Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/350

[ 334 ] on the chronology of the tory, which would naturally ugget this ubject to our author before the other, in Julius Cæsar, Shakpeare does not eem to have been thoroughly poeed of Antony's character. He has indeed marked one or two of the triking features of it, but Antony is not fully delineated till he appears in that play which takes its name from him and Cleopatra. The rough ketch would naturally precede the finihed picture.

From a paSS undefinedage in the comedy of Every Woman in her Humour, which was printed in 1609, we learn, that a droll on the ubject of Julius Cæar, had been exhibited before that year. “I have een, (ays one of the peronages in that comedy) the City of Nineveh, and Julius Cæar, acted by mammets.” Mot of our ancient drolls and puppet-hews are known to have been regular abridgments of celebrated plays, or particular cenes of them, only. It does not appear that lord Sterline’s Julius Cæar was ever celebrated, or even acted; neither that nor his other plays being at all calculated for dramatick repreentation. On the other hand, we know that Shakpeare’s Julius Cæsar was a very popular piece; Digges, a contemporary writer, having, in his com-