of thunder (as it is thought) from heaven; and if wee will beleeve it, quencheth the fire of lightning" (Holland's Pliny, edn. 1601, vol. ii. p. 625 B.)-F. A. M.]

76. Line 60: CASE yourself in wonder.-The Ff. have "cast your selfe in wonder," which is followed by Collier, Staunton, and the Cambridge editors. Case was proposed independently by Swynfen Jervis and M. W. Williams, and is adopted by Dyce and others. Wright explains "cast yourself in" as "hastily dress yourself in."

77. Line 65: Why old men FOOL, &c.-The Ff. reading is "Why Old men, Fooles," &c. The correction was suggested by Lettsom, and is accepted by Dyce, the Cambridge editors, and others. Collier and Staunton read, with Blackstone: "Why old men fools;" that is, why old men become fools. [I think there is a good deal to be said here for the reading of F. 1, though Lettsom's ingenious conjecture secures an effective antithesis; still the fact that old men, fools, and children were all trying to explain the phenomena and calculating what the various portents meant, would be a circumstance sufficiently unusual for Cassius to mention. -F. A. M.]

78. Line 75: As doth the lion in the Capitol.-That is, 'roars in the Capitol as doth the lion." Wright suggests that Shakespeare imagined that lions were kept in the Capitol, as they were in the Tower of London.

79. Line 76: A man no mightier than thyself or ME.— The grammatical error is not uncommon among intelligent people even now. Than is easily mistaken for a preposition. We can hardly, however, agree with Craik (p. 127), that "the personal pronoun must be held to be, in some measure, emancipated from the dominion or tyranny of syntax."

80. Line 89: I know where I will wear this dagger, then. -As Craik remarks, it is a mistake to omit the comma after dagger, as some editors do. "Cassius does not intend to be understood that he is prepared to plunge his dagger into his heart at that time, but in that case."

81. Line 117: HOLD, my hand.-It is curious that some editors omit the comma after Hold; and Craik explains thus: "Have, receive, take hold (of it); there is my hand." Of course the Hold is merely interjectional, as in Macbeth, ii. 1. 4: "Hold, take my sword;" and many similar passages.

82. Line 126: Pompey's porch.-This was a magnificent portico of a hundred columns connected with Pompey's Theatre, in the Campus Martius.