is one of those fine retrospections which show us the winding and eventful march of human life.  The jealous attention which has been paid to the unities both of time and place has taken away the principle of perspective in the drama, and all the interest which objects derive from distance, from contrast, from privation, from change of fortune, from long-cherished passion; and contracts our view of life from a strange and romantic dream, long, obscure, and infinite, into a smartly contested, three hours’ inaugural disputation on its merits by the different candidates for theatrical applause.

The latter scenes of Antony and Cleopatra are full of the changes of accident and passion.  Success and defeat follow one another with startling rapidity.  For-tune sits upon her wheel more blind and giddy than usual.  This precarious state and the approaching dissolution of his greatness are strikingly displayed in the dialogue between Antony and Eros: 

   Antony.  Eros, thou yet behold’st me?

   Eros.  Ay, noble lord.

   Antony.  Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish,
     A vapour sometime, like a bear or lion,
     A towered citadel, a pendant rock,
     A forked mountain, or blue promontory
     With trees upon’t, that nod unto the world
     And mock our eyes with air.  Thou hast seen these signs,
     They are black vesper’s pageants.

   Eros.  Ay, my lord.

   Antony.  That which is now a horse, even with a thought
     The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
     As water is in water.

   Eros.  It does, my lord.

   Antony.  My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is
     Even such a body, &c.

This is, without doubt, one of the finest pieces of poetry in Shakespeare.  The splendour of the imagery, the semblance of reality, the lofty range of picturesque objects hanging over the world, their evanescent nature, the total uncertainty of what is left behind, are ’ just like the mouldering schemes of human greatness.  It is finer than Cleopatra’s passionate lamentation over his fallen grandeur, because it is more dim, unstable, unsubstantial.  Antony’s headstrong presumption and infatuated determination to yield to Cleopatra’s wishes to fight by sea instead of land, meet a merited punishment; and the extravagance of his resolutions, increasing with the desperateness of his circumstances, is well commented upon by Enobarbus: 

     —­I see men’s judgements are
     A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward
     Do draw the inward quality after them
     To suffer all alike.

The repentance of Enobarbus after his treachery to his master is the most affecting part of the play.  He cannot recover from the blow which Antony’s generosity gives him, and he dies broken-hearted ’a master-leaver and a fugitive’.

Shakespeare’s genius has spread over the whole play a richness like the overflowing of the Nile.