"ROMEO AND JULIET is a picture of love and its pitiable fate, in a world whose atmosphere is too rough for this tenderest blossom of human life. Two beings created for each other, feel mutual love at first glance; every consideration disappears before the invisible influence of living in one another: they join themselves secretly, under circumstances in the highest degree hostile to the union, relying merely on the protection of an irresistible power. By unfriendly events following blow upon blow, their heroic constancy is exposed to all manner of trials, till, forcibly separated from each other, they are united in the grave to meet again in another world.

"All this is to be found in the beautiful story which Shakespeare has not invented; and which, however simply told, will always excite a tender sympathy: but it was reserved for Shakespeare to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagination, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionate violence, in one ideal picture. By the manner in which he has handled it, it has become a glorious song of praise on that inexpressible feeling which ennobles the soul, and gives to it its highest sublimity, and which elevates even the senses themselves into soul; and at the same time is a melancholy elegy on its frailty, from its own nature and external circumstances: at once the deification and the burial of love. It appears here like a heavenly spark that, descending to the earth, is converted into a flash of lightning, by which mortal creatures are almost in the same moment set on fire and consumed.

"Whatever is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, is to be found in this poem. But, even more rapidly than the first blossoms of youth and beauty decay, it hurries on from the first timidly-bold declaration of love and modest return, to the most unlimited passion, to an irrevocable union then, amidst alternating storms of rapture and despair, to the death of the two lovers, who still appear enviable as their love survives them, and as by their death they have obtained a triumph over every separating power.

"The sweetest and the bitterest love and hatred, festivity and dark forebodings, tender embraces and sepulchres, the fulness of life and self-annihilation, are all here brought close to each other: and all these contrasts are so blended, in the harmonious and wonderful work, into a unity of impression, that the echo which the whole leaves behind in the mind resembles a single but endless sigh."-SCHLEGEL,

It is the plan of this edition to present at least an outline of the higher Shakespearian criticism, and without confining the reader to those views which accord with the editor's own conclusions, to indicate generally such other critical opinions as have received the sanction of eminent critics.

It is therefore proper to add to this glowing eulogy, the masterly but sterner criticism of Hallam :

"In one of the Italian novels to which Shakespeare had frequently recourse for his fable, he had the good fortune to meet with this simple and pathetic subject. What he found he has arranged with great skill. The incidents in ROMEO AND JULIET are rapid, various, unintermitting in interest, sufficiently probable, and tending to the catastrophe. The most regular dramatist has hardly excelled one writing for an infant and barbarian stage. It is certain that the observation of the unity of time, which we find in this tragedy, unfashionable as the name of unity has become in our criticism, gives an intenseness of interest to the story, which is often diluted and dispersed in a dramatic history. No play of Shakespeare is more frequently represented, or honoured with more tears.

"If from this praise of the fable we pass to other considerations, it will be more necessary to modify our eulogies. It has been said of the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S

DREAM, that none of Shakespeare's plays have fewer blemishes. We can by no means repeat this commendation of ROMEO AND JULIET. It may be said rather that few, if any, are more open to reasonable censure; and we are almost equally struck by its excellences and its defects.

"Mad. de Staël has truly remarked, that in ROMEO AND JULIET we have, more than in any other tragedy, the mere passion of love; love, in all its vernal promise, full of hope and innocence, ardent beyond all restraint of reason, but tender as it is warm. The contrast between this impetuosity of delirious joy, in which the youthful lovers are first displayed, and the horrors of the last scene, throws a charm of deep melancholy over the whole. Once alone each of them, in these earlier moments, is touched by a presaging fear; it passes quickly away from them, but is not lost on the reader. To him there is a sound of despair in the wild effusions of their hope, and the madness of grief is mingled with the intoxication of their joy. And hence it is that, notwithstanding its many blemishes, we all read and witness this tragedy with delight. It is a symbolic mirror of the fearful realities of life, where "the course of true love" has so often "not run smooth," and moments of as fond illusion as beguiled the lovers of Verona have been exchanged, perhaps as rapidly, not indeed for the dagger and the bowl, but for the manyheaded sorrows and sufferings of humanity."

