In this edition of SHAKESPEARE an attempt is made to present the greater plays of the dramatist in their literary aspect, and not merely as material for the study of philology or grammar. Criticism purely verbal and textual has only been included to such an extent as may serve to help the student in the appreciation of the essential poetry. Questions of date and literary history have been fully dealt with in the Introductions, but the larger space has been devoted to the interpretative rather than the matter-of-fact order of scholarship. Aesthetic judgments are never final, but the Editors have attempted to suggest points of view from which the analysis of dramatic motive and dramatic character may be profitably undertaken. In the Notes likewise, while it is hoped that all unfamiliar expressions and allusions have been adequately explained, yet it has been thought even more important to consider the dramatic value of each scene, and the part which it plays in relation to the whole. These general principles are common to the whole series; in detail each Editor is alone responsible for the play or plays that have been intrusted to him.

Every volume of the series has been provided with a Glossary, an Essay upon Metre, and an Index; and Appendices have been added upon points of special interest, which could not conveniently be treated in the Introduction or the Notes. The text is based by the several Editors on that of the Globe edition: the only omissions made are those that are unavoidable in an edition likely to be used by young students.

By the systematic arrangement of the introductory matter, and by close attention to typographical details, every effort has been made to provide an edition that will prove convenient in use.

INTRODUCTION.

1. LITERARY HISTORY OF THE PLAY.

THE earliest known edition of Julius Cæsar is that of the First Folio, 1623, in which the plays were for the first time collected. We have no knowledge of the text on which it was based; but the passages which show distinct signs of corruption are few: the readings are rarely open to serious question.

The means of settling the date when the play was written are to be found (1) in references to it, or in parallel passages, in contemporary writers; (2) in phrases here and there in the play which point to some particular period; (3) and in characteristics of scansion, construction, or thought, marking the particular phase of the author's development.

(1) A passage is quoted from Drayton's Barons' Wars, 1603, a revised edition of his Mortimeriados

"In whome, in peace, the elements all lay

So mixt," &c.

which bears an obvious resemblance to Shakespeare's

་་

'His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him," &c.

If one of the two authors was borrowing from the other, the borrower was more probably Drayton; but it is quite as probable that the case is merely one of coincidence, and really proves nothing.

But in Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, 1601, are the lines—

"The many-headed multitude were drawne

By Brutus' speech, that Cæsar was ambitious.
When eloquent Mark Antonie had shewne
His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?"

Weever's lines appear distinctly to refer to some well-known account of these orations; but they are not based on Plutarch, and the inference is that they are based on Shakespeare, unless both he and Shakespeare were familiar with some other narrative of which we know nothing. The presumption therefore is that the play is not later in date than 1601.

(2) At i. 2. 160 are the words, "the eternal devil". Some commentators are of opinion that 'eternal' was substituted for 'infernal' out of deference to the growing strength of the public sentiment against the freedom of language on the stage, which culminated in the act of James I. 'Eternal' seems to have been so substituted for 'infernal' in two other instances both subsequent to 1600, but not before. It is extremely doubtful whether Shakespeare may not have used 'eternal' as the better word; still the alternative possibility points to the play dating about 1600.

(3) The arguments from scansion are discussed in the appendix on prosody, q.v., and entirely bear out the view that the play belongs to the middle period of Shakespeare's workmanship; is earlier than Hamlet, and about the same period as Much Ado, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night; i.e. between 1598 and 1602.

The character of the play itself leads to the same conclusion. Shakespeare seems to have finished all the English historical subjects he cared about with Henry V. in 1599, and it seems improbable that until that was done he would have gone farther afield. (Henry VIII. was written to order later.) Moreover the play constitutes in certain respects a new departure. The earlier tragedies were primarily tragedies of action; this is primarily a tragedy of character. It is more meditative and more complex; the thoughtful note which is characteristic of the comedies named above is prominent, but the philosophic interest does not predominate as in Hamlet, nor is there the same intensity of emotion as in the later tragedies. All of which agrees again with the conclusion that 1600 is the earliest and 1601 the latest date at which we should expect to find the play had been written. Thus the

three classes of evidence are entirely in harmony, and though none of them would be conclusive, taken in conjunction they make the date 1600-1601 practically certain.

2. SOURCES OF THE PLAY.

The sole literary source of Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar was Plutarch, whose 'Lives' he read in North's translation (the mistakes wherein he several times repeats, showing that he had not read the original). North himself translated (1579 and 1595) not from the Greek, but from the French translation by Amyot (1559). I have quoted freely in the notes; but the student is advised to read the 'Lives' of Cæsar, Brutus, and Antony. Professor Skeat's reprint in Shakespeare's Plutarch (Macmillan) is the most convenient volume.

A Latin play on the same subject was performed at Oxford in 1582, from which the 'et tu, Brute' may have been derived; and mention is found of other plays dealing with it. But whether Shakespeare's play was at all affected by these, we have no means of ascertaining. Attention is called in the notes to points which seem to show conclusively that Shakespeare had no first-hand knowledge of the classical writers.

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PLAY.

When Shakespeare set himself to write a historical play, it was not primarily his intention to educate his audience in historical details of which they had been previously ignorant; but he wrote as a dramatist who happened to have found an interesting story to tell in the pages of history. He treated Plutarch and Holinshed very much as he treated Boccaccio. He had not any great regard for accuracy of detail for its own sake, caring only for its dramatic interest. And for that end, speaking broadly, it was of much more importance to follow accepted popular tradition than to defy tradition for the sake of strict historical precision. We all know that in the case of the stories which are most popular in the nursery, children resent any variation on the version to which they are accus