8 This is part of a song by Richard Edwards, to be found in the Paradice of Dainty Devices, fol. 21, b. Another copy of this song is to be found in Percy's Re liques of Ancient English Poetry. 9 This worthy takes his name from a small lutestring His companion the fiddler from an 3 From the quarto of 1599 it appears that the part of made of catget. Peter was originally performed by William Kempe. instrument of the same name mentioned by many of 4 This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Plea-our old writers, and recorded by Milton as an instrumen sant New Ballad of Two Lovers :

6 A pun is here intended. A gleekman, or gligman,tain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many Is a minstrel, To give the gleek meant also to pass a jest upon a person, to make him appear ridiculous; a gleek being a jest or scoff.

And breath'd such life with kisses in my lips,'
That I reviv'd, and was an emperor.
Ah, me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
Enter BALTHASAR.

News from Verona !-How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

Bal. Then she is well, and nothing can be ill;
Her body sleeps in Capels' monument, 2
And her immortal part with angels lives;
I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you;
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!-
Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.
Bal. Pardon me, sir, I will not leave
you
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Rom.

thus:

Tush, thou art deceiv'd;
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do:
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

Bal. No, my good lord.
Rom.
No matter get thee gone,
And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.
[Exit BALTHASAR.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's see for means:-0, mischief! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts he dwells,-whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones :3'
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins4
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bla iders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses,
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said--
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need;
And this same needy man must sell it me.

1 Shakspeare seeins to have remembered Marlowe's Hero and Leander, a poem that he has quoted in As You Like It :

By this sad Hero

Viewing Leander's face, fell down and fainted;

He kiss'd her, and breath'd life into her lips,' &c. 2 Shakspeare found Capel and Capulet used indiscriminately in the poem which was the groundwork of this tragedy.

3 See Sackville's description of misery in the Induction to the Mirror of Magistrates:

'His face was leane and some deal pinde away,
And eke his hands consumed to the bones.'

As I remember, this should be the house;
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut,-
What, ho! apothecary!

4 We learn from Nashe's Have with You to Saffron Walden, 1596, that a stuffed alligator then made part of the furniture of an apothecary's shop:- He made an anatomie of a rat, and after hanged her over his head, instead of an apothecary's crocodile or dried alligator.' Steevens was informed that formerly when an apothecary first engaged with his druggist, he was gratuitously furnished by him with these articles of show, which were then imported for that use only; and had met with the alligator, tortoise, &c. hanging up in the shop of an ancient apothecary at Limehouse, as well as in places more remote from the metropolis. See Hogarth's Mar. riage a la Mode, plate iii. It seems that the apothecaries dismissed their alligators, &c. sometime before the physicians parted with their amber-headed canes and solemn periwigs.

5 The quarto of 1597 reads:

· Upon thy back hangs ragged miserie,
And starved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks.'

The quartos of 1599 and 1609 :—

Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes.'

poor;

Hold, there is forty ducats; let me have
A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law
Is death, to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression stareth in thy eyes,
Upon thy back hangs ragged inisery,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.

Rom. There is thy gold, worse poison to men's
souls,

Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'st not sell:
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell; buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial, and not poison; go with me
To Juliet's grave, for there I must use thee.

[Exeunt. SCENE II. Friar Laurence's Cell. Enter FRIAR JOHN.

John. Holy Franciscan friar! brother, ho!
Enter FRIAR LAURENCE.

Lau. This same should be the voice of Friar
John.--

Welcome from Mantua; What savs Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

John. Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order to associate me,"
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,

6 Steevens thinks that Shakspeare may have remem bered the following passage in the Pardonere's Tale of Chaucer, v. 12794:

The Potecary answered, thou shalt have
A thing, as wisly God my soule save,
In all this world thir n'is no creature,
That ete or dronke hath of this confecture,
Not but the mountance of a corne of whete,
That he ne shall his lif anon forlete;
Ye, sterve he shall, and that in lesse while
Than thou wolt gon a pas not but a mile:
This poison is so strong and violent.'

7 Each friar had always a companion assigned him by the superior, when he asked leave to go out. In the Visitatio Notabilis de Seleborne, a curious record print ed in White's Natural History of Selborne, Wykehan enjoins the canons not to go abroad without leave fo the prior, who is ordered on such occasions to assign the brother a companion, 'ne suspicio sinistra vel scanda lum oriatur.' There is a similar regulation in the sta tutes of Trinity College, Cambridge. So in The Tra gicall History of Romeus and Juliet, 1552:

Apace our friar John to Mantua him hies,
And, for because in Italy it is a wonted guise
That friars in the town should seldom walk alone,
But of their convent aye should be accompanied with
Of his profession, straight a house he findeth out,
In mind to take some friar with him to walk the wat
about.'

