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    what fickle to their great men , but the Athenian people were nevertheless free and intelligent . Cominius is right in saying , that ' This paltering Becomes not Rome ; nor has Coriolanus Deserved this so dishonour'd rub , laid falselv

    1 * plain way of his merit . But you should have caused the people to be instructed , good Cominius , equally with yourself , and then they had not done it . Menenius was right in attributing ' choler' to Coriolanus : but even that choler was justifiable , so far as such a temporary madness can be justified , by the baseness of the tribune , Sicinius Velutus ; and , notwithstanding the choler , Coriolanus talks sound sense where he says ,

    • By Jove himself , It makes the consuls base : and my soul aches To know , when two authorities are up , Neither supreme , how soon confusion May enter 'twixt the gap of both , and take The one by the otber . Our venerable English constitution , composed of three authorities—king , lords , and commons , is worse even than this . The

    two first hold their authority only by the ignorance of the last . When the knowledge of all shall be on a par , the numbers of the last will make such a preponderance of power as to cause the tw r former to kick the beam . 4 This double worship , — Where one part does disdain with cause , the other

    Insult without all reason . ' However this might be in Rome , in England the matter is changed . The people ' disdain with cause , ' the aristocracy 1 insult without all reason ; ' but their insults will not last long . The growing intelligence of the people will not long bear

    The ill which doth control it / The remainder of the scene consists principally in the display of the magnificent indignation of Coriolanus , and the base urging of the tribunes , who are goading to violence the very nobleness of his nature . How like a ' thundering Jove' he looks , while that

    ' bald tribune * lays his polluted hand upon him ! Now his nervous fingers gripe the shoulder of the offender like the closing of a rock in an earthquake : the withered flesh shrinks , and the dry bones crackle , while he shakes the trembling creature as though he were a willow twig : 1 Hence , rotten thing , or I shall shake thy bones Out of thy garments . *

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    Coriolanus no Aristocrat . 201

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1834, page 201, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2631/page/41/