1 SCENE I." Afection makes him false." THERE is a slight particle of untruth in Benvolio's statement, which, to a certain degree, justifies this charge of Lady Capulet. Tybalt was bent upon quarrelling with Romeo, but Mercutio forced on his own quarrel with Tybalt. Dr. Johnson's remark upon this circumstance is worthy his character as a moralist :-"The charge of falsehood on Benvolio, though produced at hazard, is very just. The author, who seems to intend the character of Benvolio as good, meant, perhaps, to show how the best minds, in a state of faction and discord, are detorted to criminal partiality."

2 SCENE II. "God save the mark!"

This expression occurs in the First Part of Henry IV., in Hotspur's celebrated speech defending the denial of his prisoners. In Othello, we have God bless the mark. In these cases, as in the instance before us, the commentators leave the expression in its original obscurity. May we venture a conjecture? The mark which persons who are unable to write are required to make, instead of their signature, is in the form of a cross; but anciently the use of this mark was not confined to illiterate persons, for, amongst the Saxons, the mark of the cross, as an attestation of the good faith of the person signing, was required to be attached to the signature of those who could write, and to stand in the place of the signature of those who could not write. (See Blackstone's Commentaries.) The ancient use of the mark was universal; and the word mark was, we believe, thus taken to signify the cross. God save the mark was, therefore, a form of ejaculation approaching to the character of an oath; in the same manner as assertions were made emphatic by the addition of " by the rood," or, "by the holy rood."

3 SCENE III.- "Like powder in a skill-less soldier's flask."

The force and propriety of this comparison are manifest; but, fully to understand it, we must know how the soldier of Shakspere's time was accoutred. His heavy gun was fired with a match, his powder was carried in a flask; and the match and the powder, in unskilful hands, were doubtless sometimes productive of accidents; so that the man-at-arms was, like Romeo in his passion "dismembered with his own defence."

SCENE V.-" Juliet's chamber."

The stage direction in the folio edition of 1623 is, "Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft." In the first quarto, 1597, the direction is, "Enter Romeo and Juliet at the window." To understand these directions, we must refer to the construction of the

old theatres. "Towards the rear of the stage," says Malone," there appears to have been a balcony or upper stage; the platform of which was probably eight or nine feet from the ground. I suppose it to have been supported by pillars. From hence, in many of our old plays, part of the dialogue was spoken; and in the front of it curtains likewise were hung, so as occasionally to conceal the persons in it from the view of the audience. At each side of this balcony was a box very inconveniently situated, which was sometimes called the private bor. In these boxes, which were at a lower price, some persons sate, either from economy or singularity." The balcony probably served a variety of purposes. Malone says, "When the citizens of Angiers are to appear on the walls of their town, and young Arthur to leap from the battlements, suppose our ancestors were contented with seeing them in the balcony already described; or, perhaps, a few boards tacked together, and painted so as to resemble the rude discoloured walls of an old town, behind which the platform might have been placed near the top, on which the citizens stood." It appears to us probable that even in these cases the balcony served for the platform, and that a few painted boards in front supplied the illusion of wall and tower. There was still another use of the balcony. According to Malone, when a play was exhibited within a play, as in Hamlet, the court, or audience, before whom the interlude was performed, sate in the balcony. To Malone's historical account of the English stage, and to Mr. Collier's valuable details regarding theatres (Annals of the Stage, vol. iii.), the reader is referred for

I

"There were (and that wot I full well)

Of pomegranates a full great deal."

The "orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits" was one of the beautiful objects described by Soloman in his Canticles. Amongst the fruit-bearing trees, the pomegranate is in some respects the most beautiful; and, therefore, in the south of Europe and in the East it has become the chief ornament of the garden. But where did Shakspere find that the nightingale haunted the pomegranate-tree, pouring forth her song from the same bough, week after week? Doubtless in some of the old travels with which he was familiar. Chaucer puts his nightingale "in a fresh green laurel-tree;" but the preference of the nightingale for the pomegranate is unquestionable. "The nightingale sings from the pomegranate-groves in the day-time," says Russel in his account of Aleppo. A friend, whose observations as a traveller are as acute as his descriptions are graphic and forcible, informs us that throughout his journeys in the East he never beard such a choir of nightingales as in a row of pomegranate-trees that skirt the road from Smyrna to Boudjia. In the truth of details such as these the genius of Shakspere is as much exhibited as in his wonderful powers of generalization.

6 SCENE V.-"It was the lark, the herald of the morn."

Shakspere's power of describing natural objects is unequalled in this beautiful scene, which, as we think, was amongst his very early productions. The Venus and Adonis, published in 1593, is also full of this power. Compare the following passage with the description of morning in the scene before us:

"Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold."

