Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace, Thou talk'st of nothing.

Mer. True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy; Which is as thin of substance as the air; And more inconstant than the wind who wooes Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from ourselves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Rom. I fear, too early: for my mind misgives

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail !b-On, lusty gentlemen.
Ben. Strike, drum.

[Exeunt.

SCENE V.-1 Hall in Capulet's House.

Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

1 Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? he shift a trencher! he scrape a trencher !

2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 't is a foul thing.

21

1 Saro. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate:-good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and, as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone, and Nell.-Antony! and Potpan; 2 Serv. Ay, boy; ready.

1 Serv. You are looked for, and called for, asked for, and sought for, in the great chamber. 2 Serv. We cannot be here and there too.Cheerly, boys; be brisk a while, and the longer liver take all. [They retire behind.

d

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night

a Thus (4). (C) and folio, walk about.

b This passage, to "More light, ye knaves," is wanting in (4).

c Good cousin Capulet. The word cousin, in Shakspere, was applied to any collateral relation of whatever degree; thus we have in this play "Tybalt, my cou-in, Oh my brother's child." Richard the Third calls his nephew York, cousin, while the boy calls Richard, uncle. In the same play York's grandmother calls him cousin, while he replies grandam. d Her beauty hangs. All the ancient editions which can b considered authorities-the four quartos and the first folioread It seems she hangs. The reading of her beauty is from

As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And touching hers, make blessed my rude
hand.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

Tyb. This, by his voice, should be a Montague:

Fetch me my rapier, boy:-What! dares the slave

Come hither, cover'd with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

1 Cap. Why, how now, kinsman ? wherefore
storm you so?

Tyb. Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain, that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.
1 Cap. Young Romeo is 't?
Tyb.

'Tis he, that villain Romeo.

1 Cap. Content thec, gentle coz, let him
alone,

He bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him,
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth:
I would not for the wealth of all this town,
Here in my house do him disparagement:
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence, and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

Tyb. It fits, when such a villain is a guest;
I'll not endure him.

He shall be endur'd.

1 Cap. What, goodman boy!-I say, he shall;-Go to ;

Am I the master here, or you? go to. You'll not endure him!-God shall mend my soul

You'll make a mutiny among my guests!

the second folio. Why then, it may be asked, do we depart from our usual principle, and reject an undoubted ancient reading? Because the reading which we give has become familiar, has passed into common use wherever our language is spoken,-is quoted in books as frequently as any of the other passages of Shakspere which constantly present themselves as examples of his exquisite power of description. Here, it appears to us, is a higher law to be observed than that of adherence to the ancient copies. It is the same with the celebrated passage,

"Or dedicate his beauty to the sun."

All the ancient copies read the same. We believe this to be a misprint; but, even if that could not be alleged, we should feel ourselves justified in retaining the sun. Such instances, of course, present but very rare exceptions to a general rule. a 4), Like. b So (C) and folio. (A), happy.

meeting

Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall. [Erit.
Rom. If I profane with my unworthiest hand
[TO JULIET.
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,—
My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender
kiss.

Jul. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do

Jul.
You kiss by the book.
Nurse. Madam, your mother craves a word
with you.

Rom. What is her mother?
Nurse.

Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise, and virtuous :
I nurs'd her daughter, that you talk'd withal;
I tell you, he, that can lay hold of her,
Shall have the chinks.

Rom. Is she a Capulet? O dear account! my life is my foe's debt. Ben. Away, begone; the sport is at the best. Rom. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. 1 Cap. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone;

We have a trifling foolish banquet towards."
Is it e'en so? Why, then I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night
More torches here! - Come on then; let's to bed.
Ah, sirrah, [To 2 Cap.] by my fay, it waxes late;
I'll to my rest.

[Exeunt all but JULIET and NURSE.
Towards. Ready; at hand.

VERONA, the city of Italy, where, next to Rome, the antiquary most luxuriates ;-where, blended with the remains of theatres, and amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, are the palaces of the factious nobles, and the tombs of the despotic princes of the Gothic ages;-Verona, so rich in the associations of real history, has even a greater charm for those who would live in the poetry of the past:

"Are these the distant turrets of Verona?

