BEN. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. MER. This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle Of fome strange nature, letting it there stand Till the had laid it, and conjur'd it down; That were some spite: my invocation Is fair and honeft, and, in his mistress' name, I conjure only but to raise up him.

BEN. Come, he hath hid himself among those

trees,

To be conforted with the humorous night: 6
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

MER. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

venture, hath our waggish poet caught hold of fomewhat from Barnabe Googe his version of Palingenius. See Cancer, edit. 1561:

6

"What shuld I here commend her thies, or places ther that lie?" AMNER.

-the humorous night :) I suppose Shakspeare means. humid, the moist dewy night. Chapman uses the word in that fense in his tranflation of Homer, B. II. edit. 1598:

"The other gods and knights at arms slept all the

humorous night."

Again, in the 21st Book:

"Whence all floods, all the fea, all founts, wells, all

deeps humorous,

"Fetch their beginnings ;-."

Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, Song 3:

" Such matter as the takes from the gross humorous

which late the humorous night

earth."

Again, Song 13th:

Again, in his Barons' Wars, canto i:

" Bespangled had with pearl-."

"The humorous fogs deprive us of his light."

STEEVENS.

In Measure for Measure we have "the vaporous night approaches;" which shows that Mr. Steevens has rightly interpreted the word in the text. MALONE.

Now will he fit under a medlar tree,
And with his mistress were that kind of fruit,
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.

As maids &c.] After this line, in the old copies, I find two other verses, containing such ribaldry, that I cannot venture to infert them in the text, though I exhibit them here as a proof that the editors of our poet have sometimes known how to blot:

"O Romeo that the were, ah that the were
" An open et cætera, thou a poprin pear!"

This pear is mentioned in The wife Woman of Hogsdon, 1638: "What needed I to have grafted in the stock of such a choke-pear, and such a goodly poprin as this to escape me?" Again, in A new Wonder, a Woman never vexed, 1632:

{

"I requested him to pull me

"A Katherine Pear, and, had I not look'd to him,
"He'd have mistook, and given me a popperin."

In The Atheist's Tragedy, by Cyril Turner, 1611, there is much conceit about this pear. I am unable to explain it with certainty, nor does it appear indeed to deserve explanation.

Thus much may safely be faid; viz. that our pear might have been of French extraction, as Poperin was the name of a parih in the Marches of Calais. So, in Chaucer's Rime of Sire Thopas, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. 1775, ver. 13,650 :

"In Flandres, al beyonde the fee,
"At Popering in the place."

In the edition of Messieurs Boydell I have also omitted these offenfive lines. Dr. Johnson has fomewhere observed, that there are higher laws than those of criticism. STEEVENS.

These two lines, which are found in the quartos of 1597, 1599, and in the folio, were rejected by Mr. Pope, who in like manner has rejected whole scenes of our author; but what is more strange, his example has, in this inftance, been followed by the fucceeding editors.

However improper any lines may be for recitation on the stage, an editor, in my apprehenfion, has no right to omit any passage that is found in all the authentick copies of his author's works. They appear not only in the editions already mentioned, but also in that copy which has no date, and in the edition of 1637.

I have adhered to the original copy. The two subsequent quartos and the folio read, with a flight variationAn open-or thou a poperin pear.

Romeo, good night; -I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to fleep :

Come, shall we go?

BEN.

Go, then; for 'tis in vain To seek him here, that means not to be found.

[Exeunt.

Shakspeare followed the fashion of his own time, which was, when something indecent was meant to be suppressed, to print et cætera, instead of the word. See Minsheu's Dictionary, p. 112, col. 2. Our poet did not confider, that however such a practice might be admitted in a printed book, it is absurd where words are intended to be recited. When these lines were spoken, as undoubtedly they were to our ancestors, who do not appear to have been extremely delicate, the actor must have evaded the difficulty by an abrupt sentence.

The unfeemly name of the apple here alluded to, is well known.

Poperingue is a town in French Flanders, two leagues distant from Ypres. From hence the Poperin pear was brought into England. What were the peculiar qualities of a Poperin pear, I am unable to ascertain. The word was chosen, I believe, merely for the sake of a quibble, which it is not necessary to explain. Probably for the same reason the Popering tree was preferred to any other by the author of the mock poem of Hero and Leander, small 8vo. 1653 :

"She thought it strange to see a man
"In privy walk, and then anan
"She stepp'd behind a Popering tree,
"And listen'd for some novelty."

Of the parish of Poperin, or Poperling, (as we called it) John Leland the Antiquary was parson, in the time of King Henry the Eighth. By him the Poperin pear may have been introduced into England. MALONE.

SCENE II.

Capulet's Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. He jests at sears, that never felt a wound.-
[JULIET appears above, at a Window.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks!
It is the east, and Juliet is the fun!-
Arife, fair fun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already fick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, fince she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but fick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.-

1

She speaks, yet she says nothing; What of that?

• He jests at Scars,] That is, Mercutio jests, whom he overheard. JOHNSON.

So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book

"None can speake of a wound with skill, if he have not a wound felt." STEEVENS.

He (that perfon) jests, is merely an allufion to his having conceived himself so armed with the love of Rosalind, that no other beauty could make any impreffion on him. This is clear from the conversation he has with Mercutio, just before they go to Capulet's. RITSON.

9 Be not her maid,] Be not a votary to the moon, to Diana.

JOHNSON.

* It is my lady ;) This line and half I have replaced.

Her eye discourses, I will answer it.-
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having fome business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would fing, and think it were not night.
See, how the leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!3

JUL.

Rom.

2

Ah me!

She speaks :

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art

As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,

2 O, that I were a glove upon that hand,] This passage appears to have been ridiculed by Shirley in The School of Compliments, a comedy, 1637:

"O that I were a flea upon that lip," &c. STEEVENS. touch that cheek!] The quarto, 1597, reads: that cheek." STEEVENS.

3

* O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art

" kiss

As glorious to this night,] Though all the printed copies concur in this reading, yet the latter part of the fimile seems to require

As glorious to this fight;-.

and therefore I have ventured to alter the text so. THEOBALD.

I have restored the old reading, for furely the change was unnecessary. The plain sense is, that Juliet appeared as splendid an object in the vault of heaven obfcured by darkness, as an angel could feem to the eyes of mortals, who were falling back to gaze upon him.

As glorious to this night, means as glorious appearance in this dark night, &c. It should be observed, however, that the fimile agrees precisely with Theobald's alteration, and not so well with the old reading. STEEVENS.