mong the scholars of Shakespeare. It would be an
equal waste of working hours or of playtime if any of these should devote
any part of either a whole-schoolday or a holiday to remark or to
rhapsody on the character of Macbeth or of Orlando, of Rosalind or of
Lady Macbeth. He that runs, let him read: and he that has ears, let him
hear.

I cannot but think that enough at least of time has been spent if not
wasted by able and even by eminent men on examination of _Coriolanus_
with regard to its political aspect or bearing upon social questions. It
is from first to last, for all its turmoil of battle and clamour of
contentious factions, rather a private and domestic than a public or
historical tragedy. As in _Julius Caesar_ the family had been so wholly
subordinated to the state, and all personal interests so utterly
dominated by the preponderance of national duties, that even the sweet
and sublime figure of Portia passing in her "awful loveliness" was but as
a profile half caught in the background of an episode, so here on the
contrary the whole force of the final impression is not that of a
conflict between patrician and plebeian, but solely that of a match of
passions played out for life and death between a mother and a son. The
partisans of oligarchic or democratic systems may wrangle at their will
over the supposed evidences of Shakespeare's prejudice against this creed
and prepossession in favour of that: a third bystander may rejoice in the
proof thus established of his impartial indifference towards either: it
is all nothing to the real point in hand. The subject of the whole play
is not the exile's revolt, the rebel's repentance, or the traitor's
reward, but above all it is the son's tragedy. The inscription on the
plinth of this tragic statue is simply to Volumnia Victrix.

A loftier or a more perfect piece of man's work was never done in all the
world than this tragedy of _Coriolanus_: the one fit and crowning epithet
for its companion or successor is that bestowed by Coleridge--"the most
wonderful." It would seem a sign or birthmark of only the greatest among
poets that they should be sure to rise instantly for awhile above the
very highest of their native height at the touch of a thought of
Cleopatra. So was it, as we all know, with William Shakespeare: so is
it, as we all see, with Victor Hugo. As we feel in the marvellous and
matchless verses of _Zim-Zizimi_ all the splendour and fragrance and
mira