He

And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque Saw her lov'd Montague, and now sleeps by him?" So felt our tender and graceful poet, Rogers. adds, in a note, "The old palace of the Cappelletti, with its uncouth balcony and irregular windows, is still standing in a lane near the market-place; and what Englishman can behold it with indifference? When we enter Verona, we forget ourselves, and are almost inclined to say with Dante,

'Vieni a veder Montecchi, e Cappelletti.""

1SCENE I." Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals."

To carry coals was to submit to servile offices. Gifford has a note upon a passage in Ben Jonson's

66

Every Man out of his Humour," where Puntarvolo, wanting his dog held, exclaims, "Here comes one that will carry coals," in which note he clearly enough shows the origin of the reproach of carrying coals:-" In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were a number of mean and dirty dependants, whose office it was to attend the wood-yard, sculleries, &c. Of these (for in the lowest deep there was a lower still) the most forlorn wretches seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, which, with every other article of furniture, were then moved from palace to palace, tlie people, in derision, gave the name of black guards, a term since become sufficiently familiar, and never properly explained." In the passage here quoted from Ben Jonson, we find the primary meaning of the expression-that of being fit for servile offices; but in a subsequent passage of the same play we also have the secondary meaning-that of tamely submitting to an affront. Puntarvolo, having lost his dog, insults Shift, who he supposes las taken it; upon which another character exclaims,— "Take heed, Sir Puntarvolo, what you do, he'll bear no coals, I can tell you." Gifford has given a

quotation in illustration of this meaning (which is the sense in which Shakspere here uses it), worth all the long list of similar passages in the Shaksperian commentators:-"It remayneth now that I take notice of Jaspar's arryvall, and of those letters with which the queen was exceedingly well satisfied saying that you were too like some body in the world, to whom she is afrayde you are a little kin, to be content to carry coales at any Frenchman's hand."-Secretary Cecyll to Sir Henry Ne ville, March 2, 1559.

2 SCENE I." Here comes of the house of the
Montagues."

How are the Montagues known from the Capulets? naturally occurs to us. They wore badges, which, in all countries, have been the outward manifestations of party spirit. Gascoigne, in "a device of a masque," written in 1575, has,

"And for a further proof he shewed in hys hat

Thys token which the Mountacutes did beare alwaies, for that

They covet to be knowne from Capels."

3 SCENE I. "I will bite my thumb at them."

Douce has bestowed much laborions investigation upon this difficult, and somewhat worthless subject. The practice of biting the thumb was naturalized amongst us in Shakspere's time; and the lazy and licentious groups that frequented "Paul's" are thus described by Decker, in 1608:"What swearing is there, what shouldering, what justling, what jeering, what biting of thumbs to beget quarrels."

4SCENE I.—"Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.”

Sampson and Gregory are described as armed with swords and bucklers. The swashing blow is a blow upon the buckler; the blow accompanied with a noise; and thus a swasher came to be synonymous with a quarrelsome fellow, a braggart. In Henry V., Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym are called by the boy three "swashers." Holinshed has-"a man may see how many bloody quarrels a brawling swash-buckler may pick out of a bottle of hay;" and Fuller, in his "Worthies," after describing a swaggerer as one that endenrours to make that side to swagger, or weigh down, whereon he engages, tells us that a swashbuckler is so called from swashing, or making e noise on bucklers.

5 SCENE I." Clubs, bills, and partisans.".

The cry of "clubs." is as thoroughly of English origin as the "bite my thumb" is of Italian. Scott has made the cry familiar to us in "The Fortunes of Nigel;" and when the citizens of Verona here raise it, we involuntarily think of the old watchmaker's hatch-door in Fleet-street, and Jin Vin and Tunstall darting off for the affray. "The great long club," as described by Stow, on the necks of the London apprentices, was as characteristic as the flat cap of the same quarrelsome body, in the days of Elizabeth and James. The use by Shakspere of

home phrases, in the mouths of foreign characters, was a part of his art. It is the same thing as rendering Sancho's Spanish proverbs into the corresponding English proverbs instead of literally translating them. The cry of "clubs" by the citizens of Verona expressed an idea of popular movement, which could not have been conveyed half 80 emphatically in a foreign phrase. We have given a group of ancient bills and partisans, viz., a very early form of bill, from a specimen preserved in the Town Hall of Canterbury;-bills of the times of Henry VI, VII., and VIII.;-and partisans of the time of Edward IV., Henry VII., and James L