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    public greetings , Coriolanus , with innate modesty , instantly checks ; but he is not so indifferent to the greetings of his own peculiar friends , who all show their differing characters by their modes of * salutation . Virgilia , his wile , can do nothing but cry : she only knows that her husband is a man of greater importance

    than he was before , but into the merits of the case she cannot enter ; she would have done precisely the same had her husband been brought to shame . In that kind of foolish , nervous temperament there is little distinction between the emotions of joy and sorrow . They are not passions ., properly so called , but merely nervous excitement . Yet is the greeting of Coriolanus , r oo touching- :

    ' My gracious silence , hail . ' Old Menenius is at his wit ' s end for joy , and scarce knows what to do or say to express it ; but the imperious and calculating Volumnia does not lose sight of the profit to which her son ' s success may be turned . Alluding to the consulship she says ,

    • Only there f s one thing wanting , which I doubt not , but Our Rome will cast upon thee . ' But Coriolanus , who had fought for honour and conscience sake only , replies with his accustomed frank generosity ,

    Know , goad mother , I had rather be their servant in my way , Than sway with them in theirs . ' The tribunes are left alone ,, and they treacherously exult in the prospect , that , if he become consul ,

    He cannot temperately transport his honours From where he should begin and end ; but will Lose those that he hath won /

    w- m m ¦* * It shall be to him , then , as our good wills ; A sure destruction . '

    Our hatred of these pretended patriots , who practise mean acts upon a nobler being than themselves , sinks into contempt for the exceeding meanness of their malice . The second scene presents two of the servitor officers of the e < i ]) itol , who , after the gentleman-usher fashion , express their opinions of a man whom they cannot understand ; yet there is some shrewdness mingled withal . One says ,

    ' To seem to aflect the malice and displeasure of the people , is as bad as that which he dislikes , to flatter them for their love . ' lhe other does him more justice , ' He hath deserved worthily of his country . And his ascent is not

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    CoriolanifrS no Aristocrat . 191

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 191, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/31/