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Beat thou the drum, that it fpeak mournfully.
Trail your steel-pikes: though in this city be
Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
Which to this hour bewail the injury.
Yet he shall have a noble memory.]

A very good defcription of the funeral of a brave General.

Thus Chaucer, in his Knight's Tale, defcribes the funeral of Arcite, who was killed in combating for the fair Emily, by his friend Palamon, 2884, &c.

"Tho' gan this woful Theban Palamon
"In clothis blake bedroppid all with teres,
"And (paffing over weeping Emily)
"Was rufulleft of all the company.

"And in as much as the fervise fhulde be,
"The more nobil, and rich in his degree,
"Duke Thefeus lete foorth the stedis bring,
"That trappid were in ftele all glittering,
"And cover'd with the armes of Dan Arcite.
"Upon these stedis grete, and lilly white,
"Ther fattin folk, of which one bare his fhelde,
Anothir his fpere in his honde held.

"The third bare with him his bow Turkis, "Of fine gold was the cafe and the harneis: "And ridin forth apace with forry chere "Toward the grove, as ye fhall aftir here, "The noblift of the Grekes that werin there, "Upon their fhulderes carryid the biere, "With a flake pace, and eyin redde and wete, "Throughout the cite, by the maiftir strete, "That'

"That fpradde wals all with blake and won

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"der hie,

Right of the fame is the strete ywrie. "Upon the ryght hond went old Egeus; "And on the othir fide Duke Thefeus, "With veffils in their hond of gold full fine, "All full of honey, milk, and blode, and wine, "Eke Palamon with full grete company; "And aftir that came woful Emily,

"With fire in hond, as was that time the gyse, "To do the office of funeral fervife."

See the defcription of Hector's funeral, Mr. Pope's Homer. Iliad. book xxiv. 985.

JULIUS CESAR.

E

ACT I SCENE II.

Nter Cæfar, &c.)

"After them Marellus and Flavius."

lios 1623, and 1632.

Id. ib.

Cæfar. Forget not in your Speed, Antonius,
To touch Calphurnia: for our elders fay,
The barren touch'd in this holy chace,

Shake off their steril curse:]

Fo

Alluding to the Lupercalia, celebrated at Rome February 15th; in which the priests of Pan met

early

early in the morning in the temple of that god, where, after the ufual prayers, they facrificed to him white goats, in whofe blood, when they had dipt two knives, they marked two young men in their faces therewith; then they wiped them with wool fteep'd in milk; after which they provided themselves with thongs made of thefe goat-fkins, and ran ftark naked round the city, flapping the women with them, who willingly received them, because they had an opinion that these blows would make them fruitful.

See Plutarch's Life of Mark Anthony. Danet's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, under the words Luperci, and Lupercalia.

Sc. iii. p. 11.

Caffius.

There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd Th' eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,

As eafily as a King ]

This was Lucius Junius Brutus, who expelled Tarquinius Superbus, and his family out of Rome, put an end to the regal fucceffion, and founded a commonwealth in its ftead.

Qu. Infernal devil?

Sc. iv. p. 12.

Caf. Let me have men about me, that are fat, Sleek beaded men, and fuch as fleep a-nights: Yond Caffius has a lean and hungry look.]

Plutarch obferves, in the life of Mark Anthony, That Anthony and Dolabella were accufed of a defign against Cæfar. 'Tis not men (fays be)

he) that are well fed, and fo well dreffed, that I fear; but the pale and lean I dread, meaning Brutus and Caffius. See likewife the life of Marcus Brutus, by Plutarch...

Ib. p. 13. Cæfar of Caffius.

Seldom be fmiles, and fmiles in fuch a fort,
As if he mock'd himself.]

A character much resembling that of Oliver Saint John, Solicitor-General to King Charles I. of whom Lord Clarendon obferves, that he was a man reserved, of a dark and clouded countenance; and that he was feldom known to smile, but when the King diffolved that parliament in 1640, which might have been of fervice to him. Sc. v. p. 14.

Brut. Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.
Cafc. I can as well be hang'd, as tell the manner

of it;

It was mere foolery, I did not mark it.]

"It were mere foolery, I did not mark it," Folio 1632.

Sc. vi. p. 17. Cafca to Cicero.

Cafc. Are not you moved, when all the fway of earth,

Shakes like a thing unfirm.]

Alluding to fome of the prodigies preceding Cafar's death. See Virgil. Georgic. 1. Horat. Carm. lib. 1, 2. Ad Auguftum. Livii Hiftor. lib. 116. cap. 44. 55. Plutarch's Life of Julius Cæfar.

Sc. vi.

Sc. vi. p. 17.

Against the Capitol, I met a lion,

Who glar'd upon me.]

"Who glaz'd upon me."

1632. Qu. Gaz'd?

Folios 1623, and

Id. ib. - -The bird of night did fit, Ev'n at noon-day, upon the market-place, Houting and shrieking.]

The superstition of the Romans upon fuch appearances, is humorously bantered by Butler, (Hudibras, part ii. canto iii. 709, &c.). "The (a) Roman fenate, when within "The city-walls an owl was feen, "Did cause their clergy with luftrations, "(Our fynod calls humiliations), "The round-fac'd prodigy to avert, "From doing town or country hurt." Sc. vii.

Have bar'd my bofom to the thunder stone.]

The damage was imagined by the ancients to be done by a thunder-bolt, by the moderns more probably by lightening.

See Chambers's Dictionary.

Id. ib. It is the part of men to fear and tremble, When the most High Gods, &c.]

An allufion to Pfalm Ixix. 33.

(a) Romani L. Craffe, et C. Marcio, Coff. Bubone Vifo, lư ftrabant.

See a remarkable account of an ovule that disturbed Pope John xxiv. at a council held at Rome. Fafcicul. rerum expetendarum et fugendarum, p. 402. Brown's edition,

A&t ii.

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