the noblest man,
    That ever lived in the tide of time,

obscure the meaner talents of Brutus; and that death which in Plutarch forms a truly tragical catastrophe, here occurs in the middle of the action, which would appropriately terminate with it.  But we have to follow the historical course of events; we follow Brutus to his fate at the battle of Philippi, and witness the vengeance of which Caesar’s ghost forewarns the false friends.  Shakspere may have meant to represent Brutus as the last of the Romans, and the Republic as dying with him; but he also represents him as haunted by the ghost of his murdered benefactor, and losing heart before the final contest.  The “great daemon” of Caesar avenged him on his enemies; and in this point of view the play has a unity.  Brutus dies like a Roman, and that murder to which he was led by the instigation of others, only renders the Monarchy inevitable and necessary.  But if the play is faulty in construction, as I venture to think it is, it has other merits of the highest order, which place it in some respects among the best works of the great master of dramatic art.]

LIFE OF PHOKION.

I. The orator Demades, who became one of the chief men in Athens by his subservience to the Macedonians and Antipater, and who was forced to say and to write much that was derogatory to the glory and contrary to the traditional policy of Athens, used to excuse himself by pleading that he did not come to the helm before the vessel of the State was an utter wreck.  This expression, which seems a bold one when used by Demades, might with great truth have been applied to the policy of Phokion.  Indeed Demades himself wrecked Athens by his licentious life and policy, and when he was an old man Antipater said of him that he was like a victim which has been cut up for sacrifice, for there was nothing left of him but his tongue and his paunch; while the true virtue of Phokion was obscured by the evil days for Greece during which he lived, which prevented his obtaining the distinction which he deserved.  We must not believe Sophokles, when he says that virtue is feeble and dies out in men: 

    “Why, not the very mind that’s born with man,
    When he’s unfortunate, remains the same.”

Yet we must admit that fortune has so much power even over good men, that it has sometimes withheld from them their due meed of esteem and praise, has sullied their reputations with unworthy calumnies, and made it difficult for the world to believe in their virtue.