philosophic; Brutus may be called so in a stricter sense. Each, being
also a 'good' man, shows accordingly, when placed in critical
circumstances, a sensitive and almost painful anxiety to do right. And
though they fail--of course in quite different ways--to deal
successfully with these circumstances, the failure in each case is
connected rather with their intellectual nature and reflective habit
than with any yielding to passion. Hence the name 'tragedy of thought,'
which Schlegel gave to _Hamlet_, may be given also, as in effect it has
been by Professor Dowden, to _Julius Caesar_. The later heroes, on the
other hand, Othello, Lear, Timon, Macbeth, Antony, Coriolanus, have, one
and all, passionate natures, and, speaking roughly, we may attribute the
tragic failure in each of these cases to passion. Partly for this
reason, the later plays are wilder and stormier than the first two. We
see a greater mass of human nature in commotion, and we see
Shakespeare's own powers exhibited on a larger scale. Finally,
examination would show that, in all these respects, the first tragedy,
_Julius Caesar_, is further removed from the later type than is the
second, _Hamlet_.

These two earlier works are both distinguished from most of the
succeeding tragedies in another though a kindred respect. Moral evil is
not so intently scrutinised or so fully displayed in them. In _Julius
Caesar_, we may almost say, everybody means well. In _Hamlet_, though we
have a villain, he is a small one. The murder which gives rise to the
action lies outside the play, and the centre of attention within the
play lies in the hero's efforts to do his duty. It seems clear that
Shakespeare's interest, since the early days when under Marlowe's
influence he wrote _Richard III._, has not been directed to the more
extreme or terrible forms of evil. But in the tragedies that follow
_Hamlet_ the presence of this interest is equally clear. In Iago, in the