[JULIUS CÆSAR.]
ACT I.
Scene 2. Page 254.
Cas. Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough.
This jingle of words is deserving of notice on no other account than as it shows the pronunciation of Rome in Shakspeare's time.
Scene 3. Page 266.
Cas. Why old men fools, and children calculate.
In this manner has the former punctuation of the line, which had a comma after men, been disturbed at the suggestion of Sir W. Blackstone, and thereby rendered extremely uncouth if not unintelligible. He observes that there is no prodigy in old men's calculating from their past experience; but the poet means old dotards in a second state of childhood. With the supposed power of divination in fools, few are unacquainted. He that happens to be so may consult the popular history of Nixon, the Cheshire prophet.