The opening of the play (though placed in “a street in Rome,") is evidently meant to represent this occurrence. But Shakspeare has not followed Plutarch as to the cause of this separation, or mutiny as he represents it. The dearth of corn, of which the citizens complain, did not occur at this time; the present cause of complaint arose of the severe laws of debtor and creditor, which, while all the wealth was in the hands of the patricians, enabled them to oppress with cruel severity those plebeians who had been compelled to become their debtors, and who were consequently liable to be claimed as their slaves.* And it was on this occasion that Menenius Agrippa related the celebrated fable of the Belly and the Members,† and also that tribunes of the people were first appointed.‡ The complaint

* Niebuhr, i. 562; Arnold, i. 137. These writers say, "that where there were several creditors, they might actually hew the body of the debtor in pieces, and whether a creditor cut off a greater or a smaller piece than in proportion to its debt, he incurred no penalty." It is, they say, a modern error, that the cutting up was to be understood of the debtor's property, not of his person. It is with difficulty that I can believe them right!

+ Malone says (Bosw. xiv. 12, and ii. 457), that Shakspeare must have taken his version of the fable, in part, from Camden's Remains; but I think that North is sufficient. ‡ North, 187.

was, not of power usurped, or arbitrarily used by an aristocracy privileged by birth, so much as of "the rich men who had driven them out of the city...... and that they were hurt with continual wars and fighting in defence of the rich man's goods." It was the moneyed aristocracy* by which they were oppressed. And though the old man, in the moral of his fable, likens the nourishment afforded by the belly to the wholesome counsels of the senate, yet the fable itself rather describes the possessors of wealth, who were said "to send it out again for the nourishment of other parts."

It is in conformity with Plutarch that Coriolanus (now only known as Caius Marcius), is represented as stern, contemptuous, and unpopular; and so of other remarkable traits of his character.

'This man also is a good proof to confirm some men's opinions, that a rare and excellent wit untaught doth bring forth many good and evil things together: as a fat soil that lieth unmanured bringeth forth both herbs and weeds. For this Marcius' natural wit and great heart did marvellously stir up his courage to do and attempt notable acts. But, on the other side, for lack of education, he was so cholerick and impatient, that he would yield to no living creature: which made him churlish, uncivil,

* See Keightley's Hist. of Rome, p. 65.

and altogether unfit for any man's conversation. Yet men marvelling much at his constancy, that he was never overcome with pleasure, nor money; and how he would endure easily all manner of pains and travels, therefore they well liked and commended his shortness and temperancy. But for all that, they could not be acquainted with him, as one citizen would wish to be with another in the city, his behaviour was so unpleasant to them, by reason of a certain insolent and stern manner he had, which because he was too lordly was disliked...........................As for others, the only respect that made them valiant was, that they hoped to have honour, but touching Marcius, the only thing that made him to love honour, was the joy he saw his mother did take of him. For that he thought nothing made him so happy and honourable, as that his mother might hear everybody praise and commend him, that she might always see him return with a crown upon his head, and that she might still embrace him with tears running down her cheeks for joy."

Compare,

"1st Cit. First, you know Caius Marcius is the chief enemy to the people.

All. We know it, we know it. He's a very dog to the commonalty.

2d Cit. Consider you what services he has done to his country?

1st Cit. Very well, and could be content to give *North, 185, 186.

him good report for it, but that he pays himself with being proud.

All. Nay, but speak not maliciously.

1st Cit. I say unto you, what he hath done famously, he did it to that end. Though soft-conscienced men can be content to say it was for his country; he did it to please his mother, and to be partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his mercy."

There is nothing remarkable in the use made by Shakspeare of the affair of Corioli, as related by Plutarch.* Commentators+ have noticed an obvious anachronism, where the poet puts into the mouth of Titus Lartius, a contemporary of Coriolanus, a remark which Plutarch makes as from himself.

"For he was even such another as Cato would have a soldier and a captain to be, not only terrible and fierce to lay about him, but to make the enemy afraid with the sound of his voice, and grimness of his countenance." +

* Act i. Sc. 1, 2, 4 to 11.

† Bosw. 35.

For other passages in which Plutarch is followed, sometimes into error, see Bosw. 42, 63, 83, 102, 127; see also p. 86, where Warburton says that at the period of this story the people had no voice in the election of consuls. The bishop speaks with more confidence than any records justify.

"Thou wast a soldier

Even to Cato's wish; not fierce and terrible
Only in strokes ; but, with thy grim looks, and
The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,
Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
Were feverous, and did tremble."

The refusal of the tenth part of the booty, the grant, by acclamation, of the surname, CORIOLANUS, the release of the poor man at whose house in Corioli the Roman general lodged, are all equally from Plutarch.

Coriolanus stands for the consulate, being proposed by the consul Cominius,* whom the poet makes the channel of Plutarch's own account of the warrior: following him so closely, as even to copy this remark upon the peculiar characteristic of the Romans:

In those days valiantness was honoured in Rome above all other virtues; which they call virtus, by the name of virtue itself, as including in that general name all other special virtues besides."

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and
Most dignifies the haver."

And he then relates the youthful deeds of

* According to Livy, Posthumus Cominius was consul in the 262d year of Rome. According to Dionysius, in the 261st. See Arnold, 552.