After remarking upon the character of Romeo, as one of excessive tenderness, and observing that his first passion for Rosaline, which no vulgar poet would have brought forward, displays a constitutional susceptibility, Hallam notices the character of Mercutio, as already mentioned, (see note on act iii. scene 1,) and thus proceeds :

"Juliet is a child, whose intoxication in loving and being loved whirls away the little reason she may have possessed. It is however impossible, in my opinion, to place her among the great female characters of Shakespeare's creation.

"Of the language of this tragedy what shall we say? It contains passages that every one remembers, that are among the nobler efforts of Shakespeare's poetry, and many short and beautiful touches of his proverbial sweetness. Yet, on the other hand the faults are in prodigious number. The conceits, the phrases that jar on the mind's ear, if I may use such an expression, and interfere with the very emotion the Poet would excite, occur, at least in the first three acts, without intermission. It seems to have formed part of his conception of this youthful and ardent pair, that they should talk irrationally. The extravagance of their fancy, however, not only forgets reason, but wastes itself in frigid metaphors and incongruous conceptions; the tone of Romeo is that of the most bombastic common-place of gallantry, and the young lady differs only in being one degree more mad. The voice of virgin love has been counterfeited by the authors of many fictions: I know none who have thought the style of Juliet would represent it. Nor is this confined to the happier moments of their intercourse. False thoughts and misplaced phrases deform the whole of the third act. It may be added that, if not dramatic propriety, at least the interest of the character, is affected by some of Juliet's allusions. She seems indeed to have profited by the lessons and language of her venerable guardian; and those who adopt the edifying principle of deducing a moral from all they read, may suppose that Shakespeare intended covertly to warn parents against the contaminating influence of such domestics. These censures apply chiefly to the first three acts; as the shadows deepen over the scene, the language assumes a tone more proportionate to the interest; many speeches are exquisitely beautiful; yet the tendency to quibbles is never wholly eradicated."-HALLAM'S Literature of Europe.

Yet the plays upon words, and sports of fancy in the lighter dialogue, were but a picture of the more ambitious and courtly style of conversation of those who aspired to the praise of refined elegance in the Poet's age, while the extravagance of metaphor and of language may well be excused if not defended for the effect it produces in harmonizing with the general tone of a tale of romantic passion, and conducing to the grand effect as a whole, however open to criticism it may be when examined critically in detail. Such seems to be the impression made upon Coleridge, Hazlitt, Mrs. Jameson, and Schlegel. Other names might be added.

"This highly figurative and antithetical exuberance of language appears natural, however critics may argue against its taste or propriety. The warmth and vivacity of Juliet's fancy, which plays like a light over every part of her character-which animates every line she utters-which kindles every thought into a picture, and clothes her emotions in visible images, would naturally, under strong and unusual excitement, and in the conflict of opposing sentiments, run into some extravagance of diction."-MRS. JAMESON.

"The censure," says Schlegel, "originates in a fanciless way of thinking, to which every thing appears unnatural that does not suit its tame insipidity. Hence an idea has been formed of simple and natural pathos, which consists of exclamations destitute of imagery, and nowise elevated above every-day life; but energetic passions electrify the whole mental powers, and

will, consequently, in highly-favoured natures, express themselves in an ingenuous and figurative manner."

Mr. Hallam has justly remarked upon the increased interest given to the action by the Poet's adherence to the unity of time, but he has not observed that the peculiarities which he notices as faults, (and, separately considered, they may be so,) arise from and powerfully conduce to the poetic unity of feeling to which this drama owes so much of its effect. On this point, Coleridge thus incidentally remarks:

"That law of unity, which has its foundations, not in the factitious necessity of custom, but in nature itself, the unity of feeling, is everywhere and at all times observed by Shakespeare in his plays. Read ROMEO AND JULIET;-all is youth and spring;--youth with its follies, its virtues, its precipitancies;-spring, with its odours, its flowers, and its transiency; it is one and the same feeling that commences, goes through, and ends the play. The old men, the Capulets and the Montagues, are not common old men; they have an eagerness, a heartiness, a vehemence, the effect of spring with Romeo, his change of passion, his sudden marriage, and his rash death, are all the effects of youth;-while, in Juliet, love has all that is tender and melancholy in the nightingale, all that is voluptuous in the rose, with whatever is sweet in the freshness of spring; but it ends with a long deep sigh, like the last breeze of the Italian evening. This unity of feeling and character pervades every drama of Shakespeare."