a preponderance of the
poetic element over the dramatic. As we trace his course onward, we may
discover a gradual rising of the latter element into greater strength
and prominence, until at last it had the former in complete subjection.
Now, where positive external evidence is wanting, it is mainly from the
relative strength of these elements that the probable date of the
writing may be argued. In _Julius Caesar_ the diction is more gliding
and continuous, and the imagery more round and amplified, than in the
earlier dramas or in those known to belong to Shakespeare's latest
period.

[Footnote 1: In _The Academy_, September 18, 1875. See also _The Leopold
Shakspere_, Introduction.]

[Footnote 2: _Julius Caesar_, The Clarendon Press, Introduction, p.
viii.]

These distinctive notes are of a nature more easily to be felt than
described, and to make them felt examples will best serve. Take then a
passage from the soliloquy of Brutus just after he has pledged himself
to the conspiracy:

'Tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. [II, i, 21-27.]

Here we have a full, rounded period in which all the elements seem to
have been adjusted, and the whole expression set in order, before any
part of it was written down. The beginning foresees the end, the end
remembers the beginning, and the thought and image are evolved together
in an even, continuous flow. The thing is indeed perfect in its way,
still it is not in Shakespeare's latest and highest style. Now take a
passage from _The Winter's Tale_:

When you speak, sweet,
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function. [IV, iv, 136-143.]

Here the workmanship seems to make and shape itself as it goes along,
thought kindling thought, and image prompting image, and each part
neither concerning itself with what has gone before, nor with what is
coming after. The very sweetness has a certain piercing quality, and we
taste it from clause to clause, almost fr