the ox; but there was a pretty decided spice of irony in the mind that conceived the fable. xl It is to be noted further that Brutus uniformly speaks of Cæsar with respect, almost indeed with admiration. It is his ambition, not his greatness, that Brutus resents; the thought that his own consequence is impaired by Cæsar's elevation having no influence with him. With Cassius, on the contrary, impatience of his superiority is the ruling motive: he is all the while thinking of the disparagement he suffers by Cæsar's exaltation. This man Is now become a god, and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him. [I, ii, 115-118.] Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs. [I, ii, 135-137.] Thus he overflows with mocking comparisons, and finds his pastime in flouting at Cæsar as having managed by a sham heroism to hoodwink the world. And yet Shakespeare makes Cæsar characterize himself very much as Cassius, in his splenetic temper, describes him. Cæsar gods it in his talk, as if on purpose to approve the style in which Cassius mockingly gods him. This, taken xli by itself, would look as if the dramatist sided with Cassius; yet one can hardly help feeling that he sympathized rather in Antony's great oration. And the sequel, as we have seen, justifies Antony's opinion of Cæsar. The subsequent course of things has the effect of inverting the mockery of Cassius against himself. xli The final issue of the conspiracy, as represented by Shakespeare, is a pretty conclusive argument of the blunder, not to say the crime, of its authors. Cæsar, dead, tears them and their cause all to pieces. In effect, they did but stab him into a mightier life; so that Brutus might well say, as indeed he does at last,—
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