by the sudden reverses of war and the accidents of battle, which as much
as possible, and as long as possible, he declined--there could be little
question in any man's mind, that eventually he would win his way to a
solitary throne, by a policy so full of caution and subtlety. He was sure
to risk nothing which could be had on easier terms; and nothing, unless
for a great overbalance of gain in prospect; to lose nothing which he had
once gained; and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacrifice an
opportunity, by any consideration of generosity. No modern insurance
office but would have guaranteed an event depending upon the final success
of Augustus, on terms far below those which they must in prudence have
exacted from the fiery and adventurous Anthony. Each was an ideal in his
own class. But Augustus, having finally triumphed, has met with more than
justice from succeeding ages. Even Lord Bacon says, that, by comparison
with Julius Caesar, he was "_non tam impar quam dispar_," surely a
most extravagant encomium, applied to whomsoever. On the other hand,
Anthony, amongst the most signal misfortunes of his life, might number it,
that Cicero, the great dispenser of immortality, in whose hands (more
perhaps than in any one man's of any age) were the vials of good and evil
fame, should happen to have been his bitter and persevering enemy. It is,
however, some balance to this, that Shakspeare had a just conception of
the original grandeur which lay beneath that wild tempestuous nature
presented by Anthony to the eye of the undiscriminating world. It is to
the honor of Shakspeare, that he should have been able to discern the true
coloring of this most original character, under the smoke and tarnish of
antiquity. It is no less to the honor of the great triumvir, that a
strength of coloring should survive in his character, capable of baffling
the wrongs and ravages of time. Neither is it to be thought strange that a
character should have been misunderstood and falsely appreciated for
nearly two thousand years. It happens not uncommonly, especially amongst
an unimaginative people like the Romans, that the characters of men are