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344 and the English Knight fell in love with that book, and spared no labor to bring it to a worthy presentment; and to this day the readers of North's translation will feel themselves rewarded.

But we must confess it is not the general interest of the book alone which attracts us to this volume: it is the fact that Shakespeare is said to have fed his brain upon this story of Julius Cæsar and to have drawn his play therefrom.

We find concerning Cæsar that "he was often subject to headach, and otherwhile to the falling sicknesse (the which tooke him the first time as it is reported in Corduba, a city of Spaine)."

In the play of "Julius Cæsar," Cassius says of him:

He had a fever when he was in Spain. And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did Shake.