proud indifference, and a heart breaking under the effect of his friends' first entreaties; in Menenius between confidence and renewed disappointment, and beneath the cloak of playfulness the inward struggle between friend and country, and the resolve of the cheerful old man, to end like a Roman; - these are contrasts and contradictions which it requires the utmost art to reconcile.

Shakespeare has followed Plutarch as faithfully in Coriolanus, as in Cæsar and Antony. The character was handed down to him, just as he has copied it. In his address to Tullus, when he applies to him for refuge, and in his speech to Volumnia, the passages from Plutarch are only, as it were, transformed into verse. The poet even retains all the faults of the historian. Plutarch makes Coriolanus canvass the people for the consulship, although the senate, at that time, chose both the consuls. The poet also suffered himself to be led into other mistakes by Plutarch, of which the biographer was innocent. Plutarch says of Coriolanus, he was a soldier, even to Cato's wish; Shakespeare makes-Titus Lartius utter this expression, as if Cato had lived before his time. The poet has likewise alluded to Galen, and to the Roman theatres in this piece, just as in Lear he mentioned Nero and the Bethlem-beggars 800 years before Christ, in Henry VI. Machiavelli, in Hamlet Wittenberg, in Troilus the wrestler Milo and Aristotle, in the Winter's Tale the oracle of Delphi contemporary with Julio Romano. We have already intimated, that we must not attribute the anachronisms altogether to Shakespeare's ignorance. Not that we would deny the possibility of his ignorance in some cases. He must have known the time when Cato lived, from Plutarch's Cæsar.

But it is possible, that as he found several republican Brutuses, so he may have concluded there were several severe Catos; it is certain, that he was not so early schooled in Eutropius, as we are; nor had he any chronological dictionary to refer to in order to set himself right in his dates. Nevertheless we ought to consider, how valuable to the poet was the brevity and suggestiveness of such an intimation, as he puts in the mouth of Titus Lartius; it is doubtful, whether, if the mistake had been pointed out to him, he would have corrected it, seeing it was so serviceable; nay, it is doubtful, whether it was a mistake at all, and not rather a license like Goethe's, when he made Faust mention Luther. There is a passage in Lear, which ought to make us cautious, a passage, where the observance of chronology constitutes a much greater license, than the neglect of it, to which we have alluded; a passage, which looks like a capital stroke of satire addressed to all self-opiniated and pedantic censors (a set of people, not lacking even at the poet's time); the passage, where the poet says: "This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time."

TIMON OF ATHENS.

We have no more certain indication of the date of Timon of Athens, than of Coriolanus; but it is without doubt one of the poet's latest works. It is probable, that it was written not long after Antony and Cleopatra, since there is a passage in Plutarch's life of Antony, which may have given the poet the idea of this work. After the battle. of Actium, Antony retired for a while from Alexandria, and dwelt alone on the sea-shore, resolved, as he said, to imitate Timon, since he, like him, had experienced the ingratitude and infidelity of friends, and therefore hated and mistrusted all men. To this intimation is annexed a short account of Timon, his friendly relations with Alcibiades, his intercourse with Apemantus, his fig-tree and two inscriptions upon him. What other materials the poet may have had besides these scanty suggestions, we know not with any certainty. Painter's collection of tales (Palace of Pleasure), with which he was acquainted, contributed somewhat (I. 28.). Probably the subject had been already dramatically treated; a very stupid play about Timon has been preserved and published by Dyce in the writings of the Shakespeare society; but Shakespeare could

have made little or no use of it. Still he may have seen it, and borrowed some passages such as the idea of the farewell-banquet, and the character of the faithful steward. We may gather, that he was indirectly acquainted with Lucian's Timon; the digging up of the gold, the parasites' pursuit of him, and his driving them away with stones and blows, the portioning off his servant, and even some resemblance in the imagery and speeches, leave scarcely any doubt of this. But the use of Roman names seems to prove that he did not borrow directly from Lucian, as Shakespeare would in that case have avoided them.

The impression made on most readers by Timon is that of great inequality. The versification is loose, and either unusually irregular or corrupted. Some portions of the piece are worked out with love, others appear to have been most carelessly treated. The many indifferent personages with no distinctly marked characters, make the scenes here and there disconnected. The intensity and depth of feeling, with which the subject, as a whole, is carried out, cannot be denied; but compared with this earnestness, the burlesque scenes, where the borrowing servants of Timon are turned off, are too sharply contrasted. The composition is arranged with the old attention to unity of idea, but in some points it is loose and, as it were, unfinished. With the story of Timon there is united a second action between Alcibiades and the senate, it is carried on in exact parallel, and in the same sense as the main action; but it does not hang well together in all its parts. In Act V. sc. 3. it is intimated, that Alcibiades has undertaken the war against. Athens partly on Timon's account; but nothing further is said of this in the play. The reason of his rebellion is

given in Act III. sc. 5. He there pleads in vain for a friend, who has been condemned to death for killing a man in a duel; the poet handles with his usual triumphant impartiality the question of duelling, and places the views of justice, order, and age, in opposition to those of honour, passion, and youth, with the same decided indecision, as that in which he has left the question of self-murder an open matter; but the discussion concerns one entirely unknown; we learn nothing whatever of the man's person or home. Singularly enough all commentators pass over this circumstance without remark; although such another disconnected scene will not be found in the whole of Shakespeare. How these irregularities are to be accounted for, is a matter of dispute. Coleridge thought, that the original text of Shakespeare had been spoiled by actors. Knight considered the piece to be a revision of an older play, of which portions only were retained, so that Timon was to be looked upon as a companion-piece to Pericles. Delius regards the play as an unfinished work, the outlines of which were left incomplete for representation. We, on our side, however, content ourselves with the opinion we expressed in our remarks upon Antony, where we attributed the carelessness in a number of plays of this date to one common though unfathomable cause, the state of the poet's mind. We must, however, add, that some of the peculiarities in this or other works of the same date, may arise also from the subject itself. Timon is a play with scarcely any real story. Shakespeare was led in his judicious manner by two mere hints to display the relation of Timon to Alcibiades and Apemantus; nevertheless we can easily conceive, that among these ancient materials, where he did