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This is very true: Mr. Heath accedes to the correction, and Mr. Johnson admits it into the Text: but turn to the translation, from the French of Amyot, by Thomas North, in Folio, 1579; and you will at once see the origin of the mistake.

“First of all he did establish Cleopatra Queene of AEgypt, of Cyprus, of Lydia, and the lower Syria.”

Again in the Fourth Act,

—-My messenger
He hath whipt with rods, dares me to personal combat,
Caesar to Anthony. Let th’ old Ruffian know
I have many other ways to die; mean time
Laugh at his challenge.—-

“What a reply is this?” cries Mr. Upton, “’tis acknowledging he should fall under the unequal combat. But if we read,

—-Let the old Ruffian know
He hath many other ways to die; mean time
I laugh at his challenge—-

we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Caesar in Plutarch.”

This correction was first made by Sir Thomas Hanmer, and Mr. Johnson hath received it. Most indisputably it is the sense of Plutarch, and given so in the modern translations: but Shakespeare was misled by the ambiguity of the old one, “Antonius sent again to challenge Caesar to fight him: Caesar answered, That he had many other ways to die than so.”

In the Third Act of Julius Caesar, Anthony in his well-known harangue to the people, repeats a part of the Emperor’s will,

—-To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every sev’ral man, seventy-five drachmas—-
Moreover he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbours, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tyber.—-

“Our Author certainly wrote,” says Mr. Theobald, “On that side Tyber–

Trans Tiberim–prope Caesaris hortos.

And Plutarch, whom Shakespeare very diligently studied, expressly declares that he left the publick his gardens and walks, {~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~} {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER MU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}, beyond the Tyber.”

This emendation likewise hath been adopted by the subsequent Editors; but hear again the old Translation, where Shakespeare’s study lay: “He bequeathed unto every citizen of Rome seventy-five drachmas a man, and he left his gardens and arbours unto the people, which he had on this side of the river of Tyber.” I could furnish you with many more instances, but these are as good as a thousand.

Hence had our author his characteristick knowledge of Brutus and Anthony, upon which much argumentation for his learning hath been founded: and hence literatim the Epitaph on Timon, which, it was once presumed, he had corrected from the blunders of the Latin version, by his own superior knowledge of the Original.

I cannot, however, omit a passage of Mr. Pope. “The speeches copy’d from Plutarch in Coriolanus may, I think, be as well made an instance of the learning of Shakespeare, as those copy’d from Cicero in Catiline, of Ben. Jonson’s.” Let us inquire into this matter, and transcribe a speech for a specimen. Take the famous one of Volumnia:

Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
And state of bodies would bewray what life
We’ve led since thy Exile. Think with thyself,
How more unfortunate than all living women
Are we come hither; since thy sight, which should
Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
Constrains them weep, and shake with fear and sorrow;
Making the mother, wife, and child to see
The son, the husband, and the father tearing
His Country’s bowels out: and to poor we
Thy enmity’s most capital; thou barr’st us
Our prayers to the Gods, which is a comfort
That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
Alas! how can we, for our Country pray,
Whereto we’re bound, together with thy Victory,
Whereto we’re bound? Alack! or we must lose
The Country, our dear nurse; or else thy Person,
Our comfort in the Country. We must find
An eminent calamity, though we had
Our wish, which side shou’d win. For either thou
Must, as a foreign Recreant, be led
With manacles thorough our streets; or else
Triumphantly tread on thy Country’s ruin,
And bear the palm, for having bravely shed
Thy wife and children’s blood. For myself, son,
I purpose not to wait on Fortune, ’till
These wars determine: if I can’t persuade thee
Rather to shew a noble grace to both parts,
Than seek the end of one; thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy Country, than to tread
(Trust to’t, thou shalt not) on thy mother’s womb,
That brought thee to this world.