with favour. He had been admiral, and was promised a governorship and the consulate. He was selected to lure Cæsar to the Senate-house on the day of the murder. On his victim's will being opened it was found that he was appointed one of his heirs! Brutus was

put to death in Gaul, B.C. 43, by order of Antony. Metellus. More correctly L. Tillius Cimber. One of the warmest supporters of Cæsar when he first became supreme. He received in return the governorship of the province of Bithynia, but joined the conspirators notwithstanding. On the day of the murder Cimber was foremost, on pretence of presenting a petition to Cæsar. Being motioned away, he seized the Dictator's gown with both hands and drew it over his neck, so as to hamper his hands and to pull him forward. He was a bold, lewd man. Cinna.-Son of a noble who had been proscribed by Sylla. Cæsar, however, cancelled the decree against the father and thus opened the way to honours for the son. He did not join the conspirators, but approved of their act. Casca. -The conspirator who aimed the first thrust at Cæsar. Trebonius.-At first one of the aristocratic party, Trebonius, in 55 B.C., changed sides and joined the popular party, for which he was made by Cæsar one of his legates in Gaul. In B.C. 94 he returned to Rome. In 45 B.C. Cæsar raised him to the Consulship, and promised him the province of Asia after the expiry of his year of office. Yet Trebonius was one of the prime movers in Cæsar's murder. Antony's calling him "good Trebonius" was a keen thrust at his ingratitude. His part was to keep Antony in conversation outside the Senate - house while the murder was being effected within. Trebonius was himself murdered in bed, next year, in Smyrna by command of Antony. Bay'd. -Brought to bay. Signed, &c.-The

allusion is to the old custom of huntsmen decking themselves out in the hide and antlers of the slaughtered deer, and dipping their hands in its blood. Lethe. -Death. Prick'd.-Chosen, by making a hole with a pen opposite the name. Shakspere makes Cassius a keen, wary, bad man; he paints Brutus, on the other hand, as a simple, easily-led man, acting from principle, however mistaken. It is to be noted that Marcus Brutus is made the special friend of Cæsar, and the most unlikely to conspire against him, when it should have been Decius Brutus. Limbs of men.-Evidently a corruption. haps tombs should be read or lives. Até.One of the Furies of Grecian Mythology. She avenged evil deeds, and punished their perpetrators and their posterity. Cry Havoc," &c.-A metaphor from letting loose hunting dogs on their prey to tear it. So shall Cæsar's spirit cry to

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the avenging armies and let them loose on the cities of men. Carrion men.Putrid bodies of men slain in these awful wars. Octavius Cæsar.-Afterwards the Emperor Augustus. He was born B.C. 63, and was the nephew of Julius Cæsar, that is, his sister's son. He was a cold, cautious, heartless man, capable of any crime, but smooth, dissimulating, and crafty, so that he could wear a mask of virtue when it suited best. He was nineteen when Cæsar was murdered, and after fifteen years' war and crime, having crushed all his rivals, gained supremacy as Imperator or Emperor in the year B.C. 29. He died A.D. 14, at the age of seventy-six, and was succeeded by his adopted son Tiberius. Octavius was stationed as cavalry general at Apollonia, in Illyricum (now Albania), on the other side of the Adriatic, opposite the heel of Italy, when the news of Cæsar's murder reached him. Scene 2.-Question.-Reasons for. Capitol.-A temple, built originally by Tarquinius Superbus, on the Saturnian Hill in Rome, and dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The part of the hill on which it stood was called ever after the CAPITOL, or Chief Place. The original temple was burned B.C. 82, but it had been restored. It was the sacred treasure-house for the national trophies; senatorial acts, &c., were recorded in it. Extenuated (L. ex, and tenuo, to make thin).-Lessened, depreciated. Enforced. - Stated with exaggeration. Public chair.-The Rostrum or Rostra (from rostrum, the beak of a ship) was the stage erected in the Forum for orators who wished to address the people. It got its name, "the Beaks," from having been originally adorned with the beaks of vessels taken in war. Lupercal.-A very ancient Roman festival, held yearly on the 15th February, in the Lupercal, where Romulus and Remus were said to have been suckled by a she-wolf. It was in honour of the god of fertility, Lupercus. Kingly crown.-The Romans had a great dislike of kings, and one of the great charges against Cæsar was that he wished to become king. The Emperors did not, for centuries after Augustus, wear crowns. The Nervii.-The most warlike of the Belgic tribes. Their territory was near the river Sambre, in what is now the north-eastern corner of France. The Nervii surprised Cæsar, and nearly overwhelmed him, but in the end they were routed so utterly that only 500 fighting men remained in the state out of 60,000. This was in the year B.C. 57. Cæsar's bravery in this great battle had been very conspicuous. Pompey's statue.-Set up in the Forum. Dint.

Stroke. Drachma.-The principal Greek silver coin, of the value of 1s. 1d. The Romans reckoned in sestercii, but Shakspere took his incidents from Plutarch

(born A.D. 48), who, as a Greek, and writing in Greek, used the word drachma. Lepidus.-One of Cæsar's lieutenants, and with Octavianus and Antony, a member of the Triumvirate established after Cæsar's murder. Act IV., Scene 3.Philippi.-The battle of Philippi was fought in the autumn of B.C. 42, more than two years after Caesar's murder. Brutus and Cassius had fled, the former to Macedonia, the latter to Syria, and had raised each an army. At Philippi they joined forces, but there was no union between them except that of temporary necessity. Act V., Scene 5.Brutus and Cassius were each in turn defeated in two battles at Philippi, the one battle being fought about twenty days after the other. Both perished by

their own hand. The passage given is Antony's panegyric on Brutus when he comes upon his dead body on the field of battle. As to Julius Caesar, the splendour of his abilities, and of his success, must not be allowed to veil the hatefulness of his character in many of its aspects. While often kind, magnanimous, forgiving, and generous, there was no cruelty and no crime to which he did not stoop, if his selfish ambition counselled it. was a man utterly without principle, ready to flatter, or benefit, or betray, or murder, as his interests required. But the age in which he lived was utterly profligate and immoral; and hateful as he was in many respects, he was a better man than most of his contemporaries.

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