in their regularity, however, that the two sections differ: it is in their rhythm. The work of Marlowe dates from 1589, and it is to this time that the last four lines, so different in rhythm from the first four, belong. Read them again—

These lines are quite monotonously sing-songy. Read them in what order you please, you will obtain no variety in cadence. Each line is complete in itself, and varies not at all from any of the others. There are many such series of lines in the Second Part of Tamburlaine, one of which, culled at random, is given below:

"Take pity of a lady's ruthful tears,

That humbly prays upon her knees to stay,
And cast her body in the burning flame

That feeds upon her son's and husband's flesh."

That the four last lines of this scene are of a Marlowean cast cannot be questioned. There is nothing at all like them in the work of Beaumont, and if the reader seriously believes that they were written by Shakespeare, let him read them again and then at once turn to the speech of Marullus, beginning at line 37. If, on doing this, he does not recognise that Shakespeare could not have written at least, at the same time-these last four lines, "he may have ears," but they were not given to him for the purpose for which he has just been using them.

The verse of the end of the scene takes us back to preShakespearean times. Of no slight importance is the phrase "to fly a pitch," so common to the work of Marlowe and his compeers in the Henry VI. trilogy and elsewhere. On the whole, it seems that the fortunes of this scene may be fairly easily deduced. The first and fuller draft was Marlowe's. Then came the belated but uncompleted revision by Shakespeare, followed by Beaumont's excision and constriction of Marlowe's written and Shakespeare's

purposed work. It is a short scene of no more than 80 lines, but it is unique. For, despite its shortness, the three greatest dramatists of their time-though some may contest the second and third places-each contributed his quota to its confusing effect. There are plays extant with scenes by Marlowe and Shakespeare, and one may yet find a play by Shakespeare and Beaumont-why not? But nowhere else, not even in Julius Caesar-for in the rest of the play we have to deal with the work of the two younger men alone-shall we find a scene that contains the verse or prose of Marlowe, Shakespeare and Beaumont combined.

CHAPTER III.—EXAMINATION OF THE REST OF THE TEXT: ACT 1.

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IN separating the work of Beaumont from Marlowe's, there are important lights to guide us. Besides the peculiarities and distinctive features of each author's style, there is the added illumination derived from the knowledge of the progressive movements of the English language. In the twenty years that followed the first production of Julius Caesar, many of Marlowe's expressions had become obsolete, and some had acquired different shades of meaning. In the first class the word "forth," which was giving way to the modern "out," may be mentioned, and in the second "liable," which, in Julius Caesar, carries the same meaning as it always does with Marlowe and other preShakespearean dramatists. Other expression that denote the earlier writer are a mean for "a means," and "abide" for "aby," the form that both Shakespeare and Beaumont preferred. To Marlowe also probably belongs the blame, if blame there be, for the frequent syllabication of the final "ed," and for the equally frequent "th" termination to verbs in the present tense. It must not be overlooked, however, that Beaumont was behind his time in also adhering to these habits, which were gradually becoming stale and out of use.

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When dealing with parallels, it must be clear that wherever a passage in this play resembles Marlowe's work elsewhere, that passage must have formed part of Marlowe's original play. But one cannot always be sure that the lines and phrases in Julius Caesar recalling the work of Beaumont are primarily due to the

later poet. The apparent influence of the Roman tragedy upon Beaumont's plays is most clear in Philaster, A King and No King and the Maid's Tragedy, and less clear, perhaps, in the Faithful Shepherdess, Scornful Lady and the Knight of the Burning Pestle. Beaumont's labours in connection with Julius Caesar probably compelled him to abandon the Scornful Lady to Fletcher. Of this comedy, Beaumont wrote the opening scene of the first act, apparently leaving Fletcher to carry on, and there are no more marks of the cleverer hand until the second scene of the last act. The rest of the plays mentioned, with two exceptions, I am inclined to think, antedated Beaumont's furbishing of Marlowe's twenty year-old play. Consequently, the parallels between these plays and Julius Caesar may be looked upon as evidences of the fresh matter incorporated with the earlier Marlowean substance. But the two exceptions-the Maid's Tragedy and A King and No King-are clearly later than the Roman tragedy, and wherever in these two plays there are recollections of Julius Caesar one must not jump to the immediate conclusion that Beaumont is, in every case, repeating his own original work. The number and extent of these echoes from the Roman play in the Maid's Tragedy are, however, sufficient to show that Beaumont had an intensely intimate and first-hand knowledge of Julius Caesar, and that he could reproduce at will its phraseology, its sentiments and its characterisation.

Attention should also be paid to the different sources upon which the dramatists drew. It is untrue to say that the play is founded entirely on Plutarch, though the revision is. The account in the Lives of the "dumping" of Cassius is quite different from that in the play. Moreover, North's translation contains facts and speeches that Shakespeare could hardly have avoided using, but which the dramatist has quietly ignored. There is no authority whatever in Plutarch for the double error of killing Caesar in the Capitol with thirty-three wounds. Unless Marlowe was purposely

following an even older play, he must have neglected to freshen his knowledge of the Lives, for he seems to have had extremely hazy ideas of what the biographer had written upon the subject of the tragedy. No known source has yet been discovered of the speech by Brutus that preceded Antony's greater speech in the third act. It is much to be suspected, also, that the bits of Plutarch in Antony's oration were inserted by Beaumont. On the whole, it is doubtful whether Marlowe made any extensive use of Plutarch. Seemingly, he relied more upon Suetonius and Lucan for his facts. Probably, also it was to them that he was indebted for the un-Shakespearean anti-Caesar bias of the tragedy. There is naturally more of this animus in the writings of the two Roman authors than in the life written by the Greek philosopher. Pliny is also quoted, and he was one of Marlowe's cherished authorities. Wherever, then, in the play, the matter is derived from Suetonius, Lucan or Pliny, one may depend upon it that Marlowe was the borrower. Conversely, the use of Plutarch indicates Beaumont, though not definitely, unless the instance comprises no more than the versification of North's prose.

When revising older plays, our early dramatists usually pursued a common course. They only re-wrote what they thought they could improve. That which was either too good or too bad for this was let alone. Shakespeare scarcely put a finger to the first two acts of Pericles, for a very obvious reason, while, on another account, Massinger frequently left untouched whole scenes, and occasionally an entire act, of a play by Fletcher which he was ordered to revise. In such cases, the several parts of the play belonging to the original author and the subsequent adapter are somewhat easy to discern. So that one can often go through a revised play with power to say at the precise line, "Here Massinger comes in," and "Here Fletcher comes back." But one cannot make a similar remark about Julius Caesar. Beaumont's revision seems to have been conscientiously thorough. It is