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Live a thousand years,

"I shall not find myself so apt to die." · This sentiment, which is suggested to Antony by grief and dispair, breaks from Othello in the height of exultation:

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If it were now to die,
"Twere now to be most happy!"

"No place will please me so, no mean of death."

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Mean," here, has an unusual signification: it cannot be medium, nor yet means" (efficient cause), for that was expressed just before :

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"Of half that force as those your swords," &c. But it seems to imply mode, manner, form.

"As fire drives out fire, so pity, pity.”

In these works we find that fire is sometimes a monosyllable and sometimes a dissyllable, but the difference should certainly be marked, in the spelling: it should, here, in one case be written "fire," and in the other "fiér," according to the ancient orthography:

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"As fier drives out fire, so pity, pity."

For

your part,

"To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony."

The hypermeter, and the cacophonous sounds of you and yours, here, are proofs, I think, of corruption: we might read, in mercy to the metre,

"Hath done this deed on Cæsar; but for you, "Mark Antony, our swords have leaden points."

“Our arms, in strength of malice, and our

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hearts,

Of brothers' temper, do receive you in
With all kind love."

The first part of this passage, Mr Pope (not understanding it), with a bold licence, altered, at least to meaning, (exempt from, instead of "in strength of;") and until better meaning, or sense of any kind, can be deduced from the words as they stand, I believe the poetic editor's emendation will be respected. I wish that, in Mr. Steevens's comment, I could recognize any of that happy illustration which Mr. Malone ascribes to it. What chiefly wants explanation is, arms in strength of malice" being extended to friends; and all the light I can discover in Mr. Steevens's note is in the change of "in strength of malice," to strong in the deed of malice, which really does not, to me, afford a glimmering of fresh intelligence. May I offer, with a view to our poet's licentious practice, a word that might have stood here, and given a meaning:

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"Our arms, reproof of malice, and our hearts,"

&c.

Re

i. e. In confutation, disproof of malice. proof is used exactly according to this sense in K. Henry IV. Act 1, Scene 2: "In reproof of this lies the jest."

343.

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Sign'd in thy spoil."

i. e. Marked, distinguished, signalized.

Here wast thou bay'd, brave hart!

"How like a deer.”

There is no end to the dear jingling with dear

and deer, and hart and heart, whenever they come in the way.

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Pardon me, Caius Cassius."

Caius Cassius, here, only encumbers the verse, and should be sent about his business:

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"With you" should be withdrawn:

"You shall, Mark Antony:
Brutus, a word."

"Our reasons are so full of good regard." So cogent, so applicable.

345. "I know not what may fall: I like it not."

I believe there is no instance to countenance this use of "fall," for "fall out;" "succeed." Perhaps we should read, follow, and transpose "like" and "not :"

'I know not what may follow: I not like it."

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Mr. Henley has remarked that Dr. Johnson's explanation does not seem to reach the poet's idea, and that, by the "tide of times," is meant, not the ordinary course of things, but, great occasions, emergencies of uncommon moment, such as the overthrow or establishment of empires; and this interpretation appears to have support in what Brutus says, in the fourth Act:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,

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Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

348. "Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome;

"No Rome of safety for Octavius," &c. Mr. Steevens begins a long note, here, "If Shakspeare meant to quibble," &c. Can any body doubt it?

SCENE II.

350. "Romans, countrymen, and lovers!" This speech of Brutus, wherein I can, by no means, recognise the justness of Dr. Warburton's remark, which states, "it is very fine in its kind," impresses me with a strong persuasion that it is not at all the production of our poet it is more like the manufacture of Ben Jonson, and would better suit Polonius, than Brutus, in those scenes of Hamlet, where there is strong reason to suspect corruption. It is very remarkable that Voltaire, who has stolen and transplanted into his own tragedy of Brutus, the fine speech of Antony to the people; and has unblushingly received the highest compliments upon it, from the King of Prussia, Count Algarotti, and others, affects to extol this address of Brutus, while he is most disingenuously silent on the subject of that of Antony, which he chose to purloin.

351. "Here comes his body mourn'd by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth, as which of you shall not ?"

A transposition of sentences seems necessary here. Antony, indeed, might naturally be entitled to an office in the commonwealth, but Brutus could never mean to promise offices" to all the rout," though he might flatter them by, saying, their condition should be mended. We should read: "Who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive a place in the commonwealth, and the benefit of his dying, as which of you shall not?"

354. "The evil that men do lives after them, "The good is oft interred with their bones."

This sentiment, a little varied, occurs in K. Henry VIII.

"Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues "We write in water.'

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358. "As rushing out of doors," &c.

I wish this quaint conceit had been omitted, here.

361. "Were I Brutus,

"And Brutus Antony.”

i. e. Were I Brutus, and, with his power of eloquence, had the zeal and affection for Cæsar which belongs to Antony, then there would be, indeed, an Antony, or a friend of Cæsar's effectual in his cause."

66

66

'And, with the brands, fire the traitors' houses."

Mr. Steevens, in telling us that fire, here, is a dissyllable, is requiring of us, an acceptance of a mode of pronunciation which he, himself, is always rejecting with vehemence, when offered

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