the Ides of March. The action extends over one night and day; the day of Cæsar's murder and the night before it.

Of the portents that formed part of Plutarch's record, Shakespeare makes throughout a poetical use, joining them with the course of events, to represent offended Heaven and the presence of a higher power in affairs of men. The conspirators are gathering in Pompey's porch, under "a tempest dropping fire," safe against observation in deserted streets. But Brutus is not yet enrolled among their number, although Cassius has so used the time that but a few words on the eve of Cæsar's second attempt to be crowned, a few words representing that the plan is formed, and that the blow will be struck against tyranny whether Brutus give it countenance or no, will be enough to win him. The conspirators are meeting in Pompey's porch; Cassius has not yet joined them, and Metellus Cimber has been sent to his house to fetch him. Under such conditions the scene opens with Casca meeting Cicero in the portentous storm that suggests

"Either there is a civil strife in heaven,

Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction."

To Casca's recital of the prodigies that moved men's minds, Cicero's answer is—

"Indeed, it is a strange-disposéd time;

But men may construe things, after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Cæsar to the Capitol to-morrow?"

Cæsar was to fall, not for ills done, but for the ills he might do if he wore a crown. "Mistrust of good success," and "hateful Error, Melancholy's child," would do this deed. So Cassius, next meeting Casca, interprets the signs in the heavens "clean from their purpose" as portending a just war against the tyranny of Cæsar:

"Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
Most like this dreadful night;

That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
As doth the lion in the Capitol."

And Casca recalls that,

"Indeed, they say the senators to-morrow

Mean to establish Cæsar as a king;

And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in Italy."

Cassius has won Casca to fellowship in the conspiracy, when Cinna, who has been sent as a second messenger after Metellus Cimber to find the missing chief, interrupts their talk in the dark.

ness broken only by the meteors and lightning flashes.

"Casca. Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste. Cas. 'Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait :

He is a friend.-Cinna, where haste you so?

Cin. To find out you. Who's that? Metellus Cimber? Cas. No, it is Casca; one incorporate

To our attempts. Am I not stayed for, Cinna?

Cin. I am glad on 't. What a fearful night is this! There's two or three of us have seen strange sights. Cas. Am I not stayed for? Tell me.

Cin. Yes, you are. O Cassius! If you could But win the noble Brutus to our party."

Cassius is cool for action; but in other men the storm that suggests anger of the gods begets fear that seeks shelter under the good name of Brutus, soul of honour, whom men trust for his known worth, and whom the gods must love. The act is closed with emphasis upon the reason for the strong endeavour to win assent from Brutus to the murdering of Cæsar. Casca says:

"Oh, he sits high in all the people's hearts.
And that which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchymy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness."

Cassius replies:

"Him, and his worth, and our great need of him, You have right well conceited. Let us go,

For it is after midnight; and, ere day,

We will awake him, and be sure of him."

The first scene of the Second Act shows Brutus awake already, made sleepless by the thought that Cassius has for a month past been diligently prompting, with the aid of false shows of a Roman people calling upon Brutus to save Rome from the creation of a tyrant :

"Since Cassius first did whet me against Cæsar,
I have not slept."

Now, on the night before Cæsar's second grasp towards a crown, which will be surely granted by the Senate in the Capitol, Brutus has left his bed, paces his orchard, wakens his boy, Lucius, to provide light in his study, reads by the light of exhalations whizzing in the air one of the misleading papers studiously set by Cassius in his way. We are shown by a soliloquy the reasons that have brought Brutus, through anguish of a mind at war within itself, to the belief that there is no way to secure the good of Rome except by Cæsar's death. Here Shakespeare represents Brutus as surrendering his better judgment to no good reason for an evil deed:

"for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general .

to speak truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affections swayed
More than his reason."

But just men ambitious of a crown have often ehanged their nature, scorned the base degrees by which they rose, and had a sting put into them :— "So Cæsar may:

Then, lest he may, prevent."

There is no more than mistrust; no argument that could have swayed the mind of Brutus without help from Cassius, who had worked steadily, and with intimate knowledge of that hereditary zeal for liberty which might possibly be urged until it passed the bounds of reason in endeavour to secure the common good.

When Cassius brings the conspirators to Brutus in his orchard, there is recoil from the shameful aspect of conspiracy that fears to show its face, but a few words whispered apart by Cassius to Brutus suffice to make him one of the confederates. Few words would then suffice.-To-morrow Cæsar would be crowned in the Capitol. But he will be struck down. Here are the men who will do it-with you or without you. With you they strike for liberty with the least risk to Rome. Are you