This play should be perused in mental contrast with Romeo and Juliet;--as the love of passion and appetite opposed to the love of affection and instinct. But the art displayed in the character of Cleopatra is profound; in this, especially, that the sense of criminality in her passion is lessened by our insight into its depth and energy, at the very moment that we cannot but perceive that the passion itself springs out of the habitual craving of a licentious nature, and that it is supported and reinforced by voluntary stimulus and sought-for associations, instead of blossoming out of spontaneous emotion. Of all Shakspeare's historical plays, Antony and Cleopatra is by far the most wonderful. There is not one in which he has followed history so minutely, and yet there are few in which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so much;--perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is sustained throughout, and to the numerous momentary flashes of nature counteracting the historic abstraction. As a wonderful specimen of the way in which Shakspeare lives up to the very end of this play, read the last part of the concluding scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well as the genius of Shakspeare in your heart's core, compare this astonishing drama with Dryden's All For Love. Act i. sc. 1. Philo's speech:-- His captain's heart, Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst The buckles on his breast, _reneges_ all temper-- It should be 'reneagues,' or 'reniegues,' as 'fatigues,' &c. 'Ib.' Take but good note, and you shall see in him The triple pillar of the world transform'd Into a strumpet's _fool_. Warburton's conjecture of 'stool' is ingenious, and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is walking and jesting with her, 'fool' must be the word. Warburton's objection is shallow, and implies that he confounded the dramatic with the epic style. The 'pillar' of a state is so common a metaphor as to have lost the image in the thing meant to be imaged. Ib. sc. 2. Much is breeding; Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life, And not a serpent's poison. This is so far true to appearance, that a horse-hair, 'laid,' as Hollinshed says, 'in a pail of water' will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys in Cumberland and Westmorland. Act ii. sc. 2. Speech of Enobarbus:-- Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, So many _mermaids_, tended her i' th' eyes, And made their bends adornings. At the helm A seeming mermaid steers.