JULIVS CiESAR. 217

more than his reason.'* — " The quarrel," he
says, " will bear no colour for the thing he is \*'
but he argues, that if Caesar should be king, he
then will have " a sting in him, that at his will
he may do danger with." And this is the
wretched hypothesis on which Brutus justifies
his conscience in the murder of Caesar ! Wheii
Shakspeare deserted his author, and described
the rest of Brutus* character from his own ima-
gination, how beautiful is the picture ! — his
calmness and dignity so well sustained by the
abounding maxims of his philosophy; — his con-
siderate regard for Lucius *, in such accordance
with the character of gentleness in Brutus. In
the struggle of feeling and philosophy, when he
teUs Cassius of the death of Portia, he can
speak with calmness of his misfortune, and is
able even to narrate the circumstances of its oc-
currence without embarrassment ; but the strict
attention he observes to utter no unnecessary
>ord, his haste to dismiss, and his injunctions
against the renewal of the subject, denote, in a
manner as deeply impressive as language could
have made it, the internal agony of his mind, t
This is one of those surprising instances of
Shakspeare's power to produce extraordinary

* Act 11. sc. 1. — Act IV. sc. 3. \ Act IV. sc. 3.
918 JULIUS CiESAR«

effects, by means apparently the most simple and
inartificial. — But to continue our general com-
parison.
Shakspeare, prudently enough, omits to notice
the motives which should have restrained Bru-
tus from raising his arm against the head of Caesar.
