wing himself down._]
Lie there, thou shadow of an emperor;
The place, thou pressest on thy mother earth,
Is all thy empire now: Now, it contains thee;
Some few days hence, and then 'twill be too large,
When thou'rt contracted in the narrow urn,
Shrunk to a few cold ashes; then, Octavia,
For Cleopatra will not live to see it,
Octavia then will have thee all her own,
And bear thee in her widowed hand to Caesar;
Caesar will weep, the crocodile will weep,
To see his rival of the universe
Lie still and peaceful there. I'll think no more on't.
Give me some music; look that it be sad:
I'll sooth my melancholy, 'till I swell,
And burst myself with sighing-- [_Soft music._
'Tis somewhat to my humour: Stay, I fancy
I'm now turned wild, a commoner of nature;
Of all forsaken, and forsaking all;
Live in a shady forest's sylvan scene,
Stretched at my length beneath some blasted oak,
I lean my head upon the mossy bark,
And look just of a piece, as I grew from it:
My uncombed locks, matted like misletoe,
Hang o'er my hoary face; a murmuring brook
Runs at my foot.

_Ven._ Methinks I fancy
Myself there too.

_Ant._ The herd come jumping by me,
And, fearless, quench their thirst, while I look on,
And take me for their fellow-citizen.

Even when Antony is finally ruined, the power of jealousy is called
upon to complete his despair, and he is less sensible to the idea of
Caesar's successful arms, than to the risque of Dolabella's rivalling
him in the affections of Cleopatra. It is true, the Antony of
Shakespeare also starts into fury, upon Cleopatra permitting Thyreus
to kiss her hand; but this is not jealousy; it is pride offended, that
she, for whom he had sacrificed his glory and empire, should already
begin to court the favour of the conqueror, and vouchsafe her hand to
be saluted by a "jack of Caesars." Hence Enobarbus, the witness of the
scene, alludes immediately to the fury of mortified ambition and
falling power:

'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp,
Than with an old one dying--

Having, however, adopted an idea of Antony's character, rather
suitable to romance than to nature, or history, we must not deny
Dryden the praise of having exquisitely brought out the picture he
intended to draw. He has informed us, that this was the only play
written to please himself; and he has certainly exerted in it the full
force of his incompar