l more home to him and
with greater vehemence; he has recourse to every Motive that may be
thought to be powerful over so great a Soul. He exhorts him by the Memory
of his matchless Conquests, not to suffer the invincible Empire of the
_Roman_ People to be devour'd by Time, or to be torn in pieces by Discord;
one of which would soon and infallibly happen, if Liberty was not
restor'd.

He introduces his Country and his Progenitors urging him in a noble
Prosopopeia, by all the mighty Benefits which they had conferr'd upon him,
with so little Pains of his own, not to deny them that just and easy
Request of the Restoration of Liberty. He adjures him by those Furies
which will eternally haunt his Soul upon his impious Refusal: He implores
him by the foresight of those dismal Calamities, that horrible Slaughter,
those endless Wars, and that unbounded Devastation, which will certainly
fall upon Mankind, if the Restoration of Liberty is prevented by his
Death, or his incurable Sickness: And lastly, he entreats him by his
Thirst of immortal Glory, that Glory in which he now has Rivals, if he has
not Equals; but which, if he re-establishes Liberty, will be acknowledg'd
by consenting Nations to have neither Equal nor Second.

I am apt to believe that if _Shakespear_ had been acquainted with all
this, we had had from him quite another Character of _Caesar_ than that
which we now find in him. He might then have given us a Scene something
like that which _Corneille_ has so happily us'd in his Cinna; something
like that which really happen'd between _Augustus_, _Mecaenas_, and
_Agrippa_. He might then have introduc'd _Caesar_ consulting _Cicero_ on
the one side, and on the other _Anthony_, whether he should retain that
absolute Sovereignty which he had acquir'd by his Victory, or whether he
should re-establish and immortalize Liberty. That would have been a Scene
which might have employ'd the finest Art and the utmost force of a Writer.
That had been a Scene in which all the great Qualities of _Caesar_ might
have been display'd. I will not pretend to determine here how that Scene
might have been turn'd; and what I have already said on this Subject, has
been spoke with the utmost Caution and Diffidence. But this I will venture
to say, that if that Scene had been manag'd so, as, by the powerful
Motives employ'd in it, to have shaken the Soul of _Caesar_, and to have
left room for the least Hope, for the least Doubt, that _Caesar_ would