And in strong proof of chastity well arm'd,

From love's weak childish bow she lives uncharm'd."

The last word is evidently corrupted. Rowe changed it to unharmed, which is the received text, and which gives the sense of the passage; but Mr. Collier's folio provides for us another word, "encharmed," which is much nearer the original text, and much better in every way. It will hereafter take a place in the text without a question.

SCENE 5.

I have never seen a Juliet upon the stage who appeared to appreciate the archness of the dialogue with Romeo in this Scene. They go through it solemnly, or, at best, with staid propriety. They reply literally to all Romeo's speeches about saints and palmers. But it should be noticed that though this is the first interview of the lovers, we do not hear them speak until the close of their dialogue, in which they have arrived at a pretty thorough understanding of their mutual feeling. Juliet makes a feint

of parrying Romeo's advances; but does it knows that he is to have the kiss he sues for.

archly, and He asks,

"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?"

The stage Juliet answers with literal solemnity.

But it was not a conventicle at old Capulet's. Juliet was not holding forth. How demure is her real answer:

"Ay pilgrim, lips that they must use—in prayer.”

And when Romeo fairly gets her into the corner, towards which she has been contriving to be driven, and he says,

"Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg'd,"

and does put them to that purgation, how slyly the pretty puss gives him the opportunity to repeat the penance, by replying,

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took."

ACT II. SCENE 1.

"Merc. Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim."

Upton gave us the Adam, which takes the place of "Abraham" in all the current editions, except Mr. Knight's. But, as Mr. Dyce says, there is not the slightest authority for the change. The last named gentleman conjectures that "Abraham" in this line is a corruption of Auburn, as it unquestionably is in the following passages, which he quotes :

"When is the eldest sonne of Bryam,

That abraham coloured Troian? dead"

Soliman & Perseda, 1599, Sig. H3.

"A goodlie, long thicke, Abram coloured beard."

Middleton's Blurt, Master Constable, 1602, Sig. D.

and in Coriolanus, Act II. Scene 3,

"not that our heads are some browne, some blacke, som Abram,"

as we read in the first three folios.

The suggestion is more than plausible; and we at least owe to Mr. Dyce the efficient protection which it must give to the original text. Cupid is always represented by the old painters as auburn-haired.

SCENE 2.

"Rom. When he bestrides the lazie puffing Cloudes

And sailes vpon the bosome of the ayre."

This is the text as it stands in the original. "Lazie puffing" is evidently a misprint. It was changed to "lazy pacing" by Pope, which has been the received reading since his time. But, however much we may have become attached to it, it must be abandoned for "lazy passing," which is supplied by the margins of Mr. Collier's folio; and which (passing having been written with two long s's), is evidently the word which the compositor mistook.

ACT III. SCENE 2.

“Jul. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen."

Of the incomprehensible "runaways" in the second line, many explanations and many emendations have been offered. Warburton thought that the runaway was the sun: Steevens thought that Juliet meant to call the night a runaway: Douce insists that she applies that term to herself, as a runaway from her duty to her parents. But no explanation will obviate the difficulty. The word in the original is "runawayes," and involves, unquestionably, an error of the press, and a gross one. The conjectural emendations have been both diverse and numerous. Monck Mason proposed Renomy's, that is Renome's; Zachary Jackson, unawares, which was adopted by Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight, in spite of the feeble sense it gives. All the conjectures have been unsatisfactory, rather on account of the sense which they give, than the improbability of the mistake which they involve. The most plausible suggestion yet made, seems to me to be, "rude day's," by Mr. Dyce, in his Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. C. Knight's Editions of Shakespeare. It is only plausible however, and evidently has not the conjecturer's own approbation.

The error will probably remain for ever uncorrected, unless a word which I venture to suggest seems to others as unexceptionable as it does to me. Juliet desires that somebody's eyes may wink, so that Romeo may leap to her untalked of," as well as unseen." She wishes to

arms

* In his last publication, A few Notes on Shakespeare, he offers “roving eyes." But it is surely much better to read

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing hight,
That rude day's eyes may wink,

than,

That roving eyes may wink.

Neither of these, however, is more satisfactory to me than it appears to be to Mr. Dyce himself.

avoid the scandal, the bruit, which would ensue upon the discovery of her new-made husband's secret visit.

I think, therefore, and also because the misprint is by no means improbable (as I know from experience) that Shakespeare wrote "rumoures eyes," and that we should read,

"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,

That Rumour's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

This occurred to me in consequence of an endeavor to conjecture what would satisfy the exigencies of the last as well as of the second line of these three; and perhaps I yield quite as much to the immediate impression which the word made upon me, and which all other conjectures, whether of others or myself, had failed in the least to do, as to the reasons which have confirmed my first opinion.

The absence of a long letter in rumoures, to correspond with the y in "runawayes," does not trouble me. I have repeatedly found in my proofs words containing long letters when the word which I wrote contained none, and vice versa; and yet my manuscript is welcomed by the compositor on account of its legibility. It should be noticed, too, that neither Jackson's unawares (accepted by Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight), nor Mr. Collier's folio corrector's enemies contains a long letter. Those who understand the economy of the composing case will see that a long letter is not necessary in the word to be substituted here, because most of the errors in type setting are on account of previous mistakes in the distribution of the type: the letters having been placed in the wrong boxes. 'Rumor' was spelt rumoure, in Shakespeare's day, and the possessive case, rumoures, of course.

As to Rumor's eyes, they are as necessary to her office