Page:The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (The Warwick Shakespeare).djvu/20

 is taken for granted. We have but the touch here and there that reminds us of it, in the shrewd characterization of Cassius which marks the judge of men; in the right kingly "What touches us ourself, shall be last served".

Now, it is the human frailties of Cæsar which make the attitude of the conspirators intelligible. Cassius argues his whole case on the ground that Cæsar himself is no better a man than his neighbours. His discourse to Brutus would be too palpably splenetic if Cæsar's conduct did not give it some colour, though Cæsar is, as a matter of fact, only doing so by accident—acting, so to speak, out of his true character, believing as he does merely because the occasion offers a fair excuse for his falling below himself. But it is the greatness of Cæsar which justifies the denouement. The conspirators from Brutus down had read him wrong. While he lived he was the incarnation of the new, inevitable, order of things. When slain, he is not dead; he is the spirit pervading the world; the good angel of Octavius as he is the ill angel of Brutus. Perhaps that is why the vision recorded in Plutarch is changed to the apparition of Cæsar's Ghost. In his person the conspirators attempted to overthrow destiny; it is by the murdered Cæsar that they themselves are overthrown. Cassius is perhaps more liable to misinterpretation than any other character in the play. We are tempted at sight to suppose merely that he was an ill-tempered man with a personal grudge against Cæsar, and that he concocted the conspiracy solely to satisfy his rancour, inveigling others into it by assuming the airs of a patriot while plotting to gratify his personal spleen at the expense of almost unlimited bloodshed.

These merely personal motives, however, are quite insufficient. The idea of being the slave of a man no better than himself—

is abhorrent to him, and his bitterness is indefinitely increased by his misconception of Cæsar himself. But his hatred of the tyrant needs to be reinforced by his genuine political