verdicts on works of art may be worth little, its mere verdict is worth much. Here, it seems to me, it must be accepted. One may notice that, in calling "Antony and Cleopatra" wonderful or astonishing, we appear to be thinking first of the artist and his activity, while in the case of the four famous tragedies it is the product of this activity, the thing presented, that first engrosses us. I know that I am stating this difference too sharply, but I believe that it is often felt; and, if this is so, the fact is significant. It implies that, although "Antony and Cleopatra" may be for us as wonderful an achievement as the greatest of Shakespeare's plays, it has not an equal value. Besides, in the attempt to rank it with them there is involved something more, and more important, than an error in valuation. There is a failure to discriminate the peculiar marks of "Antony and Cleopatra" itself, marks which, whether or no it be the equal of "Hamlet" or "Lear," make it decidedly different. If I proceed to speak of some of these differences it is because they thus go to make the individuality of the play, and because in criticism they seem often not to be distinctly apprehended.

they stand. But defective construction would not distress the bulk of an audience, if the matter presented were that of "Hamlet" or "Othello," of "Lear" or "Macbeth." The matter must lack something which is present in those tragedies; and here is the point of difference which explains the fact that "Antony and Cleopatra" has never attained their popularity either on the stage or off it. Most of Shakespeare's tragedies are dramatic in a special sense of the word, as well as in its general sense, from beginning to end. The story is not merely exciting and impressive from the movement of conflicting forces towards a terrible issue; but from time to time there come situations and events which, even apart from their bearing on the future, appeal most powerfully to the dramatic feelingsscenes of action or passion which agitate the audience with alarm, horror, painful expectation, or absorbing sympathies and antipathies. Think of the street fights in "Romeo and Juliet," the killing of Mercutio and Tybalt, the rapture of the lovers, and their despair when Romeo is banished. Think of the ghost scenes in the first Act of "Hamlet," the passion of the early soliloquies, the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, the play-scene, the sparing of the King at prayer, the killing of Polonius. Is not "Hamlet," if you choose so to regard it, the best melodrama in the world? Think at your leisure of "Othello," "Lear," and "Macbeth" from the same point of view; but consider here and now even the two tragedies which, as dealing with Roman history, are companions of “Antony and Cleopatra." Consider in

1 We are to understand, surely, that Enobarbus dies of "thought" (melancholy or grief), and has no need to seek a "swifter mean." Cf. iv, vi, 34 seq., with the death-scene and his address there to the moon as the "sovereign mistress of true melancholy" (iv, ix). Cf. also III, xiii, where, to Cleopatra's question after Actium, "What shall we do, Enobarbus?" he answers, "Think, and die."

"Julius Cæsar" the first suggestion of the murder, the preparation for it in a "tempest dropping fire," the murder itself, the speech of Antony over the corpse, and the tumult of the furious crowd; in "Coriolanus" the bloody battles on the stage, the scene in which the hero attains the consulship, the scene of rage in which he is banished. And remember that all this, in each of those seven cases, comes before the third Act is finished.

In the first three Acts of our play what is there resembling this? Almost nothing. People converse, discuss, accuse one another, excuse themselves, mock, describe, drink together, arrange a marriage, meet and part; but they do not kill, do not even tremble or weep. We see hardly one violent movement; until the battle of Actium is over we witness scarcely any vehement passion; and that battle, as it is a naval action, we do not see. Even later, Enobarbus, when he dies, simply dies; he does not kill himself.1 We hear wonderful talk; but it is not talk, like that of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, or Othello and Iago, at which we hold our breath. The scenes that we remember first are those that portray Cleopatra; Cleopatra coquetting, tormenting, beguiling her lover to stay; Cleopatra left with her women and longing for him; Cleopatra receiving the news of his marriage; Cleopatra questioning the messenger about Octavia's personal appearance. But this is to say that the scenes we remember first are the least indispensable to the plot. One at least is not essential to it at all. And this, the astonishing scene where she storms at the messenger, strikes

The character of Enobarbus is practically an invention of Shakespeare's. The death-scene, I may add, is one of the many passages which prove that he often wrote what pleased his

imagination but would lose half its effect in the theatre. The darkness and moonlight could not be represented on a public stage in his time.

