› dissimulation and perhaps stooped to it. His mother pr it and he perhaps practised it first successfully on her. The secret of Coriolanus's change Mr. MacCallum f the fact that the people, meanly egged on by the tr followed him with insult as he went to banishment, be that he refers to this in his words to Aufidius in IV. that the nobles were involved in his hatred by their to save him from this insult. But the words to Aufidiu only that name [Coriolanus] remai The cruelty and envy of the people, could refer as well to the cries for his banishment, Again, Mr. MacCallum appeals to the scene which the farewell, i.e. Scene ii. of Act IV., for proof that the have really driven Coriolanus out with insult. It m well be taken to mean the contrary. Sicinius says, them all home: he's gone, and we 'll no further;" and "Bid them home: say their great enemy is gone," etc. would know that as well as the tribunes if present, a tribunes would hardly lead the insulting crowd. If more is needed than the main process of thou dicated by Mr. Bradley, it may perhaps be found burning desire of Coriolanus to be quit of his banish satisfy his wounded pride and make good his threat "I you." This alone could give him back his lost s supremacy. He must be utterly severed from them, of a country, so that he may take vengeance upon them a a name on them as on Corioles. Pride, the first of the seven deadly sins, is the more overmastering in Coriolanus from his freedom from the rest, unless wrath be excepted. He is without envy, perhaps because he has no rivals, for, fair opposite as he is, he hardly endures the quality of Aufidius; but his pride in his valiant manhood, though its praises grieve him, will brook no question, and becomes pitiful when he allows the taunt of "boy," not traitor this time, to make him insult his hosts and brag of his exploits in Antium. To be called traitor he could bear; he knew his actions might be called in question; but Aufidius burlesqued his emotion and its effect on others, and called him a "boy of tears." It was too much. It was too much. He forgets the traitor, even the tears, but "boy!" The word might almost echo him: " Alone I did it." In framing the plot from the story in Plutarch, Shakespeare reduced three rebellious commotions to two. The first, which led to the appointment of the tribunes, was apparently pacified by Menenius, who only addresses the least important of two bodies of citizens in Shakespeare. The second, omitted by Shakespeare, was brought about principally by the tribunes by means of false tales, and was augmented by the attempt of the nobility to thin the ranks of the discontented by sending a colony to the plague-stricken town Velitrae, and to levy troops to proceed against the Volscians. The tribunes insinuated that the patricians had procured a voluntary war, and the people refused to serve. Marcius compelled them to colonise Velitrae, but proceeded to the wars with volunteers only, and as the result of his foray brought back plenty of corn and booty, which was distributed to the volunteers alone. At this stage, the proposal to confer the consulship was made, and at first favourably received by the people because of Marcius's services; but on second thoughts they refused it. It was after this that by purchase and gift Rome was well provided with corn, and Marcius, embittered by his rejection, and indignant at the people's refusal to serve, and more than ever convinced of the folly of dividing authority, not only declaimed against easy sale or gift of corn but urged the abolition of the tribuneship and carried the majority of the senators with him. Upon this the tribunes flew to the people, "crying out for help," and raised a tumult. They attempted to arrest Coriolanus and proceeded as in Shakespeare. This was the third sedition or tumult. In altering the facts, Shakespeare does more than improve He sup the story from the dramatic point of view. some of the machinations of the tribunes, but makes responsible for the refusal of the consulship, and in cr live characters out of Plutarch's authors of sedition, them base, self-seeking and unscrupulous. Yet he see that they put the people's just case forcibly, and make utter home-truths to the proud patrician : you speak to the people As if you were a god to punish, not A man of their infirmity. ✔He gives the people more excuse for their ficklene making Marcius refuse to show his wounds and mee good-will with ungenerous sneers. Their natural king and pathetic readiness to forgive is not forgotten, but, other hand, their sufferings and forbearance are less adv and justice is hardly done to their provocations, m and moderation. Their ignorance and self-contradicti Shakespeare paints it, help to intensify their ficklenes their enthusiasm for the victor Coriolanus shows up ingratitude in the sequel. Yet it is not strictly true to say, with Dr. Brandes Shakespeare ignores "every incident which sheds a favo light upon the Plebeians," and had his sympathy been with Coriolanus he would have stopped short of maki part of his conduct odious. Advocacy of his point of not implied in making the people fickle and fusty, n morbid hyper-sensitiveness on the latter score. Shake was far too sensible of the humourous possibilities of th raged sense to be turned into a misanthrope, or of being "incapable of seeing them [the people] as an aggrega separate individualities," as Dr. Brandes will