o turn the truth of things into the puppet and plaything
of our fancies."--See Characters of Shakspeare's Plays.--To consider
_thus_ is not to consider _too_ deeply, but not deeply _enough_.

[68] _Grave_, in the sense of mighty or potent.

[69] Fulvia, the first wife of Antony.

[70] The well-known violence and coarseness of Queen Elizabeth's
manners, in which she was imitated by the women about her, may in
Shakspeare's time have rendered the image of a royal virago less
offensive and less extraordinary.

[71] She was as good as her word. See the life of Antony in Plutarch.

[72] _i. e._ retinue.

[73] _i. e._ silver coins, from the Spanish _plata_.

[74] Cleopatra replies to the first word she hears on recovering her
sense, "No more _an empress_, but a mere woman!"

[75] _i. e._ sedate determination.--JOHNSON

[76] The Cleopatra of Jodelle was the first regular French tragedy: the
last French tragedy on the same subject was the Cleopatre of Marmontel.
For the representation of this tragedy Vaucanson, the celebrated French
mechanist, invented an automaton asp, which crawled and hissed to the
life,--to the great delight of the Parisians. But it appears that
neither Vaucanson's asp, nor Clairon, could save Cleopatre from a
deserved fate. Of the English tragedies, one was written by the Countess
of Pembroke, the sister of Sir Philip Sydney; and is, I believe, the
first instance in our language, of original dramatic writing, by female.

[77] "The sober eye of dull Octavia."--Act v. scene 2.

[78] Octavia was never in Egypt.

[79] "The Octavia of Dryden is a much more important personage than in
the Antony and Cleopatra of Shakspeare. She is, however, more cold and
unamiable, for in the very short scenes in which the Octavia of
Shakspeare is introduced, she is placed in rather an interesting point
of view. But Dryden has himself informed us that he was apprehensive
that the justice of a wife's claim would draw the audience to her side,
and lessen their interest in the lover and the mistress. He seems
accordingly to have studiously lowered the character of the injured
Octavia who, in her conduct to her husband, shows much duty and little
love." Sir W. Scott (in the same fine piece of criticism prefixed to
Dryden's All for Love) gives the preference to Shakspeare's Cleopatra.

[80] In all, about two thousand pounds.

[81] The corresponding passage in the old English Plutarch runs thus:
"My son, why dost thou n