tion of an audience, the play was produced, as well as written, in 1591." No play of Shakespeare's has been from the first more popular than this; perhaps none so popular. The interest of the story, the variety of the characters, the appeals to the hearts of all beholders, the abundance of what may be called episodical passages of singular beauty, such as Queen Mab, the Friar's husbandry, the Starved Apothecary, and the gems of the purest poetry which are scattered in rich abundance, these all concur to make it the delight of the many as it is also a favourite study for the few. But so tragical a story ministers to a depraved appetite in the many. The mass of Englishmen love scenes of horror, whether in reality or in the mimic representations on the stage. Shakespeare seems to have understood this; and both here and in Hamlet he leaves scarcely any one alive. Even the insignificant Benvolio is not permitted to live out the story. It would be profanation however to believe that this has been a principal cause of the extreme popularity of Romeo and Juliet, which began in the author's own time and is continued in ours. If nothing else, the garden scene would claim for this dramatic piece to have been produced when the writer was in the flower of his genius. We are to read it with the impression on our minds of Italian manners, and the warm feelings of Italy; but it is of all ages and all nations, and the cold moon of England has doubtless sometimes witnessed scenes as impassioned as this. The commentators have produced several testimonies to the popularity of this play in the times before the theatres were closed through the ascendancy of the Puritan spirit in England; a marked and very important æra in dramatic history. I add the three references to this play which follow, under the impression that it is desirable any notices of the writings of this great poet from the pens of persons who were his contemporaries should be gathered together. In Speculum Mundi, or a Glass representing the Face of the World, 4to, 1635, the author, John Swan, writes thus:"Amiantus is a stone like unto alum: this being put into the fire, is not hurt nor slurried, but rather more bright and clear. Unto which, one patient in troubles and adversities, may be likened for his afflictions harm him not, but better him; making him look in the midst of a fiery trial, not like one slurried with repining, but clear and beautiful in the sight of heaven by refining. "But I conclude: and with him who writeth thus, cannot but say― "Oh! mickle is the powerful good that lies But, if unknown, lies useless to itself. Therefore, who thus doth make their secrets known, Doth profit others, and not hurt his own!" P. 299. James Ferrand, doctor of physic, printed at Oxford, in 1640, A Treatise, discoursing of the Essence, Causes, Symptoms, Prognosticks, and Cure of Love or Erotique Melancholy. There are commendatory verses by Richard Goodridge, of Christ Church, who thus alludes to this play- Were thy story of as much direful woe As that of Juliet and Hieronymo, Here is that would cure you. Gilbert Swynhoe, a northern poet, has an allusion to the sweet couplet with which this play concludes, in his Irene, printed in 1658— This is a spectacle of like woe To that of Juliet and her Romeo. In Sir William Davenant's Gondibert, we have scenes laid at Verona, and a character called Tybalt; and one of Ford's plays has several scenes and expressions which remind of Romeo and Juliet. How deeply inwrought in the English mind are the affecting incidents of this story is apparent from the feeling with which English travellers appear to regard Verona. They visit Vallambrosa that they may gaze upon the "autumnal leaves that strew the brooks;" and their first inquiry at Verona is for the tomb of Juliet. Many would exchange for an authentic monument of the Capulets the glories of the amphitheatre itself. Even Mr. Rogers, when he is about to visit Verona, thinks of Shakespeare rather than of any native bard of that ancient land of song : Am I in ITALY? Is this the MINCIUS! Little or nothing will here be added to what the commentators have already told us of the origin of this tragical story, or towards determining the question whether the story has a veritable basis of fact. But the question may be asked, Why has no Shakespeare enthusiast determined this question? Or rather perhaps, since what Shakespeare has done for this story has made their city more famous, has no Veronese antiquary arisen to prove the actual existence of the principal characters of this play, or, on the contrary, to shew that they are the pure invention of romance? In England, this would certainly have been done long ago, and if we are to fix the era of the events at the close of the thirteenth century, which answers to the reign of our King Edward the First, such is the affluence of our records for that æra, that there can be no doubt that the inquiry would have been brought to a satisfactory issue. Is Italy poor in this respect when compared with this island of the Northern seas? as in the art of sculpture she appears to have had no artist superior to the Englishman who cast the statue of that sovereign's queen. But surely, if the archives of Verona contain nothing that would establish that in the Montague or the Montecchi family there was a youth who bore the name of Romeo, or one near resembling it, and in the Capulets or Capiletti family a lady whose name was Juliet, they would shew us that there were families of those names then existing at Verona, and who they were who in the time of Bartholomew de Scala, the Escalus of the play, were the heads of illustrious families so named. Or, if they failed to prove even this, they might shew us, at least, whether at that time there was a person called Paris, nearly allied to the duke. It is desirable that if possible the question should be set at rest once for all. Is the whole story a fiction-an ingenious and beautiful invention of an Italian romance-writer-or, is it all true; or, is there a mixture of truth and fable, as we find in The Tempest and in Love Labours Lost? There is something ridiculous in the thought of poring over ancient records to find traces of the existence of persons who were called into being only by some poetical imagination. But the question is, Were the characters and incidents mere invention? Of this we are at present ignorant, and the true way to knowledge is by the search of the Veronese records, if there are any so ancient. And here I will take leave to say, it is in resolving questions such as these that foreign nations can best evince their admiration of the works of this great poet. It is in vain for them to attempt to settle questions in respect of the peculiar words or peculiar phraseology of the plays. Where in this respect there is a difficulty, it can hardly be that any mind but one native to the language, and which has had the opportunities of observing nice peculiarities of expression in the spoken as well as the written language, can successfully remove it. Attempts in this department of Shakespeare criticism, by even the most eminent of those not of our own tongue, have most signally failed, and will ever fail; but in the sources of the plots, and in questions respecting the amount of real history in the stories which Shakespeare has dramatized, a foreigner may have resources richer than those which are open to ourselves, and hitherto unused for Shakespeare illustration. It is to be desired, that the present question should be settled; and, as the evidence must be in the documents, whatever they may be, which lie in the archives of Verona, or of any place to which in the revolutions of Italy they may have been removed, it is manifest that we tramontanes can do little in respect of it, and must ask for aid from the learned archivists of Italy. It is a question worth determining. True it may be, that the mind may abandon itself to the fascinations of this charming drama, and become wholly abstracted from the thought whether it is a tale of real or imaginary woe. Yet, if real, who would not be glad to know that it was so? I am prosaic enough to think that I should enjoy the drama more if I knew that those deeply affecting incidents, or something very like them, had formed a part of the actual experience of beings like myself: that such things had really been thought, and done, and suffered in the ages past. Or, if it had no effect in this way on the pleasure of perusing this drama, such an inquiry is one of great curiosity. Here is a tale told in different forms by numerous authors, and at length embodied in a play, which |