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Have so provok'd the justice of the gods:
We, that, within these fourscore years, were born
Free, equal lords of the triumphed world,'
And knew no masters, but affections;
To which betraying first our liberties,
We since became the slaves to one man's lusts;
And now to many:P every minist'ring spy
That will accuse and swear, is lord of you,
Of me, of all our fortunes and our lives.
Our looks are call'd to question, and our words,
How innocent soever, are made crimes;
We shall not shortly dare to tell our dreams,
Or think, but 'twill be treason.

Sab. Tyrants arts

Are to give flatterers grace; accusers, power; That those may seem to kill whom they devour.

Enter CORDUS and ARRUNTIUS.

Now, good Cremutius Cordus."

Cor. [salutes Sabinus.] Hail to your lordship! Nat. [whispers Latiaris.] Who's that salutes your cousin?

Lat. 'Tis one Cordus,

A gentleman of Rome: one that has writ
Annals of late, they say, and very well.

5 Equal lords of the triumphed world,] i. c. The Roman empire. The expression is fine, and gives us an admirable idea of what every private citizen of Rome esteemed himself, in the times of the republic. WHAL.

P Lege Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 24. de Romano, Hispano, et cœteris, ibid. et Lib. iii. Ann. p. 61 et 62. Juv. Sut. x. v. 87. Suet. Tib. cap. 61.

9 Vid. Tacit. Ann. i. p. 4, et Lib. iii. p. 62. Suet. Tib. cap. 61. Senec de Benef. Lib. iii. cap. 26.

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De Crem. Cordo, vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 83, 84. Senec. Cons. ad Marciam. Dio, Lib. lvii. p. 710. Suet. Aug. c. 35. - Tib. c. 61. Cal. c. 16.

Nat. Annals! of what times?

Lat. I think of Pompey's,'

And Caius Cæsar's; and so down to these.
Nat. How stands he affected to the present
state?

Is he or Drusian,' or Germanican,
Or ours, or neutral?

Lat. I know him not so far.

Nat. Those times are somewhat queasy to be touch'd.'

Have you or seen, or heard part of his work? Lat. Not I; he means they shall be public shortly.

Nat. O, Cordus do you call him?
Lat. Ay.

[Exeunt Natta and Satrius. Sab. But these our times

Are not the same, Arruntius."

Arr. Times! the men,

The men are not the same: 'tis we are base,
Poor, and degenerate from the exalted strain
Of our great fathers. Where is now the soul
Of god-like Cato? he, that durst be good,
When Cæsar durst be evil; and had power,
As not to live his slave, to die his master?
Or where's the constant Brutus, that being proof
Against all charm of benefits, did strike

So brave a blow into the monster's heart

6 Queasy to be touch'd.] Nice, tender, delicate. Thus Shakspeare:

"And I have one thing of a queasy question."

• Suet. Aug. cap. 35.

King Lear, A. II. S. 1.

Vid. de faction. Tacit. Ann. Lib. ii. p. 39 et Lib. iv. p. 79. " De Lu. Arrün. isto vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 6. et Lib. iii, p. 60. et Dion. Rom. Hist. Lib. 58.

That sought unkindly' to captive his country?
O, they are fled the light! Those mighty spirits
Lie raked up with their ashes in their urns,
And not a spark of their eternal fire

Glows in a present bosom. All's but blaze,
Flashes and smoke, wherewith we labour so,
There's nothing Roman in us; nothing good,
Gallant, or great: 'tis true that Cordus says,
"Brave Cassius was the last of all that race.'
[Drusus passes over the stage, attended by
Haterius, &c.

Sab. Stand by lord Drusus.

Hat. The emperor's son! give place.
Sil. I like the prince well.
Arr. A riotous youth;"
There's little hope of him.
Sab. That fault his age

Will, as it grows, correct.