Shakspeare, having occasion for Friar John, has
parted from the poem, and supposed the pestilence
rage at Verona instead of Mantua

Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay'd.
Lau. Who bare my letter, then, to Romeo?
John. I could not send it,-here it is again,--
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice,' but full of charge,
Of dear import; and the neglecting it
May do much danger: Friar John, go hence;
Get me an iron crow, and bring it straight
Un'o my cell.

[Exit.

John. Brother, I'll go and bring it thee.
Lru. Now must I to the monument alone;
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake;2
She will beshrew me much, that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents:
But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come:
Poor living corse, clos'd in a dead man's tomb!

[Exit. SCENE III. A Church Yard: in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets. Enter PARIS, and his Page, bearing Flowers and a Torch.

Par. Give me my torch, boy: Hence, and stand
aloof;-

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yon yew-trees lay thee all along,
Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
(Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,)
But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear'st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.
Page. I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

[Retires. Par. Sweet flower, with flowers I strew thy

bridal bed:

Sweet tomb, that in thy circuit dost contain
The perfect model of eternity;

Fair Juliet, that with angels dost remain,'
Accept this latest favour at my hands;
That living honour'd thee, and, being dead,
With funeral praises do adorn the tomb!

[The Boy whistles.
The boy gives warning, something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way to-night,
To cross my obsequies, and true-love's rites?
What, with a torch !--muffle me, night, a while.

[Retires. Enter ROMEO and BALTHASAR, with a Torch, Mattock, &c.

Rom. Give me that mattock, and the wrenching

iron.

Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light: Upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate'er thou hear'st or seest, stand all aloof,
And do not interrupt me in my course.

1 i. e. was not wantonly written on a trivial or idle matter, but on a subject of importance.

2 Instead of this line, and the concluding part of the speech, the first quarto reads only :

Lest that the lady should before I come
Be wak'd from sleepe, I will hye
To free her from that tomb of miserie.'

8 The folio has these lines:-
Sweet flow'r, with flow'rs thy bridal bed I strew;
O wo! thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water I will nightly dew:

Why I descend into this bed of death,
Is, partly, to behold my lady's face:

But, chiefly, to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring; a ring that I must use

In dear employment: therefore hence, be gone :-
But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry

In what I further shall intend to do,

By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs :
The time and my inten's are savage-wild;
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tigers, or the roaring sea.

Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
Rom. S shalt thou show me friendship.-Take

thou that:

Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow.
Bal. For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout;
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.
Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

[Breaking open the Door of the Monument.
And, in despite, I'll cram thee with more food!
Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague,
That murder'd my love's cousin ;-with which grief,
It is supposed the fair creature died,-

And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies: I will apprehend him :-
[Advances.

Stop thy unhallow'd toil, vile Montague;
Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee:
Obey, and go with me; for thou must die.

Rom. I must, indeed; and therefore came I
hither.-

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man;
Fly hence and leave me ;-think upon these gone;
Let them, affright thee.-I beseech thee, youth,
Heap not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to furv :-O, be gone!

By heaven, I love thee better than inyself:
For I come hither arm'd against myself:
Stay not, begone;-live, and hereafter say-
A madman's mercy bade thee run away.
Par. I do defy thy conjurations,

And do attach thee as a felon here.

Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? then have at thee,

bov.

[They fight.

Page. O, lord! they fight: I will go call the watch.

[Exit Page.

Par. O, I am slain! [Falls.]--If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

[Dies.

Rom. In faith I will:--Let me peruse this face;
Mercutio's kinsman, noble county Paris:
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode ? I think,
He told me, Paris should have married Juliet:
Said he not so? or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so ?-O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave-

A grave? O, no; a lantern, slaughter'd youth,

5 That is, in action of importance. The sense of the word dear has been explained. So Ben Jonson, in his Catiline, Act i. :

'Put your known talents on so dear a business.' 6 I refuse to do as thon conjurest me to do, i. e. depart. So Constance, in King John, says :"No, I defy all counsel, all redress.'

