From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (London: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 509-10.
JULIUS CAESAR
1601-3
The many-headed multitude were drawne
By Brutus speech, that Caesar was ambitious,
When eloquent Mark Antonie had showne
His vertues, who but Brutus shell was vicious?
Mans memorie, with new, forgets the old,
One tale is good, untill another's told.
-- WEEVER, JOHN, 1601, The Mirror of Martyrs, s. 4.
So I have scene, when Cesar would appeare,
And on the Stage at halfe-sword parley were,
Brutus and Cassius: oh how the Audience
Were ravish'd, with what new wonder they went thence,
When some new day they would not brooke a line
Of tedious (though well laboured) Catiline.
-- DIGGES, LEONARD, 1640, Upon Master William Shakespeare.
This may shew with what indignity our poet treats the noblest Romans. But there is no other cloth in his wardrobe. Every one must wear a fool's coat that comes to be dressed by him, nor is he more civil to the ladies -- Portia, in good manners, might have challenged more respect; she that shines a glory of the first magnitude in the gallery of heroic dames, is with our poet scarce one remove from a natural; she is the own cousin-german of one piece, the very same impertinent silly flesh and blood with Desdemona. Shakespear's genius lay for comedy and humour. In tragedy he appears quite out of his element; his brains are turned -- he raves and rambles without any coherence, any spark of reason, or any rule to controul him, to set bounds to his phrenzy. -- RYMER, THOMAS, 1693, A Short View of the Tragedy of the Last Age.
Of this tragedy many particular passages deserve regard, and the contention and reconcilement of Brutus and Cassius is universally celebrated; but I have never been strongly agitated in perusing it, and think it somewhat cold and unaffecting compared with some other of Shakspeare's plays; his adherence to the real story, and to Roman manners, seems to have impeded the natural vigour of his genius. -- JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1768, General Observations on Shakspeare's Plays.
I know no part of Shakspere that more impresses on me the belief of his genius being superhuman, than this scene between Brutus and Cassius. In the Gnostic heresy, it might have been credited with less absurdity than most of their dogmas, that the Supreme had employed him to create, previously to his function of representing, characters. -- COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1818, Lectures and Notes on Shakspere, ed. Ashe, p. 315.
Neither has he characters of insignificance, unless the phantom that stalks over the stage as Julius Caesar, in the play of that name, may be accounted one. -- LAMB, CHARLES, 1831, Table-Talk.
In "Julius Caesar" Shakspere makes a complete imaginative study of the case of a man predestined to failure. . . . Brutus is an idealist . . . . Moral ideas and principles are more to him than concrete realities; he is studious of self-perfection. . . . Cassius, on the contrary, is by no means studious of moral perfection. He is frankly envious, and hates Caesar . . . . Julius Caesar appears in only three scenes of the play. In the first scene of the third act he dies. Where he does appear, the poet seems anxious to insist upon the weakness rather than the strength of Caesar . . . . In the characters of the "Julius Caesar" there is a severity of outline; they impose themselves with strict authority upon the imagination; subordinated to the great spirit of Caesar, the conspirators appear as figures of life-size, but they impress us as no larger than life. -- DOWDEN, EDWARD, 1875-80, Shakspere, A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, pp. 249, 251, 253, 272.
The style of "Julius Caesar" is characterized by simplicity and breadth of touch, and each sentence is clear, easy, and flowing, with the thought clothed in perfect and adequate expression: the lines are as limpid as those of "Romeo and Juliet," but without their remains of rhyme and Italian conceits. Of all Shakespeare's works, none has greater purity of verse or transparent fluency.... Nothing perhaps in the whole roll of dramatic poetry equals the tenderness given by Shakespeare to Brutus, that tenderness of a strong nature which the force of contrast renders so touching and so beautiful. -- STAPFER, PAUL, 1880, Shakespeare and Classical Antiquity, tr. Carey, pp. 317, 342.
It is afternoon, a little before three o'clock. Whole fleets of wherries are crossing the Thames, picking their way among the swans and the other boats, to land their passengers on the south bank of the river. Skiff after skiff puts forth from the Blackfriars stair, full of theatre-goers who have delayed a little too long over their dinner and are afraid of being too late, for the flag waving over the Globe Theatre announces that there is a play to-day. The bills upon the street-posts have informed the public that Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" is to be presented, and the play draws a full house. People pay their sixpences and enter; the balconies and the pit are filled. Distinguished and specially favoured spectators take their seats on the stage behind the curtain. Then sound the first, the second and the third trumpet-blasts, the curtain parts in the middle, and reveals a stage entirely hung with black. Enter the tribunes Flavius and Marullus; they scold the rabble and drive them home because they are loafing about on a week-day without their working-clothes and tools -- in contravention of a London police regulation which the public finds so natural that they (and the poet) can conceive it as in force in ancient Rome. At first the audience is somewhat restless. The groundlings talk in undertones as they light their pipes. But the Second Citizen speaks the name Caesar. There are cries of "Hush! hush!" and the progress of the play is followed with eager attention. It was received with applause, and soon became very popular. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. I, p 357.
Brutus is one of the noblest and most consistent of Shakespearian creations; a man far above all self-seeking and capable of the loftiest patriotism, in whose whole bearing, as in his deepest nature, virtue wears her noblest aspect. But Brutus is an idealist, with a touch of the doctrinaire; his purposes are of the highest but the means he employs to give those purposes effect are utterly inadequate, in a lofty spirit he embarks on an enterprise doomed to failure by the very temper and pressure of the age. "Julius Caesar" is the tragedy of the conflict between a great nature denied the sense of reality, and the world-spirit. Brutus is not only crushed, but recognizes that there was no other issue of his untimely endeavour. -- MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, 1900, William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man, p 298.
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