Imperious Caesar

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 378, 20 September 1946, Page 15

Imperious Caesar

"REMEMBER CAESAR" were the cryptic words which the Restoration judge, in Gordon Dariot’s play of that title (SYA, September 2), found scribbled on gq note in his coat pocket. His calendar read March 14, and Caesar was killed i’ the Capital on the Ides of March. His life was clearly in danger, and (to use the words of a New Zealand poet) he emplaced cannon at all his windows, barricaded his dogrs, to the acute indignation of his cook, and prepared to stand siege. Then it was that a peaceable caller arrived to pay a pre-arranged visit, one Mr. Caesar; that the handwriting on the note proved to be the judge’s own; and that his wife, who had throughout preserved an attitude of delightful calm, pointed out that the Ides of March fell, on the 15th anyway. This was admirable fooling; and, to allay any doubts that may arise, persons surnamed Caesar do exist and are christened Julius and Augustus by their parents. Moreover, there was more historical veracity in the tale than might be supposed; in the 17th Century a gentleman having reason to fear an assassin or a mob might well barricade’ his house and arm his family and servants-indeed, it several times happened and, for the matter of that, the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill, in 19th Century America, defended his newspaper office with artillery against an incensed multitude. In good King Charles’s golden days there was no police and not much standing army and the citizen might well fend for himself until the militia or the Household Troops got to hear about it