him, and draws her dagger on him, is the one passage in the first half of the drama that contains either an explosion of passion or an exciting bodily action. Nor is this all. The first half of the play, though it forebodes tragedy, is not definitely tragic in tone. Certainly the Cleopatra scenes, even the one just referred to, are not so. We read them, and we should witness them, in delighted wonder and even with amusement. The only scene that can vie with them, that of the revel on Pompey's ship, is in great part humorous. Enobarbus, in this part of the play, is always humorous. Even later, when the tragic tone is deepening, the whipping of Thyreus, in spite of Antony's rage, moves mirth. A play of which all this can truly be said may well be as masterly as "Othello" or "Macbeth," and more delightful; but, in the greater part of its course, it cannot possibly excite the same emotions. It does not attempt to do so; and to regard it as though it made this attempt is to miss its specific character and the intention of its author.

That character depends only in part on Shakespeare's fidelity to his historical authority. This fidelity (I may remark) is often greatly exaggerated; for Shakespeare did not merely present the story of ten years as though it occupied perhaps one-fifth of that time, nor did he merely invent freely, but in critical places he made startling changes in the order and combination of events. Still it may be said that, dealing with a history so famous, he could not well make the first half of his play very exciting, moving, or tragic. And this is true so far as mere situations and events are concerned. But, if he had chosen, he might easily have heightened the tone and tension in another way. He might have made the story of Antony's attempt to break his bondage, and the story of his relapse, extremely exciting, by portraying with all his force the

severity of the struggle and the magnitude of the fatal step. And the structure of the play might seem at first to suggest this intention. At the opening Antony is shown almost in the beginning of his infatuation; for Cleopatra is not sure of her power over him, exerts all her fascination to detain him, and plays the part of the innocent victim who has yielded to passion and must now expect to be deserted by her seducer. Alarmed, and ashamed at the news of the results of his inaction, he rouses himself, tears himself away, and speeds to Italy. His very coming is enough to frighten Pompey into peace. He reconciles himself with Octavius, and, by his marriage with the good and beautiful Octavia, seems to have knit a bond of lasting amity with her brother, and to have guarded himself against the passion that threatened him with ruin. At this point his power, the world's peace, and his own peace, appear to be secured; his fortune has mounted to its apex. But soon (very much sooner than in Plutarch's story) comes the downward turn or counter-stroke. New causes of offence arise between the brothers-inlaw. To remove them Octavia leaves her husband in Athens and hurries to Rome. Immediately Antony returns to Cleopatra and, falling at once into a far more abject slavery than before, is quickly driven to his doom.

Now Shakespeare, I say, with his matchless power of depicting an inward struggle, might have made this story, even where it could not furnish him with thrilling incidents, the source of powerful tragic emotions; and, in doing so, he would have departed from his authority merely in his conception of the hero's character. But he does no such thing till the catastrophe is near. Antony breaks away from Cleopatra without any strenuous conflict. In a variety of ways we are prevented from feeling any real doubt of

his return-through the impression made on us by Octavius, through occasional glimpses into Antony's mind, through the absence of any doubt in Enorbarbus, through scenes in Alexandria which display Cleopatra and display her irresistible. And finally, the downward turn itself, the fatal step of Antony's return, is shown without the slightest emphasis. Nay, it is not shown, it is only reported; and not a line portrays any inward struggle preceding it. On this side also, then, the drama makes no attempt to rival the other tragedies; and it was essential to its own peculiar character and its most transcendent effects that this attempt should not be made, but that Antony's passion should be represented as a force which he could hardly even desire to resist. By the very scheme of the work, therefore, tragic impressions of any great volume or depth were reserved for the last stage of the conflict; while the main interest, down to the battle of Actium, was directed to matters exceedingly interesting and even, in the wider sense, dramatic, but neither terrible nor piteous-on the one hand, the political aspect of the story; on the other, the personal causes which helped to make the issue inevitable.

its business, from this point of view. is to show the reduction of these three to one. That Lepidus will not be this one was clear already in "Julius Cæsar"; it must be Octavius or Antony. Both ambitious, they are also men of such opposite tempers that they would scarcely long agree even if they wished to, and even if destiny were not stronger than they. As it is, one of them has fixed his eyes on the end, sacrifices everything for it, uses everything as a means to it. The other, though far the greater soldier and worshipped by his followers, has no such singleness of aim; nor yet is power, however desirable to him, the most desirable thing in the world. At the beginning he is risking it for love; at the end he has lost his half of the world, and lost his life, and Octavius rules alone. Whether Shakespeare had this clearly in his mind is a question neither answerable nor important; this is what came out of his mind.

