Com. Y'are goodly things; you, voices !-
Men. You have made good work,

You and your cry. Shall's to the capitol ?
Com. Oh, ay, what elfe?

[Exeunt.

Sic. Go, mafters, get you home, be not dismay'd. These are a fide, that would be glad to have This true, which they fo feem to fear. Go home, And fhew no fign of fear.

1 Cit. The gods be good to us: come, mafters, let's home. I ever faid, we were i'th wrong, when we banish'd him.

2 Cit. So did we all; but come, let's home. 1..

Bru. Let's to the capitol; would, half my wealth Would buy this for a lie!

T

on [Exeunt Tribunes.

181 26 90 MI

SCENE,al Camp at a small Distance from

Rome.

Enter Aufidius, with his Lieutenant.
O they ftill fly to th' Roman?

Auf.D. Lien. I do not know what witchcraft's in

dum gaihim; buty mi

Your foldiers use him as the grace
Their talk at table, and their

And you are darken'd in this action, Sir,
Even by your own.

Auf. I cannot help it now.
Unless, by using means, I lame the foot"
Of our defign. He bears himfelf more proudly
Even to my perfon, than, I thought, he would
When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature
In that's no changling, and I must excused
What cannot be amended.

Lieu. Yet I with, Sir..

(I mean for your particular) you had not a sid

Join'd in commiffion with him; but had borne
The action of yourself, or else to him
Had left it folely.

Auf. I understand thee well; and be thou fure,
When he fhall come to his account, he knows not,
What I can urge against him; though it feems
And fo he thinks, and is no lefs apparent

To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly;
And fhews good hufbandry for the Volfcian state,
Fights dragon-like, and does atchieve as foon
As draw his fword: yet he hath left undone
That which fhall break his neck, or hazard mine,
When e'er we come to our account.

Lieu. Sir, I befeech, think you, he'll carry Rome? Auf. All places yield to him ere he fits down,

And the nobility of Rome are his :

The fenators and patricians love him too:
The tribunes are no foldiers; and their people
Will be as rafh in the repeal, as hafty

To expel him thence. I think, he'll be to Rome (35)

• I think, be'll be to Rome

(35)
As is the Afpray to the fish, who takes it
By foreignty of nature.]

As

Though one's fearth might have been very vain to find any fuch word as Afpray, yet Leafily imagin'd,. fomething inuít be couch'd, under the corruption, in its nature destructive to fish, and that made a prey of them. And this fufpicion led me to the difcovery. The Ofprey is a fpecies of the eagle, of a ftrong make, that haunts the fea and lakes for its food, and altogether preys on fifh. It is called the anail, or Aquila Marina, as alfo Avis offifraga: thence contracted first, perhaps, into Ofphrey, and then, with regard to the eate of pronunciation, Offrey. Pliny gives us this description of its acute fight, and eagernets after its prey. Haliæetus, clariffima oculorum acie, librans ex alto fefe, vifo in mari pifce, præceps in mare ruens, et difcuffis pectore aquis, rapiens. It may not be difagreeable to go a little farther to explain the propriety of the poet's allufion. Why will Coriolanus be to Rome, as the Ofprey to the fish,

-be'll take it

By fou reignty of nature? Shakespeare, 'tis well known, has a peculiarity in thinking; and wherever he is acquainted with nature, is fure to allude to her most

uncommon

As is the Ofprey to the fish, who takes it
By fovereignty of nature. First, he was
A noble fervant to them, but he could not
Carry his honours even; whether pride,
(Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man) whether defect of judgment,
(To fail in the difpofing of thofe chances,
Whereof he was the Lord) or whether nature,
(Not to be other than one thing; not moving
From th' cafk to th' cufhion; but commanding peace
Even with the fame aufterity and garb,

As he controll'd the war;) But one of these,
(As he hath spices of them all) not all,
For I dare fo far free him, made him fear'd,
So hated, and fo banish'd; but he has merit
To choak it in the utt'rance: fo our virtues
Lie in th' interpretation of the time;

uncommon effects and operations. I am very apt to imagine, therefore, that the poet meant, Coriolanus would take Rome by the very opinion and terror of his name, as fish are taken by the Ofprey, thro' an instinctive fear they have of him. "The fishermen, (fays our "old naturalift William Turner,) are ufed to anoint their baits with Ofprey's fat, thinking thereby to make them the more efficacious: "becaufe, when that bird is hovering in the air, all the fish, that are beneath him, (the nature of the eagle, as it is believ'd, com"pelling them to it;) turn up their bellies, and as it were, give him

his choice which he will take of them." Gefner goes a little farther in fupport of this odd inftinct, telling us," that while this bird "flutters in the air, and fometimes, as it were, feems fufpended "there, he drops a certain quantity of his fat, by the influence "whereof the fish are fo affrighted and confounded, that they im“mediately turn themselves Lelly upwards; upon which he fowfes "down perpendicularly like a stone, and feizes them in his talons".

To this, I dare fay, Shakespeare alludes in this expreflion of the for reignty of nature. This very thought is again touch'd by Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Two Noble Kinfmen; a play in which there is a tradition of our author having been jointly concern'd.

-But, oh, Jove! your actions,

Soon as they move, as Aprays do the fift,

Subdue before they touch,

For here again we must read, Ospreys,

And

And power, unto itself moft commendable, (36)
Hath not a tomb fo evident, as a chair
Textol what it hath done.

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
Right's by right fouler, ftrengths by ftrengths do fail.
Come, let's away; when, Caius, Rome is thine,
Thou'rt poor'ft of all, then fhörtly art thou mine.
[Exeunti

(36) And pow'r, unto itself most commendable,

Hath not a tomb fo evident, as a chair

Textol what it hath done]

This is a very common fentiment, but most obfcurely exprefs'd. This is the fenfe. That virtue, which delights to commend itfelf, will find the certaineft tomb in that chair, in which it holds forth on its own commendations. i. e. Nothing fo readily throws our own virtue into oblivion, as the practice of commending one's felf. That power, which is moft jealous of competitors, [unto itself most commendable,]; hath no certainer grave than that chair in which it extols its own worth

Mr. WarburtonT

Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Bratus with others.

da og sú plnoh MENENIUS, ak rent stud

No, I'll not go: you hear, what he hath faid,

Which was fometime his General; who lov'd him
In a moft dear particular. He call'd me father;
But what o' that? go you, that banish'd him,
A mile before his tent, fall down, and kneeã
The way into his mercy: nay, if he coy'de of
To hear Cominius fpeak, I'll keep at home, ali

Com. He would not seem to know me."
Men. Do you hear?

Com. Yet one time he did call me by my name:
I urg'd our old acquaintance, and the drops
That we have bled together. Coriolanus
He would not anfwer to; forbad all names;
He was a kind of nothing, titlelefs,

'Till he had forg'd himself a name o' th' fire
Of burning Rome.

Men. Why, fo; you've made good work: A pair of tribunes, that have rack'd for Rome, To make coals cheap: a noble memory!

J

}

Com. I minded him, how royal 'twas to pardon
When it was leaft expected. He reply'd,
It was a bare petition of a ftate
To one whom they had punish'd.
Men. Very well, could he fay lefs?
Com. I offer'd to awaken his regard
For's private friends. His anfwer to me was,
He could not stay to pick them in a pile
Of noifom mufty chaff. He faid, 'twas folly,"
For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt,

And