7 A lantern may not, in this instance, signify an enclosure for a lighted candle, but a louvre, or what in an cient records is styled lanternium, i. e. a spacious round or octagonal turtet, full of windows, by means of which cathedrals and sometimes halls are illuminated. See

Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans;
The obsequies that I for thee will keep
Nightly shall be, to strew thy grave and weep.'
In the text the seven lines are printed as they appear in the beautiful lantern at Ely Minster.
the quarto of 1597.

4 Thus in Drayton's Polyolbion :

But suddenly the clouds which on the winds do fly

Do muffle him again.'

The word was not deemed unpoetical by Milton; the
Elder Brother in Comus uses it :-

Unmufle, ye faint stars,' &c.

A muffler was a part of female dress,

A presence is a public room, which is at times the presence-chamber of a sovereign. This thought, extravagant as it is, is borrowed by Middleton in his Blurt Master Constable :

"The darkest dungeon which spite can devise
To throw this carcase in, her glorious eyes
Can make as lightsome as the fairest chamber
In Paris Louvre."

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd.

[Laying PARIS in the Monument.
How oft when men are at the point of eath
Have they been merry? which their keepers call
A lightning before death; O, how may I'
Call this a lightning ?--O, my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:2
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy checks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.--
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!--Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous ;3
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night4
Depart again; here, here will I remain

me:

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Fri.
Romeo? [Advances.
Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre ?—
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour'd by this place of peace?

[Enters the Monument.
Romeo! O, pale !-Who else? what, Paris too?
And steep'd in blood! Ah, what an unkind hour
The lady stirs."

With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here Is guilty of this lamentable chance !-
Will I set up my everlasting rest;"
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh.-Eyes, look your

last!

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O, you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!-
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide!
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark!
Here's to my love! [Drinks.]-O, true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

[Dies. Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, FRIAR LAURENCE, with a Lan'ern, Crow, and Spade. Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves?'---Who's there?

Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows
you well.

Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond' that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? as I discern,
It burneth in the Capels' monument.

1 The first quarto reads, But how,' &c. This idea very frequently occurs in our old dramas. So in the Second Part of The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601 :--

'I thought it was a lightning before death,

Too sudden to be certain.'

2 So in Sidney's Arcadia, b. iii. :- Death being able to divide the soule, but not the beauty from her body. And in Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond, 1594 :

'Decayed roses of discoloured cheeks Do yet retain some notes of former grace, And ugly death sits fair within her face. 3 Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. 1632, p. 463, speaking of the power of beauty, tells us :-But of all the tales in this kinde, that is most memorable of Death himselfe, when he should have stroken a sweet young virgin with his dart, he fell in love with the object.'

4 In The Second Maiden's Tragedy, recently printed from a MS. in the Lansdown collection, monuments are styled the palaces of death.'

[JULIET wakes and stirs.
Jul. O, comfortable friar! where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am :-Where is my Romeo?

[Noise within. Fri. I hear some noise.-Lady, come from that

nest

Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep;
A greater Power, than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents; come, come away:
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too; come, I'll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns :
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming;
Come, go, good Juliet !--[Noise again.] I dare
stay no longer.
[Exit.
Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away,-
What's here? a cup, clos'd in my true love's

hand ?

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end :-
O, churl! drink all; and leave no friendly drop,
To help me after ?-I will kiss thy lips;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative. [Kisses him.
Thy lips are warm!!

is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him, when he is recovered from it, like a dream. Homer (book viii.) represents Rhesus dying, fast asleep, and, as it were, beholding his enemy in a dream, plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier bith applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision.

9 In the alteration of this play, now exhibited on the stage, Garrick appears to have been indebted to Otway, who perhaps, without any knowledge of the story as told by Da Porto and Bandello, does not permit his hero to die before his wife awakes.

10 Shakspeare has been arraigned for making Romeo die before Juliet awakes from her trance, and thes losing a happy opportunity of introducing an affecting scene between these unfortunate lovers. He had ur doubtedly never read the Italian novel, or any literal translation of it; and has in this particular followed the old poem, or an older drama on the subject. Be this as it may-Augustus Schlegel remarks, that the poet seems to have hit upon what was best. There is a measure of agitation, beyond which all that is superadded becomes torture, or glides off ineffectually from the already saturated mind. In case of the cruel reunion of the lovers for an instant, Romeo's remorse for his overhasty self-murder, Juliet's despair over her deceitful hope, at first cherished, then annihilated, that she was at the goal of her wishes, must have deviated into caricatures Nobody surely doubts that Shakspeare was able to represent these with suitable force; but her every thing soothing was welcome, in order that we may not be frightened out of the melancholy, to which we willingly resign ourselves, by too painful discords. Why

Enter MONTAGUE and others.
Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

1 Watch. [Within.] Lead, boy :-Which way? | La. Cap. O, me! this sight of death is as a bell, Jul. Yea, noise ?-then I'll be brief.---O, happy That warns my old age to a sepulchre. dagger! [Snatching ROMEO's Dagger. This is thy sheath [Stabs herself:] there rust, and let me die. [Falls on ROMEO's Body, and dies. Enter Watch, with the Page of PARIS. Page. This is the place; there, where the torch

doth burn.

