he is urged by his proud mother and his patrician friends to stand bareheaded before the mob, to expose his wounds, to sue for their votes, to give his heart the lie, to bend the knee like a beggar asking an alms. The judgment and blood of Coriolanus are ill commingled; he desires the end, but can only half submit to the means which are necessary to attain that end; he has not sufficient self-control to enable him to dispose of those chances of which he is lord. And so he mars his fortune. The pride of Coriolanus, as Mr. Hudson has observed, is "rendered altogether inflammable and uncontrollable by passion; insomuch that if a spark of provocation is struck into the latter, the former instantly flames up beyond measure, and sweeps away all the regards of prudence, of decorum, and even of common sense. Now such passion as this Shakspere knew to be weakness and not strength; and by this uncontrollable violence of temper Coriolanus draws down upon himself his banishment from Rome, and his subsequent fate.-DowDEN, Shakspere-His Mind and Art.

THE EXPULSION OF CORIOLANUS

The expulsion of Coriolanus is proof and witness of the young vitality of the body politic, which is able thus harmlessly and decisively to extrude an element that is inimical; for Coriolanus is a type of all the trouble and mischief that befel the Republic in ensuing years, from the traitorous selfishness of otherwise well meriting servants that it retained within its bosom. Yet even the egotism of Coriolanus, which urges him to abet the enemies of his country for the sake of revenge, never suggested a thought of erecting a tyranny, and even retained him zealous and satisfied in an inferior military command. It is a mere calumnious imagination of the tribune that he had any artful motive for preferring the second place;—it is quite clear that this is but part of his habitual loyalty to the aristocratic system which he bows to readily and instinctively, so long as it is true to what he conceives to be its

proper genius as well as only safety.-LLOYD, Critical Es

says.

VOLUMNIA

In Volumnia, Shakespeare has given us the portrait of a Roman matron, conceived in the true antique spirit, and finished in every part. Although Coriolanus is the hero of the play, yet much of the interest of the action and the final catastrophe turn upon the character of his mother, Volumnia, and the power she exercised over his mind, by which, according to the story, "she saved Rome and lost her son." Her lofty patriotism, her patrician haughtiness, her maternal pride, her eloquence, and her towering spirit, are exhibited with the utmost power of effect; yet the truth of female nature is beautifully preserved, and the portrait, with all its vigor, is without harshness. Though Volumnia is a Roman matron, and though her country owes its salvation to her, it is clear that her maternal pride and affection are stronger even than her patriotism. Thus, when her son is exiled, she bursts into an imprecation against Rome and its citizens:

Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
And occupations perish!

But the triumph of Volumnia's character, the full display of all her grandeur of soul, her patriotism, her strong affections, and her sublime eloquence, are reserved for her last scene, in which she pleads for the safety of Rome, and wins from her angry son that peace which all the swords of Italy and her confederate arms could not have purchased. The strict and even literal adherence to the truth of history is an additonal beauty.-JAMESON, Shakespeare's Heroines.

Among its members it counts no grander figure than Volumnia, Marcius' mother, "the most noble mother of the world." No creation of the dramatist is so genuinely antique as this ideal Roman matron. Patriotism is with her

a religion, and virtue is summed up in the valor which is eager to bleed for its country on the battle-field. Thus her pride in her only son is less a purely maternal feeling than the exultation of the lion-hearted dame who has given to Rome a champion of unrivaled prowess. There is a metallic clang about the very words in which she recounts her loyalty to her conception of a patriot-mother's duty:

"When yet he was but tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when for a day of kings' entreaties a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering how honour would become such a person, that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action."

In a similar spirit she dwells triumphantly on the number and position of Marcius' wounds, and while he is at the wars she gloats in imagination over his bloody exploits in the field. But it is no mere brute courage that she has instilled into him; it is the heroism that looks on "extremity" as the trier of spirits; and that takes with a smile fortune's blows, "when most struck home." But along with these "precepts that would make invincible the heart that conn'd them," Volumnia had taught her son less salutary lessons. Her patriotism, measureless in its depth, is narrowed by her class feeling, and does not embrace the plebeians, whom she has instructed Marcius to consider

"Woollen vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads
In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,
When one but of [his] ordinance stood up

To speak of peace or war."

-BOAS, Shakspere and his Predecessors.

VIRGILIA

But the wife plays a very subordinate part; it would be absurd to agree with Mr. Ruskin, and call Virgilia “perhaps the loveliest of Shakespeare's women"; though subtly sketched, she is quite in the background, before which the figure of Volumnia stands so strikingly prominent; poetic justice to Virgilia would have been poetic injustice to the legend which was nine-tenths of the drama.-LUCE, Handbook to Shakespeare's Works.

MENENIUS

Among the secondary characters in this play of Coriolanus, the most estimable, as well as the most interesting, is old Menenius, the patrician and senator. He forms an amiable link between the two orders; he is precisely the character a nobleman should be; wearing the insignia of his rank with a bland and easy dignity; gracefully condescending, and even familiar with the commonalty, sympathizing with their wants, difficulties, and privations; and this gives him the privilege to speak to them with the authority of his longer experience, with better education and knowledge. This same sympathy, too, which they all recognize, gives him the warrant to visit their misconduct and their senseless waverings, their vacillations, irrational turbulence, and revolt, with an asperity which they would ill bear from another who cared less for them and their destitute condition. It is observable, that throughout all his displeasure and petulance against the mob, Menenius never makes use of a cruel or even unkind speech: in his spleen he is sufficiently and humorously contemptuous; but we hear no such expression as the scoundrelly exultation of Coriolanus at the approaching war with the Volscians, when he says—

“I am glad on 't; then we shall have means to vent
Our musty superfluity";

mon

pliebies

a speech admirably in character with one who considered the masses below him in the commonwealth only as SO much material to build up his own pomp and ambition. Menenius has described his own nature and temper in that sparring scene between himself and the tribunes of the people, Brutus and Sicinius. It is a happy display of a testy, wayward, and humorous old man, with a rich vein of kindheartedness running through his crusty temper.—CLARKE, Shakespeare-Characters.

THE TRIBUNES

And then the tribunes! They are not mere demagogues. They are fighting the battle of their class with prudence, intelligence, and skill, against the stupidity and oppression of the upper class. Not with the unreason of the moborator, but with resolute foresight, they determine to overthrow Coriolanus as the common enemy of the people. Once he is exiled they can deal with the rest of the patricians in a quiet way, and with a good hope of success. And they give themselves to that aim with cool precision of attack. They use no wild words. They speak throughout with quietude and resolution, as men who care for the cause of their fellow-citizens more than for themselves.-BROOKE, Lectures on Shakespeare.

THE POPULACE

If we observe closely, we cannot even find that the people are here represented as so very bad. We must distinguish between the way in which they really act and the way in which the mockers and despisers of the people represent them; we may then soon find that the populace in Julius Cæsar appear much worse than in Coriolanus. Great attention is here paid to the character of the age. In Antony, where the people had ceased to be of any importance, they no longer appear; in Cæsar, where their degeneracy ruined the republic, they are shown in all their weakness;