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I tell you, he, that can lay hold of her,
Shall have the chinks 1.

ROM.
Is she a Capulet * ?
O dear account! my life is my foe's debt.

(1) BEN. Away, begone; the sport is at the best. ROм. Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest. (II) 1 CAP. Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone ; We have a trifling foolish banquet towards 2.Is it e'en so? Why, then I thank you all;

I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night :More torches here!-Come on, then let's to bed. Ah, sirrah, [To 2 CAP.] by my fay, it waxes late; I'll to my rest. [Exeunt all but JULIET and NURSE. JUL. Come hither, nurse: What is yon gentleman 1?

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* Quarto A, Montague.

+ Quarto A, thrall.

the CHINKS.] Thus the old copies; for which Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors have substituted chink. MALONE. 2 We have a trifling foolish banquet TOWARDS.] Towards is ready, at hand.

So, in Hamlet:

"What might be towards, that this sweaty haste

here's a

"Doth make the night joint labourer with the day ?” Again, in The Phoenix, by Middleton, 1607: “ voyage towards, will make us all." STEEVENs.

It appears, from the former part of this scene, that Capulet's company had supped. A banquet, it should be remembered, often meant, in old times, nothing more than a collation of fruit, wine, &c. So, in The Life of Lord Cromwell, 1602:

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"Their dinner is our banquet after dinner."

Again, in Howel's Chronicle of the Civil Wars, 1661, p. 662 ; After dinner, he was served with a banquet." MALONE.

It appears, from many circumstances, that our ancestors quitted their eating-rooms as soon as they had dined, and in warm weather retired to buildings constructed in their gardens. These were called banqueting-houses, and here their desert was served.

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STEEVENS.

honest gentlemen ;] Here the quarto 1597, adds:
I promise you, but for your company,

"I would have been in bed an hour

ago:

Light to my chamber, ho!" STEEVENS.

4 Come hither, nurse: What is yon gentleman ?] This and the following questions are taken from the novel.

STEEVENS.

NURSE. The son and heir of old Tiberio.

JUL. What's he, that now is going out of door? NURSE. Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio *.

JUL. What's he, that follows there, that would not dance?

NURSE. I know not.

JUL. Go, ask his name :—if he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

NURSE. His name is Romeo, and a Montague ; The only son of your great enemy.

JUL. My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy. NURSE. What's this? what's this? JUL.

A rhyme I learn'd even now Of one I danc'd withal. [One calls within, JULIET.

NURSE.

Anon, anon:

Come, let's away; the strangers all are gone.

Enter CHORUS3.

[Exeunt.

Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair", for which love groan'd for', and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.

* Quarto A, That, as I think, is young Petruchio.

See the poem of Romeus and Juliet :

“What twayne are those, quoth she, which prease unto the door.

Yet over again, the young and ugly dame? "And tell me who is he with vysor in his hand,

"That yonder dooth in masking weede besyde the window stand. "His name is Romeus, said she, a Montagewe." MALONE. s-Chorus.] This Chorus added since the first edition. POPE. The use of this Chorus is not easily discovered; it conduces nothing to the progress of the play, but relates what is already known, or what the next scene will show; and relates it without adding the improvement of any moral sentiment. JOHNSON.

6 That FAIR,] Fair, it has been already observed, was formerly

Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos'd he must complain,

And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:

used as a substantive, and was synonymous to beauty.

5, p. 136, n. 3. MALONE.

7

Sec vol.

for which love groan'd FOR,] Thus the ancient copies, for which all the modern editors, adopting Mr. Rowe's alteration, read-groan'd sore. This is one of the many changes that have been made in the text from not attending to ancient phraseology; for this kind of duplication was common in Shakspeare's time. So, in Coriolanus, Act II. Sc. I.: "In what enormity is Marcius poor in, that you two have not in abundance?" As You Like It, MALONE. Act II. Sc. VII. : - the scene wherein we play in."

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The instances produced by Mr. Malone, to justify the old and corrupt reading, are not drawn from the quartos, which he judiciously commends, but from the folio, which with equal judgment he has censured. These irregularities, therefore, standing on no surer ground than that of copies published by ignorant players, and printed by careless compositors, I utterly refuse to admit their accumulated jargon as the grammar of Shakspeare, or of the age he lived in.