1 Watch. The ground is bloody; Search about the churchyard:

Go, some of you, whoe'er you find, attach.

[Exeunt some.

Pitiful sight! here lies the county slain;
And Juliet bleeding; warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain these two days buried.-
Go, tell the prince,-run to the Capulets,-
Raise up the Montagues,-some others search;-
[Exeunt other Watchmen.
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes,
We cannot without circumstance descry.

Enter some of the Watch, with BALTHASAR.
2 Watch. Here's Romeo's man, we found him in
the churchyard.

1 Watch. Hold him in safety, till the prince come

hither.

Enter another Watchman, with FRIAR LAURENCE.
3 Watch.' Here is a friar, that trembles, sighs,
and weeps:

We took this mattock and this spade from him,
As he was coming from this churchyard side.
1 Watch. A great suspicion; Stay the friar too.
Enter the Prince and Attendants.
Prince. What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning's rest?
Enter CAPULET, LADY CAPULET, and others.
Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek

abroad?

La. Cap. The people in the street cry-Romeo,
Some-Juliet, and some--Paris; and all run,
With open outcry toward our monument.
Prince. What fear is this, which startles in our

ears?

1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris

slain;

And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill'd.

Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul

murder comes.

1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Ro

meo's man;

With instruments upon them, fit to open
These dead men's tombs.

Cup. O, Heavens !-O, wife! look how

daughter bleeds!

our

This dagger hath mista'en,-for lo! his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,-
And is missheathed in my daughter's bosom.2
should we heap still more upon accident, that is already
so guilty? Wherefore shall not the tortured Romeo
quietly

"Shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From his world-wearied flesh ?"

He holds his beloved in his arms, and, dying, cheers
himself with a vision of everlasting marriage. She also
secks death, in a kiss, upon his lips. These last
moments must belong unparticipated to tenderness, that

we

may hold fast to the thought, that love lives, although the lovers perish.'

1 Thus the quarto of 1599. That of 1597 reads: Ay, noise? then must I be resolute, Oh, happy dagger! thou shalt end my fear, Rest in my bosom; thus I come to thee.' 2 The words, for lo! his house is empty on the back of Montague,' are to be considered parenthetical. It appears that the dagger was anciently worn behind the back. So in Humor's Ordinarie :

See you yon huge bum dagger at his back? And in The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art, 1870

Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;" What further wo conspires against mine age? Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath; Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.

Mon. O, thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave?4

Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, "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 mischance be slave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder;
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus'd.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know
in this.

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Fri. I will be brief, for my short date of breath

And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
I married thein; and their stol'n marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd.
You-to remove that siege of grief from her,-
Betroth'd, and would have married her perforce,
To county Paris :-Then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or, in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
As I intended, for it wrought on her
That he should hither come at this dire night.
To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was staid by accident; and yesternight
Return'd my letter back: Then all alone,
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault ;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
But, when I came (some minute ere the time
Of her awakening,) here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
And bear this work of heaven with patience:
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,

But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But (as it seems) did violence on herself.
All this I know and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy: And, if aught in this

3 A

A

hou must wear thy sword by thy side, thy dagger handsumly at thy backe. this line the quarto of 1597 adds:And young Benvolio is deceased too.' 4 So in the Tragedy of Darius, 1603:-

Ab me! malicious fates have done me wrong: Who came first to the world, should first depart. It not becomes the old t' o'er-live the young; This dealing is preposterous and over-thwart.' 5 It is 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.

Shakspeare was led into this uninteresting narrative by following too closely The Tragicall Hystory of Romeus and Juliet. In this poem, (which is printed in the Variorum Editions of Shakspeare) the bodies of the dead are removed to a public scaffold; and from that elevation is the Friar's narrative delivered. The same circumstance is introduced in Hamlet near the conclusion.