INTRODUCTORY REMARKS OMING fresh from the perusal of such of Shakspere's plays as exhibit the sparkling treasures of his rare wit, glowing fancy, and surpassing poetry, the creative power of his farreaching imagination, or the convulsive throes, the moral earthquakes and volcanoes, of human passion, the Drama before us produces an effect almost startling, from the stern, unadorned, and somewhat rugged strength which is its prevailing characteristic. We soon, however, acknowledge the peculiar fitness of the style to the time, the action, and the characters: we recognise in its massive simplicity a grandeur which ornament would injure; in its ruggedness, a power which polish would destroy. In this fitness consists a portion of the value of the Play; a still greater portion in the striking specimen it affords of that "infinite variety" of the writer, which " age cannot wither, nor custom stale;"-and, greatest of all, in its subtle and powerful delineation of human character; that high and extraordinary quality in which all his contemporaries and followers halt so far behind him. In "CORIOLANUS," as in "MACBETH," the Poet has taken an historical character, belonging to a remote and rude age, the records of whose actions, and of the events that gave birth to them, history borrows from tradition, and perhaps assists by conjecture. From the plain and simple relation of those actions and events, he at once judges of the motives, feelings, and circumstances which actuated and produced them ;and conjures up before the "mind's eye" the very man, a living sentient being, with his moral structure as clearly developed as his outward form would be, were he presented bodily to our senses. Amongst the many truthful delineations of the human mind which have sprung from Shakspere's teeming brain, none are more exquisitely natural, more nicely discriminated, than the Hero of this stirring Play. Superficially viewed, his character appears repulsive and disagreeable; but study it minutely, and it becomes deeply interesting. Born in a state of society which admitted of no gradual connecting links between the lower and higher classes, no channels to conduct the kindly sympathies of each to the other, Coriolanus naturally inherited the prejudices of his order. But this is not all. He is rendered vain-glorious not alone by the pride of place and ancestry, but likewise by that nobler pridethe consciousness of high desert, of natural nobleness of mind, and of indomitable courage. Viewing all this, and beholding also the selfish, sordid natures, the utter and unredeemed baseness and perfidy of the leaders of that populace with which he is brought into hostile contact;-recollecting, moreover, that he is the spoilt child of success, the boy-warrior, who " at sixteen years" -" fought beyond the mark of others;" -who has thrice won the oaken garland; who has been borne aloft on the shields of a conquering army ; greeted by the acclamations of the very populace which afterwards revolts against him;-can we, ought we to feel wonder or disgust at the mingled scorn and rage which, with such heaped measure, he hurls upon the "trades" and "occupations" of Rome? No. His conduct may be somewhat unamiable, but it is perfectly natural. His very faults are but the excesses of his virtues: he sets up a standard of moral perfection derived from the consciousness of his own high qualities, and in his inexperience of the world, its sufferings, mistakes, and accidents, he is indignant that the mass of the community should fall short of that standard. The character of Volumnia is just what "the honoured mould of Marcius" might be supposed to be : towering grandly above most of the ordinary weaknesses of her sex, but possessing the rest of them in more than ordinary perfection. What an exquisitely natural specimen of the absence of self-knowledge is conveyed in the declaration, "Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me; but owe thy pride thyself!" Now the feeling of pride is to the full as strong in the mother as in her wayward son; but age, experience, and expediency, have modified and checked the free exhibition of it.-Amidst the stir, the turmoil, and the turbulence of this Play, how melodiously the sweet voice of the gentler affections makes though, in the din of arms, the clangour of martial music, and the roar of battle, an occasional pause enabled us to catch the soft breathing of flutes. Around the bold and lofty nature of Marcius, the shoots and tendrils of love are permitted to spring and to twine, shedding a lovely grace, like the clinging leaves of the acanthus round the capital of a Corinthian column; which, while they adorn it with their beauty, rob it not of the least portion of its grandeur or its strength. itself heard! as " CORIOLANUS" was first published in the original folio. The incidents are derived from Plutarch. Cit. We know 't; we know 't. 1st Cit. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is 't a verdict? Cit. No more talking on't: let it be done. 2nd Cit. One word, good citizens. 1st Cit. We are accounted poor citizens: the patricians, good. What authority surfeits on, would relieve us: if they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess they relieved us humanely: but they think we are too dear. The leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory to particularise their abundance: our sufference is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes, ere we become rakes: for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge. 2nd Cit. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius? Cit. Against him first: he's a very dog to the commonalty. 2nd Cit. Consider you what services he has done for his country? 1st Cit. Very well: and could be content to give him good report for't, but that he pays himself with being proud. 2nd Cit. Nay, but speak not maliciously. 1st Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end: though softconscienced men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud: which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue. 2nd Cit. What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous. 1st Cit. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations: he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition. [Shouts within.] What shouts are these? The other side o'the city is risen! Why stay we prating here?-to the Capitol! Cit. Come, come. 1st Cit. Soft: who comes here? Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA. 2nd Cit. Worthy Menenius Agrippa: one that hath always loved the people. 1st Cit. He's one honest enough. 'Would all the rest were so. Men. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you With bats and clubs? The matter: speak, I pray you. 1st Cit. Our business is not unknown to the senate: they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll shew 'em in deeds. They say, poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too. Men. Why, masters! my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo yourselves? 1st Cit. We cannot, sir; we are undone already. Men. I tell you, friends, most charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your wants, Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heaven with your staves, as lift them Against the Roman state; whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong link asunder, than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it; and Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack! You are transported by calamity Thither where more attends you; and you slander The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers, When you curse them as enemies. 1st Cit. Care for us! - True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers: repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich; and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor! If the wars eat us not up, they will: and there's all the love they bear us. Men. Either you must 1st Cit. Well, I'll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace with a tale: but, an't please you, deliver. Men. There was a time when all the body's Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it : struments Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel, 1st Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the belly? Men. I shall tell you. With a kind of smile Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus (For, look you, I may make the belly smile As well as speak), it tauntingly replied To the discontented members, the mutinous parts |