how to construct a scene, to represent the internal struggle by which two passions contend for a human heart. We perceive the tragical vicissitude of the strife, the progress of a sentiment, the overthrow of obstacles, the slow growth of desire or wrath, to the very instant when the resolution, rising up of itself or seduced from without, rushes suddenly in one groove. There are natural words; the poet thinks and writes too genuinely not to discover them at need. There are manly characters: he himself is a man; and beneath his courtier's pliability, his affectations as a fashionable poet, he has retained his stern and energetic character. Except for one scene of recrimination, his Octavia is a Roman matron; and when, even in Alexandria, in Cleopatra's palace, she comes to look for Antony, she does it with a simplicity and nobility, not to be surpassed. "Cæsar's sister," cries out Antony, accosting her. Octavia answers: "That's unkind. Had I been nothing more than Cæsar's sister, Know, I had still remain'd in Cæsar's camp: But your Octavia, your much injured wife, Though banish'd from your bed, driven from your house, In spite of Cæsar's sister, still is yours. 'Tis true, I have a heart disdains your coldness, And prompts me not to seek what you should offer; But a wife's virtue still surmounts that pride. I come to claim you as my own; to show My duty first, to ask, nay beg, your kindness: Your hand, my lord; 'tis mine, and I will have it."[415] Antony humiliated, refuses the pardon Octavia has brought him and tells her: "I fear, Octavia, you have begg'd my life,... Poorly and basely begg'd it of your brother. _Octavia._ Poorly and basely I could never beg, Nor could my brother grant.... My hard fortune Subjects me still to your unkind mistakes. But the conditions I have brought are such, You need not blush to take: I love your honour, Because 'tis mine; it never shall be said Octavia's husband was her brother's slave. Sir, you are free; free, even from her you loath; For, though my brother bargains for your love, Makes me the price and cement of your peace, I have a soul like yours; I cannot take Your love as alms, nor beg what I deserve. I'll tell my brother we are reconciled; He shall draw back his troops, and you shall march To rule the East: I may be dropt at Athens; No matter where. I never will complain, But only keep the barren name of wife, And rid you of the trouble."[416]