The Nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted: he has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.

His comick scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetick strains are always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however distressed, have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable conceit *. JOHNSON.

* This quotation is also found in the Preface to Dryden's Fables: "Just John Littlewit in Bartholomew Fair, who had a conceit (as he tells you) left him in his misery; a miserable conceit." STEEVENS.

ROMEUS AND JULIET.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

THE following poem was transcribed many years ago by Mr. Malone, from a copy belonging to the late Mr. Capell, deposited among his collections in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It was published in his Supplement to Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, 1778; and has since occupied a place in all the subsequent editions of our great poet. The account given of it by Mr. Malone in his own work, is as follows:

"In a preliminary note on Romeo and Juliet, I observed that it was founded on The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet, printed in 1562. That piece being almost as rare as a manuscript, I reprinted it a few years ago, and shall give it a place here as a proper supplement to the commentaries on this tragedy. "From the following lines in An Epitaph on the Death of Maister Arthur Brooke drownde in passing to New-Haven, by George Turberville, [Epitaphes, Epigrammes, &c. 1567,] we learn that the former was the author of this poem :

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Apollo lent him lute, for solace sake,

"To sound his verse by touch of stately string, "And of the never-fading baye did make

"A lawrell crowne, about his browes to cling.

"In proufe that he for myter did excell,

"As may be judge by Julyet and her mate;
"For there he shewde his cunning passing well,
"When he the tale to English did translate.
"But what? as he to forraigne realm was bound,
"With others moe his soveraigne queene to serve,
"Amid the seas unluckie youth was drownd,

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More speedie death than such one did deserve." "The original relater of this story was Luigi da Porto, a gentleman of Vicenza, who died in 1529. His novel did not appear till some years after his death; being first printed at Venice, in octavo, in 1535, under the title of La Giulietta. In an epistle prefixed to this work, which is addressed Alla bellissima e leggiadra Madonna Lucina Savorgnana, the author gives the following account (probably a fictitious one) of the manner in which he became acquainted with this story.

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As you yourself have seen, when heaven had not as yet levelled against me its whole wrath, in the fair spring of my

I was

youth I devoted myself to the profession of arms, and, following therein many brave and valiant men, for some years I served in your delightful country, Frioli, through every part of which, in the course of my private service, it was my duty to roam. ever accustomed, when upon any expedition on horseback, to bring with me an archer of mine, whose name was Peregrino, a man about fifty years old, well practised in the military art, a pleasant companion, and, like almost all his countrymen of Verona, a great talker. This man was not only a brave and experienced soldier, but of a gay and lively disposition, and, more perhaps than became his age, was for ever in love; a quality which gave a double value to his valour. Hence it was that he delighted in relating the most amusing novels, especially such as treated of love, and this he did with more grace and with better arrangement than any I have ever heard It therefore chanced that, departing from Gradisca, where I was quartered, and, with this archer and two other of my servants, travelling, perhaps impelled by love, towards Udino, which route was then extremely solitary, and entirely ruined and burned up by the war,-wholly absorbed in thought, and riding at a distance from the others, this Peregrino drawing near me, as one who guessed my thoughts, thus addressed me: Will you then for ever live this melancholy life, because a cruel and disdainful fair one does not love you? though I now speak against myself, yet, since advice is easier to give than to follow, I must tell you, master of mine, that, besides its being disgraceful in a man of your profession to remain long in the chains of love, almost all the ends to which he conducts us are so replete with misery, that it is dangerous to follow him. And in testimony of what I say, if it so please you, I could relate a transaction that happened in my native city, the recounting of which will render the way less solitary and less disagreeable to us; and in this relation you would perceive how two noble lovers were conducted to a miserable and piteous death.' -And now, upon my making him a sign of my willingness to listen, he thus began.'

"The phrase, in the beginning of this passage, when heaven had not as yet levelled against me its whole wrath,' will be best explained by some account of the author, extracted from Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, t. v. p. 91: "Luigi da Porto, a Vicentine, was, in his youth, on account of his valour, made a leader in the Venetian army; but, fighting against the Germans in Friuli, was so wounded, that he remained for a time wholly disabled, and afterwards lame and weak during his life; on which account, quitting the profession of arms, he betook himself to letters," &c.

The copy from which Mr. Malone made his transcript, was defective as wanting the preface; but in the year 1810, he was so fortunate as to procure a perfect copy from the Rev. Henry White, of