Nurfe. Nay, he's a flower; in faith, a very flower. La Cap. What fay you? can you like the gentleman? (8)

This night you fhall behold him at our feaft;
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with Beauty's pen;
Examine every feveral lineament,

And fée how one another lends content:
And what obfcur'd in this fair volume lyes,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him only lacks a cover.

The fith lives in the fea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many eyes does fhare the glory,
That in gold clafps locks in the golden story.
So fhall you fhare all that he doth poffefs
By having him, making yourself no lefs.

Nurfe. No lefs nay, bigger; women grow by

men.

La. Cap. Speak briefly, can you like of Paris' love? Jul. ll look to like, if looking liking move;

But no more deep will I indart mine eye,

Than your confent gives strength to make it fly. Enter a Servant.

Serv. Madam, the guefts are come, fupper ferved up, you called, my young lady afked for, the nurfe curs'd in the pantry, and every thing in extre mity. I must hence to wait; I beseech you, follow trait.

La. Cap. We follow thee. Juliet, the county stays!

(8) What, far you? can you like the gentleman ?] This speech of Lady Capulet, though I cannot readily commend it, yet I could not conceive I had any authority to leave it out. I have restored many other paffages in this play, not of the best stamp, but for the fame reafon.

Nurse. Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

[Exeunt.

SCENE, a Street before Capulet's Houfe.

Enter ROMEO, MERCUTIO, BENVOLIO, with five or fix other Mafkers, Torch-bearers, and Drums.

Rom. What, fhall this fpeech be fpoke for our Or fhall we on without apology?

[excuse?

Ben. The date is out of fuch prolixity.
We'll have no Cupid hood-winked with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper; (9)
Nor a without-book prologue faintly fpoke:
After the prompter, for our entrance :.
But let them measure us by what they will,
We'll measure them a measure, and be gone.

Rom. Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling Being but heavy, I will hear the light.

Mer. Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

Rom. Not. I, believe me; you have dancing fhoes With nimble foles; I have a foul of lead, So ftakes me to the ground I cannot move.

Mer. You are a lover, borrow Cupid's wings, And foar with them above a common bound.

Rom. I am too fore enpierced with his shaft, To foar with his light feathers; and fo bound,,^I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe: Under Love's heavy burden do I fink.

(9) Scaring the ladies like a cow-keeper ;] I led Mr Pope into this miftaken reading, which I once thought the true® one, before I fully understood the paffage. But I have proved, that crow-keeper, which poffeffes all the old copies, is the genuine reading of the Poet, in my 49th note on King Lear.

Mer. And to fink in it should you burden love; Too great oppreffion for a tender thing!

Rom. Is love a tender thing! It is too rough, Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn. Mer. If Love be rough with you, be rough with Love:

Prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down. Give me a cafe to put my vifage in;

[Pulling off his Mask.

A vifor for a vifor !----what care I,

What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows fhall bluth for me.
Ben. Come, knock, and enter; and no fooner in
But every man betake him to his legs.

Rom. A torch for me. Let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the fenfelefs rushes with their heels;
For I am proverbed with a grandfire-phrafe;
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

The game was ne'er fo fair, and I am done.

Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word;

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire; Or, fave your reverence, love, wherein thou stickest Up to thine ears: come, we burn day-light, ho. Rom. Nay, that's not fo.

Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay,

We burn our lights by light, and lamps by day. Take our good-meaning, for our judgment fits Five times in that ere once in our fine wits.

Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask ; But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one ask?

Rom. I dream'd a dream to-night.

Mer. And fo did I.

Rom. Well; what was yours?

Mer. That dreamers often lie.

Rom.---In bed afleep; while they do dream things

true.

Mer. O then I fee Queen Mab hath been with
She is the Fancy's midwife, and the comes [you. (10).
In fhape no bigger than an agat stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart mens' nofes as they ly afleep:

Her waggon spokes made of long fpinners' legs;-
The cover of the wings of grashoppers;.
The traces of the finalleft fpider's web;

The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams :
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film ;

(10) 0, then I fee Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife.] Thus begins that admirable fpeech upon the effects of the imagination in dreams. But, Queen Mab the fairies midwife? What is fhe then Queen ✨ of? Why, the fairies What and their midwife too? Sure, this is a wonderful condefcenfion in her Royal Highness. But this is not the greatest of the abfurdities. The fairies' midwife? But let us fee upon what occafion fhe is introduced,' and under what quality. Why, as a being that has great power over human imaginations. But then, according to → the laws of common fenfe, if he has any title given her, must not that title have reference to the employment fhe is put upon? First, then, he is called Queen, which is very pertinent; for that defigns her power then fhe is called the fairies midwife; but what has that to do with the point in hand? If we would think that Shakespeare wrote fenfe, we must fay he wrote the fancy's midwife: and this is a» title the moft à propos in the world, as it introduces all that is faid afterwards of her vagaries. Befides, it exactly quadrates with these lines:

--I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantaly.

Thefe dreams are begot upon fantafy, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth. And Fancy's midwife is a phrafe altogether in the manner of our Author.

Mr. Warburton,

Her waggoner a fmall grey-coated gnat,
Not half fo big as a round little worm,
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut,
Made by the joiner fquirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind. the fairies' coachmakers ::
And in this state the gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtfies strait:
O'er lawyers' fingers, who ftrait dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who ftrait on kiffes dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blifters plagues,
Because their breaths with fweetmeats- tainted are.
Sometimes fhe gallops o'er a lawyer's nofe,.
And then dreams he of fmelling out a fuit ;
And fometimes comes fhe with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lyes asleep ;.
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes fhe driveth o'er a foldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambufcadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; (11) and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes ;
And, being thus frighted, fwears a prayer or two,

(11) Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fathom deep;] As the generality of the terms coupled here, have a reference to the wars, fome ingenious perfons have conjectured that our Poet wrote;

Of delves five fathoms deep ;→→→→

7. e. trenches; places delved, or dug down. But, with submiffion, I conceive the text to be fincere as it is; and alludes to drinking deep to a miftrefs's health. I find the like expreffion in Weftward-boe, a comedy wrote in our Author's time

Troth, sir, my mafter and Sir Golling are guzzling; they are dabbling together fathom deep The knight has drunk fo much health to the gentleman yonder on his knees, that he hath almost lost the use of his legs.