Assassinator not only survives, and survives unpunish’d, but seems to be rewarded for so detestable an Action, by engrossing all those Honours to himself which _Coriolanus_ before had shar’d with him. But not only _Aufidius_, but the _Roman_ Tribunes, _Sicinius_ and _Brutus_, appear to me to cry aloud for Poetick Vengeance. For they are guilty of two Faults, neither of which ought to go unpunish’d: The first in procuring the Banishment of _Coriolanus_. If they were really jealous that _Coriolanus_ had a Design on their Liberties, when he stood for the Consulship, it was but just that they should give him a Repulse; but to get the Champion and Defender of their Country banish’d upon a pretended Jealousy was a great deal too much, and could proceed from nothing but that Hatred and Malice which they had conceiv’d against him, for opposing their Institution. Their second Fault lay in procuring this Sentence by indirect Methods, by exasperating and inflaming the People by Artifices and Insinuations, by taking a base Advantage of the Open-heartedness and Violence of _Coriolanus_, and by oppressing him with a Sophistical Argument, that he aim’d at Sovereignty, because he had not delivered into the Publick Treasury the Spoils which he had taken from the _Antiates_. As if a Design of Sovereignty could be reasonably concluded from any one Act; or any one could think of bringing to pass such a Design, by eternally favouring the Patricians, and disobliging the Populace. For we need make no doubt but that it was among the young Patricians that _Coriolanus_ distributed the Spoils which were taken from the _Antiates_; whereas nothing but caressing the Populace could enslave the _Roman_ People, as _Cæsar_ afterwards very well saw and experienc’d. So that this Injustice of the Tribunes was the original Cause of the Calamity which afterwards befel their Country, by the Invasion of the _Volscians_, under the Conduct of _Coriolanus_. And yet these Tribunes at the end of the Play, like _Aufidius_, remain unpunish’d. But indeed _Shakespear_ has been wanting in the exact Distribution of Poetical Justice not only in his _Coriolanus_, but in most of his best Tragedies, in which the Guilty and the Innocent perish promiscuously; as _Duncan_ and _Banquo_ in _Mackbeth_, as likewise Lady _Macduffe_ and her Children; _Desdemona_ in _Othello_; _Cordelia_, _Kent_, and King _Lear_, in the Tragedy that bears his Name; _Brutus_ and _Porcia_ in _Julius Cæsar_; and young _Hamlet_ in the Tragedy of _Hamlet_. For tho’ it may be said in Defence of the last, that _Hamlet_ had a Design to kill his Uncle who then reign’d; yet this is justify’d by no less than a Call from Heaven, and raising up one from the Dead to urge him to it. The Good and the Bad then perishing promiscuously in the best of _Shakespear_’s Tragedies, there can be either none or very weak Instruction in them: For such promiscuous Events call the Government of Providence into Question,