ignificant fact that in many of
Shakespeare's earlier plays there is little or no prose, and that the
proportion of prose to blank verse increases with the decrease of rhyme.
In _Julius Caesar_ three kinds of prose may be distinguished: (1) The
prose of homely dialogue, as in the talk of the common people in I, i,
and III, iii. (2) The prose of serious information as to the nature of a
situation, as in Casca's description of the offer of the crown to
Caesar. This kind of prose reaches its highest development in Brutus's
famous speech, III, ii, with its dignified defense and laconic
exposition of his honesty of purpose. (3) The prose of formal documents,
as in the letter of Artemidorus, II, iii, 1-8.

[Footnote 1: Professor J. Churton Collins's _Shakespeare as a Prose
Writer_. See Delius's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen (Shakespeare
Jahrbuch_, V, 227-273); Janssen's _Die Prosa in Shakespeares Dramen_;
Professor Hiram Corson's _An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare_,
pp. 83-98.]

VIII. THE CHARACTERS

JULIUS CAESAR

The characterization of this drama in some of the parts is not a little
perplexing. Hardly one of the speeches put into Caesar's mouth can be
regarded as historically characteristic; taken all together, they seem
little short of a caricature. As here represented, Caesar appears little
better than a braggart; and when he speaks, it is in the style of a
glorious vapourer, full of lofty airs and mock thunder. Nothing could
be further from the truth of the man, whose character, even in his
faults, was as compact and solid as adamant, and at the same time as
limber and ductile as the finest gold. Certain critics have seized and
worked upon this, as proving Shakespeare's lack of classical knowledge,
or carelessness in the use of his authorities. It proves neither the one
nor the other.

It is true, Caesar's ambition was gigantic, but none too much so for the
mind it dwelt in; for his character in all its features was gigantic.
And no man ever framed his ambition more in sympathy with the great
forces of nature, or built it upon a deeper foundation of political
wisdom and insight. Now this "last infirmity of noble minds" is the only
part of him that the play really sets before us; and even this we do not
see as it was, because it is here severed from the constitutional
peerage of his gifts and virtues; all those transcendent qualities which
placed him at the summit of Roman intellect and manhood bein