AND JULIE T. By SHAKESPEAR. With ALTERATIONS, and an additional SCENE: By D. GARRICK. As it is Performed at the Theatre-Royal LONDON Printed for J. and R. TONS ON and S. DRAPER. M DCC LIII. THE chief Defign of the Alterations in the following Play, was to clear the Original as much as poffible from the Fingle and Quibble which were always the Objections to the reviving it. The fudden Change of Romeo's Love from Rofaline to Juliet, was thought by many, at the firft Revival of the Play, to be a blemish in his Character; an Alteration in that particular has been made more in Compliance to that Opinion, than from a Conviction that Shakespeare, the best Judge of human Nature, was faulty. Bandello, the Italian Novellift, from whom Shake. fpeare has borrow'd the Subject of this Play, has made Juliet to wake in the Tomb before Romeo dies: This Circumftance Shakespeare has omitted, not perhaps from Judgment, but from reading the Story in the French or English Translation, both which have injudiciously left out this Addition to the Catastrophe. Mr. Otway in his Caius Marius, a Tragedy taken from Romeo and Juliet, has made use of this affecting Circumftance, but it is matter of Wonder that fo great a dramatic Genius did not work up a Scene from it of more Nature, Terror and Diftrefs-Such a Scene was attempted at the Revival of this Play, and it is hop'd, that an Endeavour to fupply the failure of fo great a Mafter will not be deem'd arrogant, or the making use of two or three of his Introductory Lines, be accounted a Plagiarifm. The Perfons who from their great Good nature and Love of Justice have endeavour'd to take away from the prefent Editor the little Merit of this Scene by afcribing it to Otway, have unwittingly, from the Nature of the Accufation, paid him a Compliment which he believes they never intended him. |