have it, b "the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever of nostril." No doubt he preferred a strong, unhampered g \ ment; no doubt he disliked the mob on its bad, fick dangerous side, and made the most of what was objecti in it to nice senses, which is no more than what any s of his period ought to expect; but that he could not or not see the people's rights, their good side, and eve individual good sense, can only be denied by ig probability and reading the evidence of his work, in Coriolanus, all wrong. It would be better to take the o t -e t de of en ed -n nd ple ent uld neir ing ing site view with Mr. Stopford Brooke, who says: "We are made to feel, moving like a spirit through the play, the sympathy of Shakespeare with the struggle of the people," and again : "Then, too, the drawing of Coriolanus suggests his sympathy with the popular movement. No one can help seeing that Shakespeare did not love Coriolanus, nor approve his conduct." The mob does not devour aristocracy, the rule of those who are best, or vileness triumph over nobility, as Mr. Barrett Wendell1 puts it. The people expels by fair and foul means, a declared enemy whom sane aristocracy cannot control, and even Menenius admits that in the event all is well (IV. vi. 16). That Coriolanus subverts this condition by resorting to foul means himself does not change the fact. Cominius and Titus Lartius are scarcely more than brave soldiers, generous comrades, and men of sense and prudence in the State, but Shakespeare has created in Menenius one of the happy old men of Elizabethan or Jacobean drama out of a mere name in Plutarch. Menenius would have been a witty compotator with Justice Clement, or old Merrythought, or Sebastian in Monsieur Thomas, but has his serious sides in his devotion to Coriolanus and the shrewdness, and-at the lowest estimate the bonhomie, which creates an impression of goodwill and makes the people hear him and endure his plainest speech. He and his fellow patricians share the aristocratic prejudices of Coriolanus, but not in the exaggerated degree which destroys all human feeling; and as the people credited him with love for them and honesty, it is a fair inference that they remembered instances either of particular kindness or of political impartiality. Mr. E. K. Chambers denies him diplomacy save in his own conceit, and will have him foolish and ineffective, but it is he who does all that can be done from the patrician side to control events in the hour of danger, who calls for force against force when nothing else will serve, and who afterwards succeeds in restoring the situation to a possibility of compromise. He is an altogether happy creation; and it is only when we come to Aufidius that disappointment in the characterisation is really felt. In Plutarch, Aufidius is not introduced until Coriolanus seeks him at Antium, when he is described as rich, noble, and valiant, honoured among the Volsces as a king, and as hating and envying Marcius because of their many encounters. Yet it is as "a man of great mind" that 1 William Shakespeare: A Study in Elizabethan Literature, 1894. Coriolanus seeks him out, and as one most desirous Volscians to have revenge upon the Romans, and Au is "a marvellous glad man to hear him, and taking by the hand, says: "Stand up, O Marcius, and be of cheer, for in proffering thyself unto us thou dost us honour; and by this means thou mayest hope of g things at all the Volsces' hands." In Shakespeare, Au appears early in the play, and the two men admire the qu in one another which they value in themselves, but recipr hate and envy because each is too proud to brook a rival the two, only Marcius speaks generously of his competito Shakespeare makes Aufidius, when again defeated, dis honour henceforward and vow revenge by base means. when Coriolanus seeks him, a rapturous speech replaces t words of welcome in Plutarch, and it is impossible to th insincere. Aufidius is one of those who can feel and noble and generous impulse, but cannot resist reaction the impulse fades and its consequences begin to be una able. "Though he had received no private injury o pleasure of Marcius," says Plutarch, "yet the common and imperfection of man's nature wrought in him, and it g him to see his own reputation blemished through M great fame and honour, and so himself to be less esteer the Volsces than he was before." This is natural ever true man, and in Shakespeare, if we may trust Aufidiu the First Conspirator in V. vi., he experienced somethi proud in the bearing of Coriolanus towards him, which to his resentment. But dishonourably and unlike a tru with a face of friendship to his colleague, he basely against him, and declaring himself moved by the app Volumnia, is quite unmoved by that of Coriolanus: " to me in this cause.' In the early rivalry Shakespeare represented his hon perishing in the gall of repeated defeat; so now, as in Pl also, the honour of a comrade and host withers in t resentment of a displaced leader. When he has destroy rival, he cries, "My rage is gone And I am struck with s It is a revulsion of feeling which cannot conciliate, but I think it was intended to be insincere. On the whole, A can be understood as well as despised; but the delinea the character does not satisfy, and leaves the impression unpleasing task, accomplished with as little trouble as p It is in contrast with the careful presentation of the trib |