assius! I am sick of many griefs!

CASSIUS.

Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.

BRUTUS.

No man bears sorrow better; Portia's dead.

CASSIUS.

Ha!--Portia?

BRUTUS.

She is dead.

CASSIUS.

How 'scap'd I killing when I cross'd you so?
O insupportable and touching loss--
Upon what sickness?

BRUTUS.

Impatient of my absence,
And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony
Had made themselves so strong--(for with her death
These tidings came)--_with this she fell distract_,
And, her attendants absent, swallowed fire.

So much for woman's philosophy!

MARGARET OF ANJOU.

Malone has written an essay, to prove from external and internal
evidence, that the three parts of King Henry VI. were not originally
written by Shakspeare, but altered by him from two old plays,[93] with
considerable improvements and additions of his own. Burke, Porson, Dr.
Warburton, and Dr. Farmer, pronounced this piece of criticism
convincing and unanswerable; but Dr. Johnson and Steevens would not be
convinced, and, moreover, have contrived to answer the _unanswerable_.
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" The only arbiter in such a
case is one's own individual taste and judgment. To me it appears that
the three parts of Henry VI. have less of poetry and passion, and more
of unnecessary verbosity and inflated language, than the rest of
Shakspeare's works; that the continual exhibition of treachery,
bloodshed, and violence, is revolting, and the want of unity of action,
and of a pervading interest, oppressive and fatiguing; but also that
there are splendid passages in the Second and Third Parts, such as
Shakspeare alone could have written: and this is not denied by the most
skeptical.[94]

Among the arguments against the authenticity of these plays, the
character of Margaret of Anjou has not been adduced, and yet to those
who have studied Shakspeare in his own spirit, it will appear the most
conclusive of all. When we compare her with his other female characters,
we are struck at once by the want of family likeness; Shakspeare was not
always equal, but he had not two _manners_, as they say of painters. I
discern his hand in particular parts, but I cannot recognize his spirit
in the concept