The FALSE ONE is an indirect imitation of Antony and Cleopatra. We have Septimius for Œnobarbas and Cæsar for Antony. Cleopatra herself is represented in her girlish state, but she is made divine in ‘Youth that opens like perpetual spring,’ and promises the rich harvest of love and pleasure that succeeds it. Her first presenting herself before Cæsar, when she is brought in by Sceva, and the impression she makes upon him, like a vision dropt from the clouds, or ‘Like some celestial sweetness, the treasure of soft love.’ are exquisitely conceived. Photinus is an accomplished villain, well-read in crooked policy and quirks of state; and the description of Pompey has a solemnity and grandeur worthy of his unfortunate end. Septimius says, bringing in his lifeless head, ‘’Tis here, ’tis done! Behold, you fearful viewers, Shake, and behold the model of the world here, The pride and strength! Look, look again, ’tis finished! That that whole armies, nay, whole nations, Many and mighty kings, have been struck blind at, And fled before, wing’d with their fear and terrors, That steel War waited on, and Fortune courted, That high-plum’d Honour built up for her own; Behold that mightiness, behold that fierceness, Behold that child of war, with all his glories, By this poor hand made breathless!’ And again Cæsar says of him, who was his mortal enemy (it was not held the fashion in those days, nor will it be held so in time to come, to lampoon those whom you have vanquished)— ——‘Oh thou conqueror, Thou glory of the world once, now the pity, Thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? What poor fate followed thee, and plucked thee on To trust thy sacred life to an Egyptian? The life and light of Rome to a blind stranger, That honourable war ne’er taught a nobleness, Not worthy circumstance shew’d what a man was? That never heard thy name sung but in banquets, And loose lascivious pleasures? to a boy, That had no faith to comprehend thy greatness, No study of thy life to know thy goodness? Egyptians, do you think your highest pyramids, Built to outdure the sun, as you suppose, Where your unworthy kings lie raked in ashes, Are monuments fit for him! No, brood of Nilus, Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; No pyramids set off his memories, But the eternal substance of his greatness, To which I leave him.’