Casca. Why, there was a crown offered him; and being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a shouting. Brutus. What was the second noise for?

Casca. Why, for that too.

Cassius. They shouted thrice;

what was the last cry for?

Casca. Why, for that too.

Brutus. Was the crown offered him thrice?

Casca. Ay, marry, was 't, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and at every putting by, mine honest neighbors shouted.

Cassius. Who offered him the crown?

Casca. Why, Antony.

Brutus. Tell us the manner of it,

gentle Casca.

Casca. I can as well be hanged as

tell the manner of it; it was
mere foolery."

Julius Cæsar i. 2 (1623).

acclamation to salute him king whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor he put it off thus, in a kind of jest."- Advancement of Learning (1603-5).

This account was undoubtedly taken, directly or indirectly, from Plutarch, where it is given as follows:

"Cæsar, dressed in a triumphal robe, seated himself in a golden chair at the rostra, to view this ceremony [celebration of the Lupercalia]. Antony went up and reached to Cæsar a diadem wreathed with laurel. Upon this there was a shout, but only a slight one, made by the few who were stationed there for that purpose; but when Cæsar refused it, there was universal applause. Upon the second offer, very few, and upon the second refusal, all again, applauded. Cæsar, finding it would not take, rose up and ordered the Crown to be carried into the Capitol. Cæsar's statues were afterward found with royal diadems on their heads." — Life of Julius Cæsar.

North's English translation of Plutarch's 'Lives' was published in 1579; Bacon's Advancement of Learning'in 1605; Shakespeare's play of Julius Cæsar' in 1623. It is sus

ceptible of easy proof, as Judge Holmes in his 'Authorship of Shakespeare' shows, that the narration in the play did not come directly from Plutarch, but either from the 'Advancement' or from the pen of the author of the Advancement.' Judge Holmes says:

"The play follows the ideas of Bacon rather than those of Plutarch, and adopts the very peculiarities of Bacon's expressions, wherein they differ from North's 'Plutarch,' as, for instance, in these :

"There was a shout, but only a slight one.' - Plutarch. 'Finding the cry weak and poor.' — Bacon.

'It was mere foolery.' - Shake-speare.

[Plutarch has nothing to correspond with these last expressions. The author of the play plainly followed Bacon.]

66

Again, North's Plutarch speaks of a laurel crown having a 'royal band or diadem wreathed about it, which in old time was the ancient mark or token of a king;' in the play it is called a 'crown,' or 'one of these coronets,' but never a diadem, while in Bacon, it is the 'style and diadem of a king;' whence it would seem clear that Bacon followed Plutarch rather than the play.". The Authorship of Shakespeare, page 286.

In the following, the versions are substantially alike:

From Shakespeare

"Decius. The Senate have concluded

To give this day a crown to mighty

Cæsar;

From Bacon

"With Julius Cæsar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest, as he set him down, in his testament, for heir in remainder, after

If you shall send them word you will not come,

Their minds may change. Besides,

it were a mock,

Apt to be rendered, for some one

to say,

Break up the Senate till another

time,

When Cæsar's wife shall meet with better dreams."

his nephew. And this was the
man that had power with him, to
draw him forth to his death. For
when Cæsar would have discharged
the Senate, in regard of some ill
presages, and especially a dream of
Calpurnia, this man lifted him
gently by the arm out of his chair,
telling him he hoped he would not
dismiss the Senate till his wife

Julius Cæsar, ii. 2. had dreamt a better dream."
Essay of Friendship (1625).

It has been noticed that the name of Cæsar's wife Calpurnia, and the prænomen of Brutus, Decimus, while given correctly in Bacon's 'Essay of Friendship,' are spelled respectively Calphurnia and Decius in the play, the inference being that the two compositions could not have proceeded from the same pen; in other words, that Bacon knew what Shake-speare did not know. The discrepancy is easily explainable. The forms found in the play were in Shakespeare's time in common use in England. The Essay was sent to the press two years after the publication of the play, through the hands of Bacon's chaplain and amanuensis, Rawley, who edited it for the press. We know this from the fact that he impressed upon it (as will be seen above) his own singular method of punctuation. Rawley was a Latin scholar, and would naturally have made the superficial corrections, alluded to, in the text.1

A similar mistake, Bosphorus for Bosporus, has been

1 Bacon's Essay of Fame,' a fragment, was published by Rawley in 1657, thirty years after Bacon's death. The following passage from it will also show Rawley's peculiar method of punctuation:

"Julius Cæsar, took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry, and preparations, by a Fame that he cunningly gave out; How Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him, as soon as he came into Italy. Livia, settled all things, for the succession, of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out, that her husband Augustus, was upon recovery, and amendment."

handed down to the present time, even through the scholarly

Cheated of feature by dissembling malice." - De Augmentis (1622).

To set my brother Clarence and

the King

In deadly hate."

Richard III., i. 1 (1597).

Richard III. is said to have been deformed, one of his shoulders being somewhat higher than the other. The defect, however, was scarcely noticeable, and yet Shake-speare, following and enlarging upon Holinshed, tells us it was so marked that dogs in the street barked at the figure as it passed. But this exaggeration had a definite purpose. The play was written to show the natural connection between deformity in body and deformity in mind, the two being in the relation, as Bacon says, of cause and effect. Accordingly we have in Richard a monster "born before his time," "born with teeth," "unfinished," a "bottled spider," a "foul bunchback'd toad." He is also (in strict accordance with Bacon's theory), "void of natural affection;" for he murders his wife, his brother Clarence, and his two young nephews in the Tower; and he died with his mother's curse on his soul.1

In the play of Henry VI.,' this relationship between mind and body in the case of Richard III. is still more clearly expressed:

"Gloucester. Since the heavens have shaped my body so,

Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it. "

3 Henry VI., v. 6.

1 "The deformity could scarcely have been very marked in one who performed such feats upon the battlefield, nor does it appear distinctly in any contemporary portrait, though there are not a few. Of these several are of the same type, and perhaps by the same artist, as those in the royal collection at Windsor and the National Portrait Gallery. They exhibit an anxiouslooking face, with features capable, no doubt, of very varied expression, but scarcely the look of transparent malice and deceit attributed to him by Polydore Vergil, or the warlike, hard-favored visage with which he is credited by Sir Thomas More."-Dictionary of National Biography."

The same criticism applies to Holinshed. Authorities differ even as to which shoulder was the higher.