Page:Scribner's magazine (IA scribnersmagazin16newy).pdf/357

 Fac-simile of Letter written by Dr. Johnson.

And again Casca says:

He fell down in the market-place, and foamed at the mouth and was speechless. Brutus. 'Tis very like; he hath the falling sickness.

We know well that this malady of Cæsar was a matter of history, but the likeness of expression is, at the least, remarkable.

In the old volume we find the story of the defeat of the Nervii, and that the Roman Senate decreed a sacrifice and solemn processions for fifteen days, having never made the like ordinance before for any victory; therefore, when Mark Antony, in the play, speaks to the people over the dead body of Cæsar and shows them his mantle, he tells them it was the one he wore on a summer's evening:

Also the tale is told of the feast of Lupercalia, where Cæsar sat in a chair of gold and "Antonius was one of them that ranne this holy course; he came to Cæsar and presented him a diadeame wreathed about with laurel But when Cæsar refused the diadeame, then all the people together made an outcrie of joy."

The picturesque does not fail. We can see the kindling eye of a great poet passing from line to line and gathering up the story which was to be made permanent in the beauty of his imagination. The soothsayer is here; the 345