I crave their pardons :

For the mutable, rank-scented many,

Let them regard me as I do not flatter,

And therein behold themselves: I say again,
In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd and
scatter'd,

By mingling them with us, the honour'd number;
Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
Which they have given to beggars.

MEN.

Well, no more.
1 SEN. No more words, we beseech you.
COR.
How! no more?

As for my country I have shed my blood,
Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
Coin words till their decay against those meazels,
Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
The very way to catch them.

BRU. You speak o' the people, as if you were a god

To punish, not a man of their infirmity.

SIC. "Twere well, we let the people know 't.
MEN. What, what? his choler?

COR. Choler! Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,

By Jove, 't would be my mind!

SIC.
It is a mind
That shall remain a poison where it is,
Not poison any further.

COR.

Shall remain

His absolute shall ?

(*) Old text, Com.

(+) Old text, O God!

a Given Hydra here-] Mr. Collier's annotator reads, "Given Hydra leave," &c.

If they be senators; and they are no less,
When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;
And such a one as he, who puts his shall,
His popular shall, against a graver bench
Than ever frown'd in Greece! By Jove himself,
It makes the consuls base! and my soul aches
To know, when two authorities are up,
Neither supreme, how soon confusion
May enter 'twixt the gap of both, and take
The one by t'other.

Сом.
Well,-on to the market-place.
COR. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth
The corn o' the storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd
Sometime in Greece,-

MEN.
Well, well, no more of that.
COR. Though there the people had more abso-
lute power,

I say, they nourish'd disobedience,

Fed the ruin of the state.

BRU.

Why, shall the people give One that speaks thus their voice?

COR.

I'll give my reasons,

More worthier than their voices. They know the

an emendation, however clever, of very questionable propriety; for "lenity" in this place does not, perhaps, mean mildness, but lentitude, inactivity, supineness. So, in Plutarch's life of Coriolanus;-"For he [Marcius] alledged, that the creditors losing their money they had lost, was not the worst thing; but that the lenity [i. e. the inaction of the people when summoned to resist the enemy] was favoured, was a beginning of disobedience," &c.

d

as common fools;] Does not the next line,-"Let them

Most valour, spoke not for them: the accusation
Which they have often made against the senate,
All cause unborn, could never be the motive*
Of our so frank donation; well, what then?
How shall this bisson multitude digest
The senate's courtesy ? Let deeds express
What's like to be their words :- We did request it ;
We are the greater poll, and in true fear
They gave us our demands:-thus we debase
The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
Call our cares fears; which will in time break ope
The locks o' the senate, and bring in the crows
To peck the eagles.-(1)

MEN.

No, take more:

Come, enough. BRU. Enough, with over-measure. COR.. What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal!-This double worship,Where one part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,

yea

and no

Cannot conclude but by the
Of general ignorance, it must omit
Real necessities, and give way the while
To unstable slightness: purpose so barr'd, it
follows,

Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you,

You that will be less fearful than discreet;
That love the fundamental part of state,
More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish

To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That's sure of death without it,-at once pluck

out

The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison: your dishonour
Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become 't;
Not having the power to do the good it would,
For the ill which doth control it.

(*) Old text, native, corrected by Mason. have cushions," &c. instruct us to read,-"commons' fools"? e How shall this bisson multitude, &c.] Notwithstanding what has been said, and much more that might be said, in support of the old reading, "bosom multiplied," as meaning, many-stomached, we accept this emendation of Mr. Collier's aunotator, as an almost certain restoration of the poet's text.

f To jump a body with a dangerous physic-] So the old text, and so Steevens and Malone, who explain "jump" as risk or hazard. Pope's emendation is "vamp," and he is followed, among others, by Mr. Dyce and Mr. Knight. Mr, Singer reads "imp." We have not presumed to change the ancient text, but have little doubt that "To jump" is a misprint, and the true lection,"To purge a body with a dangerous physic," &c. Thus in "Macbeth," Act V. Sc. 2.:

"Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us."

Again, in the same play, Act V. Sc. 3:

MEN.

Fie, fie, fie!

This is the way to kindle, not to quench.

1 SEN. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat. SIC. What is the city, but the people? CITIZENS.

The people are the city.

True,

BRU. By the consent of all, we were establish'd The people's magistrates.

CITIZENS.

You so remain.

MEN. And so are like to do.

a

COM. That is the way to lay the city flat; * To bring the roof to the foundation, And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges, In heaps and piles of ruin.

SIC. This deserves death. BRU. Or let us stand to our authority, Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce, Upon the part o' the people, in whose power We were elected theirs, Marcius is worthy Of present death.

SIC.

Therefore, lay hold of him; Bear him to the rock Tarpeian, and from thence Into destruction cast him!

BRU.

CITIZENS. Yield, Marcius, yield!

MEN.

Ediles, seize him!

Hear me one word.

[friend,

Beseech you, tribunes, hear me but a word.
ÆDI. Peace, peace!

MEN. Be that you seem, truly your country's
And temperately procced to what you would
Thus violently redress.

BRU.

Sir, those cold ways,

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous Where the disease is violent.-Lay hands upon

him,

And bear him to the rock!

COR.

No; I'll die here. [Drawing his sword. There's some among you have beheld me fighting; Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me. MEN. Down with that sword!-Tribunes, withdraw awhile.

BRU. Lay hands upon him! MEN. Help Marcius, help, You that be noble! help him, young and old! CITIZENS. Down with him, down with him! [In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the Ediles, and the People, are beat out. MEN. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away! All will be nought else.

Be gone;

Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
One time will owe another.
COR. On fair ground, I could beat forty of them.
MEN. I could myself take up a brace o' the best
of them; yea, the two tribunes.

Coм. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic ;
And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric.-Will you hence,
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear
What they are us'd to bear.

MEN.

Pray you, be gone : I'll try whether my old wit be in request With those that have but little: this must be patch'd With cloth of any colour.

Сом.

Nay, come away. [Exeunt CORIOLANUS, COMINIUS, and others. 1 PAT. This man has marr'd his fortune. MEN. His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his

a Coм. Come, sir, along with us.] In the distribution of this and the two following speeches, we follow the arrangement proposed by Tyrwhitt. The old copies present them thus,

"CORIO. Come, Sir, along with us.

MENE. I would they were Barbarians, as they are,
Though in Rome litter'd: not Romans, as they are not,
Though calved i' th' Porch o' th' Capitoll:

Be gone, put not your worthy Rage into your Tongue,
One time will owe another."

MEN.

Now the good gods forbid
That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
Should now eat up her own!

SIC. He's a disease that must be cut away.
MEN. O, he's a limb that has but a disease;
Mortal, to cut it off; to cure it, easy.
What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost,
(Which, I dare vouch, is more than that he hath,
By many an ounce) he dropp'd it for his country;
And what is left, to lose it by his country,
Were to us all, that do't and suffer it,

A brand to the end o'the world.

bery, Havoc,-] To "cry, Havoc," appears to have been a signal for indiscriminate slaughter; the expression occurs again in "King John," Act II. Sc. 2: