Lady C. He is a kinsman to the Montague ; Affection makes him false, he speaks not true : Some twenty of them fought in this black strife, And all those twenty could but kill one life. I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give : Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

Prin. Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio : Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe? Mon. Not Romeo, prince; he was Mercutio's

friend; His fault concludes but what the law should end, The life of Tybalt. Prin.

And, for that offence, Immediately we do exile him hence: I have an interest in your hate's proceeding; My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a bleeding : But I'll amerce you with so strong a fine, That you shall all repent the loss of mine. I will be deaf to pleading and excuses ; Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses, Therefore use none : let Romeo hence in haste; Else, when he's found, that hour is his last. Bear hence this body, and attend our will : Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.12

[Exeunt.

SCENE II. A Room in CAPULET's House.

Enter JULIET.
Jul. Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' mansion ;' such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately. -
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night!
That Rumour's eyes may wink, and Romeo

are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden ; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime. - Johnson.

1 So the oldest copy; the later copies having lodging instead of mansion. Only the first four lines of this speech are in the quarto of 1597.

. H. 2 Few passages in Shakespeare, perhaps none, have caused more editorial comment than this. The old copies have runawayes instead of Rumour's, or Rumoures, as the word would then have been printed. Several corrections have been proposed, but Rumour's seems the most satisfactory. Heath was the first to suggest it. Singer, also, without any knowledge, as he assures us, of Heath's thought, recently hit upon rumourers'. The two are so nearly alike, that they may well enough pass for a coincidence of thought. Finally, Mr. White, of New York, tells us be had pitched upon Rumour's, before he was aware that any one else had thought of the word. He discusses the point at much length, in his Shakespeare's Scholar, and, we think, justifies the change as fully, perhaps, as the nature of the case can well admit. The Poet has personified Rumour in the Induction to 2 Henry IV.; and in his time she was supposed, like Virgil's Fama, to have eyes as well as tongues. In support of the change, Mr. White aptly quotes the following, from an Entertainment given to King James, March 15th, 1603, by Dekker: “ Directly under her, in a cart by herselfe, Fame stood upright; a woman in a watchet roabe, thickly set with open eyes and tongues, a payre of large golden winges at her backe, a trumpet in her hand, a mantle of sundry cullours traversing her body: all these ensigns displaying but the propertie of her swiftnesse and aptnesse to disperse Rumoure.” Collier's second folio has “enemies' eyes ;" the objection to which is, that from the nature of the case all eyes, as well of friends as of enemies, are required to be closed, so that Romeo's visit may be absolutely unknown, save to those already privy to it. Of

Leap to these arms, untalk'd-of and unseen!-
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. — Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods :
Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle ; till strange love, grown bold,
Think true love acted, simple modesty.
Come, night ; come, Romeo ; come, thou day in

night ;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.” —
Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd

night, Give me my Romeo: and, when he shall die,

course the theory of the reading in the text is, that Rumour, personified, represents the power of human observation; and that Juliet longs to have night come, when the eyes of Rumour shall be shut in sleep, so as to take in nothing for her tongues to work with ; because, as things now stand, the lovers can meet and know each other as man and wife, only when the eye of observation is closed or withdrawn. It may be well to add, as lending some support to Rumour's, that Brooke's poem has a similar personification of Report. It is where Juliet is questioning with herself as to whether Romeo's “bent of love be honourable, his purpose marriage : " “So, I defylde, Report shall take her trompe of blacke defame,

Whence she with puffed cheeke shall blowe a blast so shrill Of my disprayse, that with the noyse Verona shall she fill.”

3 Civil is grave, solemn.

4 These are terms of falconry. An unmanned hawk is one that is not brought to endure company. Bating is Auttering or beating the wings as striving to fly away

5 The old copies till the second folio have upon instead of on. Upon overfills the measure; and the undated quarto remedies this by omitting new. 6 So the undated quarto; the other old copies, “ when I shall

H.

H.

Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.'—
0! I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess'd it ; and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy'd. So tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them. O! here comes my nurse,

Enter the Nurse, with Cords. And she brings news; and every tongue, that speaks But Romeo's name, speaks heavenly eloquence.Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? the

cords, That Romeo bade thee fetch ?

Nurse. [Throwing them down.] Ay, ay, the cords. Jul. Ah me! what news? why dost thou wring

thy hands? Nurse. Ah well-a-day! he's dead, he's dead, he's

dead! We are undone, lady, we are undone !Alack the day !- he's gone, he's kill'd, he's dead !

Jul. Can Heaven be so envious ?
Nurse.

Romeo can,
Though Heaven cannot.- O Romeo, Romeo !-
Who ever would have thought it ?— Romeo !
Jul. What devil art thou, that dost torment me

thus ? This torture should be roar'd in dismal hell. Hath Romeo slain himself ? say thou but 1,8

. Garish is gaudy, glittering.

8 In Shakespeare's time the affirmative particle ay was usually written I, and here it is necessary to retain the old spelling.

And that bare vowel I shall poison more :
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice ::
I am not I, if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer, I.
If he be slain, say, I; or, if not, no:
Brief sounds determine of my weal, or woe.
Nurse. I saw the wound, I saw it with mine

eyes, -
God save the mark ! - here on his manly breast :
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse ;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
All in gore blood ;-I swoonded at the sight.
Jul. O break, my heart !- poor bankrupt, break

at once!
To prison, eyes ! ne'er look on liberty!
Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here ;
And thou, and Romeo, press one heavy bier !

Nurse. O, Tybalt, Tybalt! the best friend I had : 0, courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman ! That ever I should live to see thee dead !

Jul. What storm is this that blows so contrary? Is Romeo slaughter'd ? and is Tybalt dead ? My dear-lov’d cousin,"o and my dearer lord ?Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom ! For who is living, if those two are gone ?

Nurse. Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished :
Romeo, that kill'd him, he is banished.
Jul. O God! - did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's

blood ?
Nurse. It did, it did ; alas the day! it did.

• The cockatrice is the same as the basilisk. We have already met with the “beast" under the latter name. See 2 Henry VI., Act iii. sc. 2, note 2; and King Richard III., Activ. sc. 1, note 5.

H. 10 So the first quarto; the later copies have dearest instead of dear-lov'd.