Shakespeare, I think, took little interest in the character of Octavius, and he has not made it wholly clear. It is not distinct in Plutarch's "Life of Antony"; and I have not found traces that the poet studied closely the "Life of Octavius," included in North's volume. To Shakespeare he is one of those men, like Bolingbroke and Ulysses, who have plenty of "judgment" and not much "blood." Victory in the world, according to the poet, almost always goes to such men; and he makes us respect, fear, and dislike them. His Octavius is very formidable. His cold determination half paralyzes Antony; it is so even in "Julius Cæsar." In "Antony and Cleopatra" Octavius is more than once in the wrong, but he never admits it; he silently pushes his rival a step backward; and, when he ceases to fear, he shows contempt. He neither enjoys war nor is great in it; at first, therefore, he is anxious about the power of Pompey, and stands in need of Antony.

As soon as Antony's presence has served his turn, and he has patched up a union with him and seen him safely off to Athens, he destroys first Pompey and next Lepidus. Then, dexterously using Antony's faithlessness to Octavia and excesses in the East in order to put himself in the right, he makes for his victim with admirable celerity while he is still drunk with the joy of reunion with Cleopatra. For his ends Octavius is perfectly efficient, but he is so partly from his limitations. One phrase of his is exceedingly characteristic. When Antony in rage and desperation challenges him to single combat. Octavius calls him "the old ruffian." There is a horrid aptness in the pharse, but it disgusts us. It is shameful in this boy, as hard and smooth as polished steel, to feel at such a time nothing of the greatness of his victim and the tragedy of his victim's fall. Though the challenge of Antony is absurd, we would give much to see them sword to sword. And, when Cleopatra by her death cheats the conqueror of his prize, we feel unmixed delight.

The doubtful point in the character is this. Plutarch says that Octavius was reported to love his sister Octavia dearly; and in the drama he several love. times expresses such When, then, he proposed her marriage with Antony (for of course it was he who spoke through Agrippa), was he honest, or was he laying a trap and, in doing so, sacrificing his sister? Did he hope the marriage would really unite him with his brother-in-law; or did he merely mean it to be a source of future differences; or did he calculate that, whether it secured peace or dissension, it would in either case bring him great advantage? Shakespeare, who was

2 "Now whilest Antonius was busie in this preparation, Octauia his wife, whom he had left at Rome, would needs take sea to come vnto him. Her brother Octauius Cæsar was willing vnto it, not for his respect at all (as most LIVING AGE. VOL. XXXII.

1670.

quite as intelligent as his readers, must have asked himself some such question; but he may have chosen not to answer it even to himself; and, in any case, he has left the actor (at least the actor in days later than his own) to choose an answer. If I were forced to choose, I should take the view that Octavius was, at any rate, not wholly honest; partly because I think this view best suits Shakespeare's usual way of conceiving a character of this kind; partly because Plutarch construed in this manner Octavius's behavior in regard to his sister at a later time, and this hint might naturally influence the poet's way of imagining his earlier action.2

Though the character of Octavius is neither attractive nor wholly clear, his figure is invested with a certain tragic dignity, because he is felt to be the Man of Destiny, the agent of forces against which the intentions of an individual would avail nothing. He is represented as having himself some feeling of this kind. His lament over Antony, his grief that their stars were irreconcilable, may be genuine, though we should be surer if it were uttered in soliloquy. His austere words to Octavia again may speak his true mind:

Be you not troubled with the time, which drives

O'er your content these strong necessities;

But let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way.

In any case the feeling of destiny comes through to us. It is aided by slight touches of supernatural effect; first in the Soothsayer's warning to Antony that his genius or angel is overpowered whenever he is near Octavius; then in the strangely effective scene

authors do report) as for that he might have an honest colour to make warre with Antonius if he did misuse her, and not esteeme of her as she ought to be."-"Life of Antony" (North's Translation), sect. 29.