we have the poignancy and the very repartee of Cæsar 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 Cæsar to fight him: Cæsar answered, That he had many other ways to die than so.”
In the Third Act of Julius Cæsar, 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 Cæsaris hortos.