Think" is, certainly, take thought-become desperately melancholy. In the fourth Act, Enobarbus says,

This blows my heart,

"If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean "Shall outstrike thought; but thought will do't, I feel."

See Note, Act 4, Scene 6, page 76; and also Julius Cæsar, Act 2, Scene 1, page 13 of this

volume.

181.

Why should he follow?"

We might restore the measure by reading, instead of why," wherefore.

"

182. "From which, the world shall note."

The metre requires that, instead of "from which," we should read whence.

"Against the blown rose may they stop their

How is this figure to be applied? Before the bud is disclosed we stoop to inhale the coy and scanty fragrance, which, when the flower is blown, intrudes upon and oppresses the sense. This is clear enough, as far as relates to the rose; but how does it apply to the omission of accustomed ceremony towards the queen? She appears here to be both the blown rose and the bud; but, though her vassal formerly kneeled to snuff the effluent sweets of her imperial state, where is

now the full-fraught overpowering gale of aromatic greatness, against which he is to stop his nose? Or, may we interpret the passage thus; that Cæsar is the blown rose, and Cleopatra's highest prosperity, compared with his grandeur, no more than the infancy or bud of greatness? If so, the queen's reflections upon the rudeness of the messenger may be-What! no more ceremony observe but this !—yet I ought not to wonder; could it be expected that they who so obsequiously bowed and cringed before my petty dignity, would turn their backs to the superlative magnificence of Cæsar? and not rather present all their devotion there? If this be the sense, a note of question, or at least of admiration, is wanting:

184.

66

68

See, my women !-
Against the blown rose," &c.

I believe this to mean-They formerly paid more respect to the infant grandeur of me and my brother Ptolemy, and my then immature beauty, than they now pay to me in the height of my perfections. C. LOFFT.

190. "Authority melts from me: of late, when I cried, ho!"

I think that, to preserve the metre, we might omit the words, "of late," and form the line in this manner:

Authority melts from me; cried I but, ho!"

" With the hand of she here."

This seeming breach of grammar would be repaired by due punctuation:

"With the hand of-She here. (It is she here whom I mean,)

"What's her name?" &c.

192. "You have been a boggler ever." Perhaps,

"Indeed we know you've been a boggler ever."

Since my lord

"Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra." This should be

"Is Antony again, I'm Cleopatra."
To be furious,

"Is, to be frighted out of fear."

Fear, pressed to extremity, turns to fury.

Never anger

"Made good guard," &c.

This is uncouth phraseology, and might readily have been corrected:

Macbeth utters the same word of impatience to his armourer :

211.

Come, sir, despatch."

"Please you, retire to your chamber ?"

This is defective. We might add:

"Please you, retire you to your
Lead me.

Cleo. "

chamber?"

"He goes forth gallantly. That he and Cæsar

might

"Determine this great war in single fight ! Then, Antony," &c.

66

The reader must have observed, that frequently, throughout these works, after a scene has apparently been finished with tag, other words are introduced unnecessarily; as here. Renouncing the rhyme, which the additional words seem to imply a disapprobation of, the first line might be reduced to measure:

"He goes forth gallantly.

Cæsar," &c.

SCENE VI.

Might he and

216. "I am alone the villain of the earth, "And feel I am so most.'

All other villains lose their character, compared with me; and I not only surpass all others in villany, but in the overwhelming consciousness

of it. The first part of the sentiment occurs in Cymbeline, where Posthumus imprecates :

Every villain be call'd

"Posthumus Leonatus, and be villany
"Less than it was.”

"This blows my heart."

Dilates, distends it.

If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean Will do't."

If the active operation of melancholy do not break it, &c.

Hamlet talks of

Wings as swift

"As meditation, or the thoughts of love."

And Brutus, in Julius Cæsar, says of Antony:

"If he love Cæsar, all that he can do

"Is to himself: take thought, and die for Cæsar.”

"Thought, in this sense, extreme anxiety, is used by Lord Verulam :

"Hawis, an alderman of London, was put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish before his business came to an end."

Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the
Seuenth. Edit. 1629.

SCENE VIII.

220. "Ride on the pants triumphing." Milton thus accentuates triumph:

"Who now triumphs, and, in the excess of joy,"

&c.

Paradise Lost.