Fair, in the present instance was used as a dissyllable,

Sometimes, our author, as here, uses the same word as a dissyllable and a monosyllable, in the very same line. Thus, in The Tempest, Act I. Sc. II. :

"Twelve years since, Miranda, twelve years since."

STEEVENS.

The whole of Mr. Steevens's note must have been intended to mislead the reader. The passages which I have cited are certainly drawn from the folio, and not from the quartos, for this very satisfactory reason, that there are no quarto copies of those plays. The word for, which Mr. Steevens would here omit, is not found in the quarto 1597, because the chorus is there left out altogether, but it stands on the ground of the quarto 1599, and the first folio. I will show by a few other instances, out of many that I could produce, that the phraseology of the_text was that of Shakspeare's time. Thus in Lilly's Prologue at Court, to Campaspe: "So are we enforced upon a rough discourse to drawe on a smooth excuse." So, in Job, chap. xli. v. 11, Barker's Bible, 1599; "Out of his nostrils cometh out smoke." So, in a letter from Lord Burghley to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Jan. 23, 1587-8, Weymouth, MSS. "I did earnestly engre of hy, in what estate he stood in for discharge of his former detts." So, in another letter from the same to the same, October 26, 1586: "To the which it is ment that we all should put to our names." MALONE.

Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear: And she as much in love, her means much less To meet her new-beloved any where:

But passion lends them power, time means to meet, Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet. [Exit.

ACT II. SCENE I.

An open Place, adjoining CAPULET'S Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

ROM. Can I go forward, when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out. [He climbs the Wall, and leaps down within it.

Enter BENVOLIO, and MERCUTIO.
BEN. Romeo! my cousin Romeo!
MER.

He is wise;

And, on my life, hath stolen him home to bed.

BEN. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard

wall:

Call, good Mercutio.

MER.

Nay, I'll conjure too *.

Romeo! humours! madman! passion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,

Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;

Cry but-Ah me! pronounce but-love and dove ;

*This speech in the folio, and quartos A, B, C, is given to Benvolio.

8 PRONOUNCE but-love and dove ;] Thus the first quarto, 1597. Pronounce, in the quartos of 1599 and 1609, was made provaunt.

In the first folio, which appears to have been printed from the

Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name for her purblind son and heir,
Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim *,
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid

* So quarto A; folio, true.

latter of these copies, the same reading is adopted. The editor of the second folio arbitrarily substituted couply, meaning certainly couple; and all the modern editors have adopted his innovation. Provaunt, as Mr. Steevens has observed, means provision; but I have never met with the verb To provant, nor has any example of it been produced. I have no doubt, therefore, that it was a corruption, and have adhered to the first quarto.

In this very line-love and dove, the reading of the original copy of 1597 was corrupted in the two subsequent quartos and the folio, to-love and day; and heir, in the next line, corrupted into her. MALONE.

The quarto 1597 reads pronounce; the two succeeding quartos and the first folio, provaunt; the 2d, 3d, and 4th folios, couply; and Mr. Rowe, who printed from the last of these, formed the present reading. Provant, however, in ancient language, signifies provision. So, in " The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, called Joan Cromwell, the Wife of the late Usurper, truly described and represented," 1664, p. 14: "carrying some dainty provant for her own and her daughter's repast." To provant is to provide; and to provide is to furnish. "Provant but love and

dove," may therefore mean, furnish but such hackneyed rhymes as these are, the trite effusions of lovers.

Mr. Malone asks for instances of the verb provant. When he will produce examples of other verbs (like reverb, &c.) peculiar to our author, I may furnish him with the instance he desires. I am content, however, to follow the second folio. STEEVENS.

9 Young ADAM Cupid.] All the old copies read-Abraham Cupid. The alteration was proposed originally by Mr. Upton. See Observations, p. 243. It evidently alludes to the famous archer, Adam Bell. REED.

When king Cophetua, &c.] Alluding to an old ballad preserved in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry:

"Here you may read, Cophetua,

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Though long time fancie-fed,

"Compelled by the blinded boy

"The beggar for to wed." STEEVENS.

Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,

"When," &c. This word trim, the first editors, consulting the

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