o show bare heads
In congregations; to yawn, be still, and wonder
When one but of my ordinance stood up
To speak of peace or war.

And Volumnia reproaching the tribunes,--

'Twas you incensed the rabble--
Cats, that can judge as fitly of his worth,
As I can of those mysteries which Heaven
Will not have earth to know.

There is all the Roman spirit in her exultation when the trumpets sound
the return of Coriolanus.

Hark! the trumpets!
These are the ushers of Marcius: before him
He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.

And in her speech to the gentle Virgilia, who is weeping her husband's
banishment--

Leave this faint puling! and lament as I do
In anger--Juno-like!

But the triumph of Volumnia's character, the full display of all her
grandeur of soul, her patriotism, her strong affections, and her sublime
eloquence, are reserved for her last scene, in which she pleads for the
safety of Rome, and wins from her angry son that peace which all the
swords of Italy and her confederate arms could not have purchased. The
strict and even literal adherence to the truth of history is an
additional beauty.

Her famous speech, beginning "Should we be silent and not speak," is
nearly word for word from Plutarch, with some additional graces of
expression, and the charm of metre superadded. I shall give the last
lines of this address, as illustrating that noble and irresistible
eloquence which was the crowning ornament of the character. One
exquisite touch of nature, which is distinguished by italics, was beyond
the rhetorician and historian, and belongs only to the poet.

Speak to me, son;
Thou hast affected the fine strains of honor,
To imitate the graces of the gods;
To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' the air,
And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
Think'st thou it honorable for a nobleman
Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:
He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;
Perhaps thy childishness may move him more
Than can our reasons. There is no man in the world
More bound to his mother; yet here he lets me prate
Like one i' the stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy;
_When she, (poor hen!) fond of no second brood,
Has cluck'd thee