with it to the childless man desire for a direct heir to the throne. This thought underlies the first words spoken by Cæsar in the play, addressed to his wife and to Antony, who is stripped for the course, and whose touch in the chase, as he passed her, might remove sterility. The same ten lines of the opening of the scene paint Cæsar so far risen above surrounding men that he is treated as a god; and afterwards in his own speech, big with the sense of his sole dignity and power, he assumes the god. "I shall remember," Antony replies to the bidding that he should not forget, in his speed, to touch Calphurnia:

"When Cæsar says, 'Do this,' it is performed."

So men speak of Divine but not of human power. Upon this glorying in a vain sense of supreme power breaks the despised warning of the soothsayer, who bids Cæsar "beware the Ides of March." Cæsar passes with triumphal music in the hope to return crowned. Cassius remains to work on at his endeavour to bring Brutus into the conspiracy already formed for saving Rome from a sole master by killing Cæsar. The whole dialogue between them has this meaning. Distant shouts

of the people cause Brutus to express his fear that they choose Cæsar for their king:

"Cassius.

Ay, do you fear it? Then must I think you would not have it so.

Brutus. I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well."

In the dialogue between them Cassius is the speaker; the words of Brutus are not answers to his persuasion, but detached expression of his own thought prompted once and again by the shouting of the people. And Cassius, though he is seeking to lead Brutus, is unable to put his argument upon ground higher than that which satisfies himself. It is based on personal resentment that another man should be accounted greater than himself. For this reason, Shakespeare has not allowed Brutus to speak a word that would associate his way of reasoning with that of Cassius. Only he asks at last that he may not be any farther moved; but he is so far won that while indicating knowledge of his brother-in-law's aim, and willingness to find occasion to hear more:

"Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:
Brutus had rather be a villager

Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.

That my weak words have struck but thus much show Of fire from Brutus."

Cæsar then passes, on his return from disappointment, with the angry spot upon his brow. The people, as we learn presently from Casca, had applauded, not the offer of the crown, but the show made of rejection, that it might be urged upon him by their voices. Vexation had been great enough

to bring on an attack of the epilepsy to which he was subject, and as he passes he observes the eye of Cassius upon him, of Cassius "who looks quite through the deeds of men." His irritation of mind, blended with the knowledge of men that had helped Cæsar to power, then fastens upon Cassius, whom he describes to Antony with a real insight into the danger of his character which sums up what has been shown in the preceding argument of Cassius with Brutus :

"Such men as he are never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves;
And therefore are they very dangerous."

Then he assumes the god :

"I rather tell thee what is to be feared
Than what I fear,-for always I am Cæsar."

To which Shakespeare at once adds a dramatic

touch of irony on the frail man who speaks like an

"Come on my right side, for this ear is deaf,

And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.'

When Casca has been plucked by the sleeve, and has told in terms bluntly contemptuous the tale of Cæsar's disappointment, Cassius does not part with him till he has bidden him to his house. Then Brutus parts from Cassius, with renewed indication that he may be won, since he is willing to hear more.

"For this time I will leave you :
To-morrow, if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

Cassius. I will do so :-till then, think of the world."

"Think of the world!" says Cassius in parting, consciously playing on his brother-in-law's unselfish devotion to whatever he may be brought to regard as the common good. That he knows himself to be playing with what selfish men regard as weakness in a nature higher than their own, Shakespeare shows by taking us down at once into the mind of Cassius. It is to be remembered always that a soliloquy or an aside in Shakespeare,

and in our English dramatists generally: represents

unspoken thought :

"think of the world.

[Exit Brutus

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see,
Thy honourable mettle may be wrought
From that it is disposed: therefore, 't is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
Cæsar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me."

And he plans then throwing writings in his way that seem to represent voices of Roman

citizens

"all tending to the great opinion

That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Cæsar's ambition shall be glanced at."

Between the second and third scenes of the First Act a month has passed. The two first scenes of the play represent Cæsar's attempt to obtain the crown from the people in the middle of February, at the Feast of Lupercal. The story proceeds now to the fifteenth of March, when Cæsar sought to be crowned by the Senate. From the heavens in storm in the third scene of the First Act, to the full bursting of the storm of civil fury at the end of the Third Act, we are in