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Methinks he bears

Himself each day, more nobly than other;
And wins no less on men's affections,

Than doth his father lose. Believe me, I love him;
And chiefly for opposing to Sejanus.*

Sil. And I, for gracing his young kinsmen so,*

Unkindly to captive his country?] i. e. unnaturally; for the word kind signifying nature, with its compounds and derivatives, was thus used by the writers of that age. WHAL.

"Let any cundid judge," says one of the commentators," 66 compare Sejanus with the third-rate tragedies of Shakspeare, and he will find it far inferior to the worst of them." The critic had probably just got up from this speech of Arruntius, when he exhibited so notable a specimen of his own candour and judgment.

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Lege de Druso Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 9. Suet. Tib. c. 52, Dio. Rom. Hist. Lib. lvii. p. 699.

y Tacit. Ann. Lib. iii. p. 62.

z Vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 74.

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Ann. Lib. iv. p. 75, 76.

The sons of prince Germanicus: it shews
A gallant clearness in him, a straight mind,
That envies not, in them, their father's name.
Arr. His name was, while he lived, above all

envy;

And, being dead, without it. O, that man!
If there were seeds of the old virtue left,
They lived in him.

Sil. He had the fruits, Arruntius,

More than the seeds: Sabinus, and myself
Had means to know him within; and can report

him.

We were his followers, he would call us friends;
He was a man' most like to virtue; in all,
And every action, nearer to the gods,
Than men, in nature; of a body as fair
As was his mind; and no less reverend
In face, than fame: he could so use his state,
Tempering his greatness with his gravity,

He was a man, &c.] Jonson has borrowed the noble character which Paterculus hath given Cato, and applies it with great propriety to Germanicus. Homo virtuti simillimus, et per omnia ingenio diis quam hominibus propior, 1. 2. c. 35. His references to the Roman historians are chiefly brought as vouchers for the facts alluded to, or the descriptions which he gives of the persons concerned. When he borrows the sentiment or thought, he is frequently silent; and particularly, he takes no notice of being here indebted to Paterculus. WH HAL.

Whalley should have read a few lines farther. Jonson refers expressly to the passage.

Nero, Drusus, Caius, qui in castris genitus, et Caligula nominatus. Tacit. Ann. Lib. 1.

C

De Germanico cons. Tacit. Ann. Lib. i. p. 14. et Dion. Rom. Hist. Lib. lvii. p. 694.

Vid. Tacit. Ann. Lib. iv. p. 79.

Tacit. Ann. Lib. ii. p. 47, et Dion. Rom. Hist. Lib. lvii. p. 705.

As it avoided all self-love in him,

And spite in others. What his funerals lack'd
In images and pomp, they had supplied
With honourable sorrow, scldiers' sadness,
A kind of silent mourning, such, as men,
Who know no tears, but from their captives, use
To shew in so great losses.

Cor. I thought once,

Considering their forms, age, manner of deaths,
The nearness of the places where they fell,
To have parallel'd him with great Alexander:'
For both were of best feature, of high race,
Year'd but to thirty, and, in foreign lands,
By their own people alike made away.

Sab. I know not, for his death, how you might

wrest it:

But, for his life, it did as much disdain
Comparison, with that voluptuous, rash,
Giddy, and drunken Macedon's, as mine
Doth with my bondman's. All the good in him,
His valour, and his fortune, he made his;
But he had other touches of late Romans,
That more did speak him: Pompey's dignity,
The innocence of Cato, Cæsar's spirit,

Wise Brutus' temperance; and every virtue,
Which, parted unto others, gave them name,
Flow'd mix'd in him. He was the soul of good-
ness;

I thought once

To have parallel'd him with great Alexander :] This observation comes with great decorum of character from the mouth of Cor. dus: but Tacitus, from whom it is taken, assigns no particular person as the author of the parallel: Erant qui formam, ætatem, genus mortis, ob propinquitatem etiam locorum in quibus interiit, magni Alexandri fatis adequarent, Annal. 1. 2. c. 73. WHAL.

Vid. apud Vell. Paterc. Lips. 4to. p. 35-47, istorum hominum characteres.

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