INTRODUCTION.
1. LITERARY HISTORY OF THE PLAY.
The earliest known edition of Julius Cæsar is that of the First Folio, 1623, in which the plays were for the first time collected. We have no knowledge of the text on which it was based; but the passages which show distinct signs of corruption are few: the readings are rarely open to serious question.
The means of settling the date when the play was written are to be found (1) in references to it, or in parallel passages, in contemporary writers; (2) in phrases here and there in the play which point to some particular period; (3) and in characteristics of scansion, construction, or thought, marking the particular phase of the author's development.
(1) A passage is quoted from Drayton's Barons' Wars, 1603, a revised edition of his Mortimeriados—
- "In whome, in peace, the elements all lay
- So mixt," &c.
which bears an obvious resemblance to Shakespeare's
- "His life was gentle, and the elements
- So mixed in him," &c.
If one of the two authors was borrowing from the other, the borrower was more probably Drayton; but it is quite as probable that the case is merely one of coincidence, and really proves nothing.
But in Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, 1601, are the lines—
- "The many-headed multitude were drawne
- By Brutus' speech, that Cæsar was ambitious.
- When eloquent Mark Antonie had shewne
- His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious?"
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