'Till we can clear these ambiguities, And know their spring, their head, their true descent; And lead you even to death. Mean time forbear, Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least, 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; The form of death. Mean time I writ to Romeo, • 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, 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 Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. Have loft a brace of kinfinen.-All are punish'd! ¦ Mon. But I can give thee more, For I will raife her ftatue in pure gold; Cap. As rich fhall Romeo by his lady lie; 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. 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 66 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." |