each other, so that we jump without any transition from the comparative simplicity of the historian to the exuberance and passion of the poet. The finest portion of the scene is that which is borrowed word for word from Plutarch, whose value and merit as a painter of character can never be too strongly insisted on, and yet our admiration of him is greatly due to qualities which in reality do not belong to him: Amyot has gained for him a reputation of a certain kindly simplicity, which he would never otherwise have had; for in point of fact, what pre-eminently distinguishes him is his poetic and dramatic imagination, which would have been of the highest order if he had also possessed the ingenuous and simple charms with which he has been invested by another.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PART PLAYED BY THE PEOPLE IN THE ROMAN

TRAGEDIES.

THERE yet remains one personage to be mentioned in connection with the Roman tragedies, and this personage is the people.

But it may be asked whether the term here used can be applied with propriety to the hydra-headed multitude, and whether that mental and moral unity which is presented by individual beings, such as Brutus, Antony, Coriolanus, and Volumnia, can possibly be found in a crowd of men gathered together. To this we may answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative. The people is truly a personage, as Aristophanes well knew when he brought Demos on the stage as a single individual.

Every

assembly in which men are united together by a common bond of interest, whether it be that of sentiment or of country, of political or religious faith, etc., presents a true and real entity, possessing its own proper moral unity. The general fund of intelligence obtained in this manner, is not the sum of all the individual intelligences, but the mean, or middle term, and may therefore be above or beneath that of any particular man taken separately; in other words, it must by its very definition be mediocre. Fools may gain by speaking and acting in common as members of a popular meeting, but wise men may lose by

it, in fact are sure to lose by it. The maxim that "union is strength" cannot be applied with equal truth to mental as to physical strength. I once heard a philosopher maintain, with just that touch of paradox which infuses life and animation into the dry utterances of sober reason, that when fifteen hundred otherwise intelligent men are united together in one assembly, they become so many fools, because a crowd is and must be essentially stupid. It is in fact a mulish animal, irritable, violent, obstinate, ready to shy, with or without cause, and to become cruel or vicious out of anger or fear. "To gather men together is the way to move them," said Cardinal de Retz, and the truth of his saying is a matter of every-day experience, under one form or another. We are, it may be, in the midst of some large assembly, at a debating club, or at a concert, or in the theatre; to take the most elegant example, I will suppose that we are in a hall consecrated to the fine arts, where a fashionable audience is listening to music. A tiresome piece is begun, people yawn, look at each other and sigh. The piece is long, very long, it threatens to be endless; people get more and more impatient till their nerves can stand it no longer. All at once a few murmurs break out, which in an instant swell into a unanimous clamour, and the orchestra is obliged to stop. Who is it who has hissed? Every one: even you yourself, a quiet, gentlemanly man, peaceable and tolerant, and disliking all violence and noise, you too have taken part in the brutal deed, carried away by some strange electrical current which seemed to sweep over the whole room. This mysterious epidemic force, by which at times. the best and strongest of us are attacked, is the soul of the crowd.

But if persons who, as individuals, are refined and gentle become coarse and harsh when brought together in a mass, if fifteen hundred sensible men collected together are equivalent to fifteen hundred fools, what

shall be said of a crowd of fifteen hundred men who are, individually, fools to begin with? The resultant given by the agglomeration of so many ignorant and foolish minds would be appalling. The hundred-headed beast would be capable of every crime; capable too of wild enthusiasm and devotion, and in fact of excess of every kind and sort- -an inert mass without any will of its own, but easily incited to action by others, it is ready to obey every impulse communicated from without, whether for good, or as it more frequently happens, for evil. This mysterious force, this blind and formidable power, this sickening mediocrity of obscure and nameless individuals, devoid alike of either strength or character, who only exist as the unconscious and unknown atoms of some vague total, has been splendidly described by Victor Hugo, in "Les Châtiments: "

"Ils s'appellent vulgus, plebs, la tourbe, la foule,
Ils sont ce qui murmure, applaudit, siffle, coule,
Bat des mains, foule aux pieds, baîlle, dit oui, dit non,
N'a jamais de figure, et n'a jamais de non.

Troupeau qui va, revient, juge, absout, délibère,
Détruit, prêt à Marat comme prêt à Tibère,

Foule triste, joyeuse, habits dorés, bras nus,
Pêle-mêle, et poussée aux gouffres inconnus.

Ils sont les passants froids, sans but, sans nœud, sans age;
Le bas du genre humain qui s'écroule en nuage;
Ceux qu'on ne connait pas, ceux qu'on ne compte pas,
Ceux qui perdent les mots, les volontés, les pas."

...

The people, who never appear at all in French tragedy, play an important part in Shakespeare's plays, a part which deserves to be studied, not only on account of the interest properly belonging to it, but also for the sake of what light it may throw on the puzzling question of the poet's own personal sentiments. The scenes in which he makes the people speak and act are generally reckoned, rightly or wrongly, among the small number of passages in which he is supposed to lay aside

the superb objectivity which is his highest glory, and to give expression to his personal dislikes and antipathies. It is only by carefully examining the people's part in the Roman tragedies,-and that without any bias one way or the other with regard to the question of Shakespeare's own political leanings, and by comparing the Roman populace with the one depicted in some of his other plays, notably in the English historical dramas, that we can hope to render ourselves competent to discuss the point affecting Shakespeare's personality, and to answer the question whether he has or has not failed in impartiality.

In the opening scene of "Julius Caesar," which plunges us into a rabble of citizens, whose "basest metal" is "moved" by the speeches of the tribunes, so that "they vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness," the inconstancy and thoughtlessness of the mob stand confessed; but what equally deserves to be noted is the sensitiveness so readily shown by the people to the reproaches of the tribunes, to the violent invective of Marcellus, and especially to the sadder and more gentle words of Flavius.

The people applaud when Cæsar refuses the crown; when Brutus publicly justifies the murder of Cæsar, they cry out, "Live, Brutus, live. . . . Give him a statue with his ancestors. Let him be Cæsar!" A people like this is ripe for servitude. It is true they cheered Cæsar for refusing the crown, but it was simply because they had a horror of the name of king; the thing itself they could easily accept and submit to, so potent is the influence of words over the mind of the crowd, both to attract and to repel. "When once the people have swallowed the bait of liberty," says Bossuet, "they will follow blindly as long as they only hear the name." To Cæsar's despotism, to the concentration of power in a single hand, the people would have offered no objection whatever, as long as the name of Monarchy was carefully suppressed, and that of