7 SCENE V.-" Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day."

There was one Gray, a maker of "certain merry ballads," who, according to Puttenham in his "Art of English Poesy" (1589), grew into good estimation with Henry VIII., and the Protector Somerset, for the said merry ballads, "whereof one chiefly was, The hunte is up, the hunte is up." Douce thinks he has recovered the identical song, which he reprints. One stanza will, perhaps, satisfy our readers :—

8 SCENE V.-" O God! I have an ill-divining soul."

Coleridge has some remarks upon that beautiful passage in Richard II., where the queen says

"Some unborn sorrow, ripe in sorrow's womb."
Is coming toward me;'

which we may properly quote here: "Mark in this scene Shakspere's gentleness in touching the tender superstitions, the terræ incognita of presentiments, in the human mind; and how sharp a line of distinction he commonly draws between these obscure forecastings of general experience in each individual, and the vulgar errors of mere tradition. Indeed, it may be taken, once for all, as the truth, that Shakspere, in the absolute universality of his genius, always reverences whatever arises out of our moral nature; he never profanes his muse with a contemptuous reasoning away of the genuine and general, however unaccountable, feelings of mankind." (Literary Remains, vol. ii. page 174.) --Shakspere has himself given us the key to his philosophy of presentiments. Venus, dreading the death of Adonis by the boar, says―

"The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed; And fear doth teach it divination;

I prophesy thy death."

"As one dead in the bottom of a tomb,"

we have "the fear" which doth "teach" her heart "divination." But Romeo, in the fifth Act, has a presentiment directly contrary to the approaching catastrophe: and this arises out of his "unaccustomed "animal spirits :

"My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne."

All these states of mind are common to the imagination deeply stirred by passionate emotions. Nothing, in all Shakspere's philosophy, appears to us finer than the deceiving nature of Romeo's presages in the last Act, as compared with the true-divining fears of Juliet.

very

Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is short. Par. My father Capulet will have it so: And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste." Fri. You say, you do not know the lady's mind; Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,

And therefore have I little talk'd of love:
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she doth give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society;
Now do you know the reason of this haste.
Fri. I would I knew not why it should be
slow'd.
[Aside.

Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

In (4) the passage is

"And I am nothing slack to slow his haste." Jackson conjectures that the to of all the editions should be too. But the meaning is obvious as it stands:

"I am nothing slow, (so as) to slack his haste."

Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!
Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.
Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thurs-
day next.
Jul. What must be shall be.

Fri.

That's a certain text. Par. Come you to make confession to this father ?

Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you. Par. Do not deny to him, that you love me. Jul. I will confess to you, that I love him. Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me. Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price, Being spoke behind your back, than to your face. Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with

tears.

Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so,

Come weep with me: Past hope, past care, past help!

Fri. O Juliet, I already know thy grief; It strains me past the compass of my wits: I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it, On Thursday next be married to this county.

Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this,

Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:
If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call resolution wise,
my
And with this knife I'll help it presently.
God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our
hands;

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the label to another deed,

Or

my true heart with treacherous revolt Turn to another, this shall slay them both : Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time," Give me some present counsel; or, behold, "Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife Shall play the umpire; arbitrating that Which the commission of thy years and art Could to no issue of true honour bring. Be not so long to speak; I long to die, If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy. Fri. Hold, daughter; I do spy a kind of

hope,

Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely, thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonderb tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring
bears;

Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,

a Nine lines, ending with this, are not in (A). b In (4), yonder. In (C) and folio, any.

consent

To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow;
To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thec in thy chamber:
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.b
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou liv'st;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death:
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:
Then (as the manner of our country is,)
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,1
Be borne to burial in thy kindreds' grave:a
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he come; and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

In (D), shroud. In folio, grave.

b (4) gives this passage thus:

"A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep His natural progress, but surcease to beat." We give the text of (C) and the folio. This speech of the friar, in the author's "amended" edition (B), is elaborated from thirteen lines to thirty-three; and yet the variorum editors have been bold enough even here, to give us a text made up of Shakspere's first thoughts and his last. e In (D), paly. In (C), many.

d This line, which is in all the ancient copies, has been left out in all the modern. The editors have here gone far beyond their office;-nor can we understand why the more particular working out of the idea in the next two lines should have given them offence. "Be borne," means "to be borne."

Enter CAPULET, Lady CAPULET, NURSE, and Servants.

Cap. So many guests invite as here are writ.[Exit Servant. Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.2 2 Serv. You shall have none ill, sir; for I'll try if they can lick their fingers.

Cap. How canst thou try them so?

2 Serv. Marry, sir, 't is an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. Cap. Go, begone.— [Exit Servant. We shall be much unfurnish'd for this time.What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

Nurse. Ay, forsooth.

Cap. Well, he may chance to do some good on her:

A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is.

nurse,

I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night;
For I have need of many orisons

To move the heavens to smile upon my state, Which, well thou know'st, is cross and full of sin.

Enter Lady CAPULET.

La. Cap. What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

Jul. No, madam; we have cull'd such necessaries

As are behoveful for our state to-morrow:
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you;
For, I am sure, you have your hands full all,
In this so sudden business.

La. Cap.

Good night! Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need. [Exeunt Lady CAPULET and NURSE. Jul. Farewell!-God knows, when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I'll call them back again to comfort me ;-

a (4), Do you need my help?