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298 head of the state, like God at the head of the world's government, for under that incarnate will of the people, as under the majesty of God, blooms the safest human equality, the truest democracy. Aristocracy and republicanism are not really opposed to one another, and that we see most clearly in the drama before us, where the spirit of republicanism speaks directly out with its sharpest traits of character in the proudest aristocrats. These traits are even more marked in Cassius than in Brutus. We have long since observed that the spirit of republicanism consists in a certain asthmatic close jealousy which will tolerate nothing over itself, in a dwarfish envy which hates all that is higher than itself, which would not willingly see even virtue represented by a man, for fear lest such a representative would turn his high personality to private profit. The republicans are therefore to-day the humblest of deists, and see in humanity only paltry figures of clay, which, kneaded all in one common likeness by the hands of a Creator, have no right whatever to proud distinctions and ambitions, or displays of splendour. The English republicans once cherished such a principle in Puritanism, and such was the case with the old Romans, who were Stoics. If this be borne in mind, we cannot fail to be struck by the shrewd sagacity with which Shakespeare has