For a life like his is hardly compatible even in theory with the arduous functions of the commander, the governor, the administrator; and in practice it inevitably leads to their neglect. In the opening scene we see him leave unheard the momentous tidings from Rome, and turn aside to embrace his royal paramour. His followers are filled with angry disgust:
Nay, but this dotage of our general’s
O’erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes
That o’er the files and musters of the war
Have glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
The office and devotion of their view
Upon a tawny front.
(I. i. 1.)
The general voice cries out against him at home, where his faults are taunted
With such full licence as both truth and malice