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'Till we can clear these ambiguities,

And know their spring, their head, their true descent;
And then will I be general of your woes,

And lead you even to death. Mean time forbear,
And let mifchance be flave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of fufpicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most fufpected (as the time and place
Doth make against me) of this direful murder;
And here I ftand both to impeach and purge
Myfelf condemned, and myfelf excus'd.

Prince. Then fay at once what thou dost know in this. 6 Fri. I will be brief, for my fhort date of breath Is not fo long as is a tedious tale.

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
And fhe, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
I married them; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whofe untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You,-to remove that fiege of grief from her,-
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce
To County Paris :-Then comes fhe to me,
And, with wild looks, bid me devife fome means
To rid her from this fecond marriage,
Or, in my cell, there would fhe kill herfelf.
Then gave I her, fo tutor'd by my art,
A fleeping potion, which fo took effect
As I intended; for it wrought on her

The form of death. Mean time I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrowed grave,
Being the time the potion's force fhould ceafe.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was ftaid by accident; and yefternight

• Friar.] It is much to be lamented, that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew. JOHNSON.

Return'd

Return'd my letter back: then all alone,
At the prefixed hour of her awaking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
'Till I conveniently could fend to Romeo.
But when I came (fome minute ere the time
Of her awaking) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I intreated her come forth,
And bear this work of heaven with patience :-
But then a noife did fcare me from the tomb;
And fhe, too defperate, would not go with me:
But (as it feems) did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her nurfe is privy: and if aught in this
Mifcarried by my fault, let my old life
Be facrific'd, fome hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of feverest law.

Prince. We ftill have known thee for an holy man.Where's Romeo's man? what can he fay to this? Balth. I brought my mafter news of Juliet's death; And then in poft he came from Mantua, To this fame place, to this fame monument. This letter he early bid me give his father; And threatned me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it. Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch?Sirrah, what made your mafter in this place? Page. He came with flowers to ftrew his lady's

grave,

And bid me ftand aloof, and fo I did:

Anon, comes one with light to ope the tomb,

And, by and by, my mafter drew on him;

And then I ran away to call the watch.

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's

words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death:

And

And here he writes, that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal

Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague!-
See, what a fcourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your difcords too,

Have loft a brace of kinfinen.-All are punish'd! ¦
Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand,
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Mon. But I can give thee more,

For I will raife her ftatue in pure gold;
That, while Verona by that name is known,
There fhall no figure at fuch price be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich fhall Romeo by his lady lie;
Poor facrifices of our enmity!

Prince. A glooming peace 7 this morning with it brings;

The fun for forrow will not fhew his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these fad things; 8 Some fhall be pardon'd, and fome punifhed:

For never was a story of more woe,

Than this of Juliet, and her Romeo 9. [Exeunt omnes.

7 A glooming peace, &c.] The modern editions read-gloomy; but glooming, which is the old reading, may be the true one. So in the Spanish Tragedy, 1605.

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Through dreadful fhades of ever-glooming night."

STEEVENS.

Some shall be pardon'd, and fome punished:] This feems to be not a refolution in the prince, but a reflection on the various difpenfations of Providence; for who was there that could justly be punished by any human law? EDWARDS'S MSS.

Shakespeare has not effected the alteration of this play by introducing any new incidents, but merely by adding to the length of the fcenes and fpeeches.

The piece appears to have been always a very popular one. Marton, in his fatires, 1598, fays,

"Lufcus, what's play'd to-day

faith, now I know

"I fet thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow

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Nought but pure JULIET and ROMEO." STEEVENS.

THIS play is one of the most pleafing of our author's performances. The fcenes are bufy and various, the incidents numerous and important, the cataftrophe irrefiftibly affecting, and the procefs of the action carried on with fuch probability, at leaft with fuch congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.

Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the converfation of gentlemen, to reprefent the airy fprightlinefs of juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition, which might eafily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third at, left he should have been killed by him. Yet he thinks him no fuch formidable perfon, but that he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without danger to a poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in queft of truth, that, in a pointed fentence, more regard is commonly had to the words than the thought, and that it is very feldom to be rigorously understood. Mercutio's wit, gaiety, and courage, will always procure him friends that with him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in the conftruction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his existence, though fome of his fallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whofe genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehenfive, and fublime.

The Nurfe is one of the characters in which the author delighted: he has, with great fubtilty of diftinction, drawn her at once loquacious and fecret, obfequious and infolent, trufty

and dishoneft.

His comic scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetic ftrains are always polluted with fome unexpected depravations. His perfons, however distressed, have a conceit left them in their mifery, a miferable conceit. JOHNSON."

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