estimates are expected, attention is drawn to his rectitude, "only referring only referring his frendschippe and enmitie unto the consideracion of justice and equitie"; to "the marvelous noble minde of him, that for fear never fainted nor let falle any part of his corage"; to his influence over his associates so that "by his choyce of them he made them. good men ; to the honour in which he was held by his "verie enemies." But already the keynote is struck in the opening page:

This Marcus Brutus . . . whose life we presently wryte, having framed his manners of life by the rules of vertue and studie of philosophie, and having employed his wit, which was gentle and constant, in attempting of great things: me thinkes he was rightly made and framed unto vertue.

And the story often deviates from its course into little backwaters of commendation, as when after some censure of Cassius, we are told:

Brutus in contrary manner, for his vertue and valliantnes, was well-beloved of the people and his owne, esteemed of noble men, and hated of no man, not so much as of his enemies bicause he was a marvelous lowly and gentle person, noble minded, and would never be in any rage, nor caried away with pleasure and covetousness, but had ever an upright mind with him, and would never yeeld to any wronge or injustice, the which was the chiefest cause of his fame, of his rising, and of the good will that every man bare him: for they were all perswaded' that his intent was good.

This conception Shakespeare adopts and purifies. He leaves out the shadow of that one fault that Plutarch wisely excused: he leaves out too the unpleasant circumstance, which Plutarch apparently thought needed no excuse, that Brutus was applicant for and recipient of offices at the disposal of the all-powerful dictator. There must be nothing to mar the graciousness and dignity of the picture. Shakespeare wishes to portray a patriotic gentleman of the best Roman or the best English type, such "a gentleman or noble person" as it was the aim

of Spenser's Faerie Queene "to fashion in vertuous and gentle discipline," such a gentleman or noble person as Shakespeare's generation had seen in Spenser's friend, Sir Philip Sidney. So Plutarch's summaries are expanded and filled in partly with touches that his narrative supplies, partly with others that the summaries themselves suggest.

To the latter class belongs the winning courtesy with which Brutus at his first appearance excuses himself to Cassius for his preoccupation. His inward trouble might well have stirred him to irritability and abruptness; but he only feels that it has made him remiss, and that an explanation is due from him :

Vexed I am

Of late with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviours:
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved—
Among which number, Cassius, be you one-
Nor construe any further my neglect,

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

(1. ii. 39.)

So with his friends. Shakespeare invents the character of Lucius to show how attentive and considerate Brutus is as master. He apologises for having blamed his servant without cause.

Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful. (IV. iii. 255.)

He notes compassionately that the lad is drowsy and overwatched (Iv. iii. 241). At one time he dispenses with his services because he is sleeping sound (II. i. 229). At another he asks a song from him not as a right but as a favour (IV. iii. 256). And immediately thereafter the master waits, as it were, on the nodding slave, and removes his harp lest it should be broken.

But it is to his wife that he shows the full wealth of his affectionate nature. He would fain keep from

her the anxieties that are distracting his own mind: but when she claims to share them as the privilege and pledge of wifehood, with his quick sympathy he

sees it at once:

You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.

(II. i. 288.)

And yielding to her claim as a right, he recognises that it is a claim that comes from an ideally noble and loving soul, and prays to be made worthy of her. What insight Shakespeare shows even in his omissions! This is the prayer of Plutarch's Brutus too, but he lifts up his hands and beseeches the gods that he may "bring his enterprise to so goode passe that he mighte be founde a husband worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia." Shakespeare's Brutus does not view his worthiness as connected with any material success.

And these words are also an evidence of his humble-mindedness. However aggressive and overbearing he may appear in certain relations, we never fail to see his essential modesty. If he interferes, as often enough he does, to bow others to his will, it is not because he is self-conceited, but because he is convinced that a particular course is right; and where right is concerned, a man must come forward to enforce it. But for himself he has no idea of the high estimation in which his character and parts are held. When Cassius insinuates that everyone thinks him the man for the emergency, if he would only realise it, his reply is a disclaimer: he has never supposed, and shrinks from imagining, that he is fit for such a role. Yet such is his personality that, as all of the faction feel, his help is absolutely necessary if the conspiracy is to have a chance of approval. Cinna exhorts Cassius to win him to the party, Casca bears witness to his popular credit and to the

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value of his sanction in recommending the enterprise, Ligarius is willing to follow any course if Brutus leads, the cynical Cassius admits his worth and their great need of him.

For his amiable and attractive virtues are saved from all taint of weakness by an heroic strain, both high-spirited and public-spirited, both stoical and chivalrous. Challenged by the solicitations of Cassius he for once breaks through his reticence, and discloses his inward temper. We may be sure that even then he speaks less than he feels.

If it be aught toward the general good,

Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:

For let the gods so speed me, as I love

The name of honour more than I fear death. (1. ii. 85.) This elevated way of thinking has been fostered and confirmed by study, just as in the case of Sidney, and by study of much the same kind. Plutarch says:

:

Now touching the Greecian Philosophers, there was no sect nor Philosopher of them, but he heard and liked it but above all the rest, he loved Platoes sect best, and did not much give himself to the new or meane Academy as they call it, but altogether to the old Academy.

He has striven to direct his life by right reason, and has pondered its problems under the guidance of his chosen masters. His utterance, which Plutarch quotes, on suicide, shows how he has sought Plato's aid for a standard by which to judge others and himself. His utterance, which Shakespeare invents, on the death of Portia, shows how he has trained himself to fortitude, and suggests the influence of a different school.

We must die, Messala:
With meditating that she must die once,

I have the patience to endure it now.

(IV. iii. 190.)

1Compare the argument in the Phaedo, with its conclusion: "Then there may be reason in saying that a man should wait and not take his own life till God summons him." Jowett's Plato, Vol. I.

He is essentially a thinker, a reader, a student. Plutarch had told how on the eve of Pharsalia, when his companions were resting, or forecasting the morrow, Brutus "fell to his booke and wrote all day long till night, wryting a breviarie of Polybius." And in his last campaign:

His heade ever busily occupied to thinke of his affayres, ... after he had slumbered a little after supper, he spent all the rest of the night in dispatching of his waightiest causes, and after he had taken order for them, if he had any leysure left him, he would read some booke till the third watch of the night, at what tyme the Captaines, pety Captaines and Colonells, did use to come unto him.

Shakespeare only visualises this description when he makes him find the book, that in his troubles and griefs he has been "seeking for so," in the pocket of his gown, with the leaf turned down where he stopped reading.

Does then Shakespeare take over Plutarch's favourite, merely removing the single stain and accenting all the attractions, to confront him as the embodiment of republican virtue, with Caesar, against whom too no evil is remembered, as the embodiment of imperial majesty? Will he show the inevitable collision between two political principles each worthily represented in its respective champion?

This has been said, and there are not wanting arguments to support it. It is clear that the contrast is not perplexed by side issues. Brutus has no quarrel with Caesar as a man, and no justification is given for the conspiracy in what Caesar has done. On the contrary, his murderer stands sponsor for his character, acknowledges his supreme greatness, and loves him as a dear friend. But neither on the other hand is anything introduced that might divert our sympathies from Brutus by representing him as bound by other than the voluntary ties of affection

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