"Makes," i. e. artificially devises-counterfeits -what Lady Macbeth might call-" flaws and starts impostors to true policy."

The spacious mirror, I suppose, is the ample world, which, by the death of Antony, is now become wholly Cæsar's.

264. "The business of this man looks out of him."

In Macbeth we find a similar expression:

What haste looks thro' his eyes. So should he look that seems to speak things strange."

A word is wanting to the measure:

"And how you find her; go."
Cæsar, I shall.'

266. "The beggar's nurse, and Cæsar's."

Some words have been lost; perhaps, these: "The beggar's nurse alike, and mighty Cæsar's. 267. "He gives me so much of my own, as I "Will kneel to him with thanks."

The latter part of this sentence being not comparative, but consequential, the conjunction is false: it should be "that," not "as.

271. "O, temperance, lady."

O is an idle interpolation, encumbering the

verse.

273. "My country's high pyramids my gibbet."

Mr. Steevens, in order to help the metre, has introduced, from the folio, "pyramides;" but I suspect that some word has been lost. I would read: My country's highest pyramid, my gibbet.”

My country's highest pyramid," &c.

The singular number is requisite here. She would not be hanged on more than one. B. STRUTT.

275. "

An autumn 'twas

"That grew the more by reaping."

We are not here to understand autumn generally, which does not grow the more, or grow at all, on account of the reaping; but a supposed kind of autumn that grew, &c. A similar mode of expression occurs in Macbeth :

"Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued," &c. i. e. Not like angels generally described as being trumpet-tongued, but like such particular angels as are trumpet-tongued.

276. "

- His delights

"Were dolphin-like; they show'd his back

above

"The element they liv'd in."

I wish that Mr. Steevens, instead of conducting us to another place, where the word dolphinlike was to be found, had explained the meaning of it, here. How are we to understand delights

being dolphin-like and shewing Antony's back above the element they lived in? Antony himself must be the dolphin, and his delights the element. What the words were intended to express, I suppose is, that Antony, by the dignity and nobility of his deportment, always shewed himself superior to the pleasures in which he was indulging; if this be the sense we should read:

An autumn 'twas

"That grew the more by reaping: in his delights, "He, dolphin-like, display'd his back, above "The element he liv'd in."

279.

I have

"Been laden with like frailties, which before," &c.

"Like," implying comparison, requires the conjunction "as," instead of "that:" awhile ago we had "as" for "that."

282. "Immoment toys."

Trifles inconsiderable.

287. "Nay, that is certain."

Some words, I suppose, have been lost; per

haps :

Be you well assur'd on't."

294. "What! should I stay".

Char. "

In this wild."

I believe the word was "vile," spelled, as Mr. Steevens remarks, vild: but the metrical derangement shews corruption. I imagine that Charmian takes up the dying words of her mistress and applies them to herself:

Cleo. "What! shall I stay"

Char. "

(Dies.)

In this vile world, alone?

"No, I will follow strait, fare thee

well!

"Now boast thee death," &c.

Antony and Cleopatra, with instances abundant of those depravations in the sense, construction, and metre, too often recurring throughout these works, is written in our author's best manner; and though Dryden has dilated and nobly refined some passages, the ALL FOR LOVE will, I believe, for interest, animation, and energy, be found far inferior to its original.

The character of Mark Antony, as he is represented here and in Julius Cæsar, exhibits a very remarkable difference; and this, probably, it was that induced Mr. Upton to make, too hastily, the remark which Dr. Johnson controverts. Undoubtedly, the sentiments, diction, and deportment of Antony display, in the present drama, a pomp and stateliness which was no where assumed in the former; but the disparity or alteration did not proceed from Shakspeare's learning, or any purpose to conform to the real practice of his hero, but simply from our poet's knowledge of human life, and his skill in describing it under all vicissitudes; from his having observed that, with many men, a change of fortune will produce a change in their manners, "that lowliness is young Ambition's ladder," and that a mind, such as Antony's, would, at one time, be meek, tractable, and courteous, and at another, haughty, inflexible, and overbearing,

One peculiarity of this play is, that we shall find in it, without suspecting extraordinary corruption, a much greater number of hypermetrical lines than any of the others will furnish; but these hypermeters do not consist of the redundant and super-redundant endings, so often infesting the measure of Jonson, Fletcher, and Massinger, as shewn in the Introduction, but that kind of superfluity which the ear will admit of by intermediate contraction in the utterance of the vowels, such as:

"Like Cæsar's sister, the wife of Antony."

"The soldier's virtue rather makes choice of loss."

Where "rather" must be delivered in the time of a monosyllable. Lines of this kind, not too frequently occurring, are a grace rather than an imperfection, in dramatic verse; and Milton has invigorated and enriched his numbers by the use of them, in his two great poems. In this tragedy, I fear, they are too numerous.