Cassius. "How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you so!"
Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Sc. 3.
which will perhaps better suit the object that I have in view. The editors whose notes I have examined probably thought the connexion so self-evident or insignificant as not to require either notice or explanation. If so, I differ from them, and I therefore offer the following remarks for the amusement rather than for the instruction of those who, like myself, are not at all ashamed to confess that they cannot read Shakspeare's music "at sight." I believe that both Replies contain an allusion to the fact that Anger, grafted on sorrow, almost invariably assumes the form of frenzy; that it is in every sense of the word "Madness," when the mind is unhinged, and reason, as it were, totters from the effects of grief.
Cassius had but just mildly rebuked Brutus for making no better use of his philosophy, and now—startled by the sudden sight of his bleeding, mangled heart—"Portia is—Dead!" pays involuntary homage to the very philosophy he had so rashly underrated by the exclamation—
"How 'scaped I killing when I crossed you so!"
I wish, if possible, to support this view of the case by the following passages:—
I. Romeo's address to Balthasar.
"But if thou ... roaring sea."
II. His address to Paris.
"I beseech thee youth ... away!"