Note 50 — Chapter I · ROMAN PLAYS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

I am quite unable to agree with Herr Collischonn’s view that Muret’s play is more republican in sentiment than that of Grévin. In both there is some discrepancy and contradiction, but with Muret, Caesar is a more prominent figure than Brutus, taking part in three scenes, if we include his intervention after death, while Brutus appears only in two, and to my mind Caesar makes fully as sympathetic an impression. On the other hand, the alleged monarchic bias of Grévin’s work cannot be considered very pronounced, when, as M. Faguet mentions in his Tragédie française au XVIͤ Siècle, “it was reprinted in the time of Ravaillac with a preface violently hostile to the principle of monarchy.” But see Herr Collischonn’s excellent introduction to his Grevin’s Tragödie “Caesar,” Ausgaben und Abhandlungen, etc., LII.