Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, fick health! Ben. No, coz, I rather weep. Ben. Soft, I will go along; [Going. An if you leave me so, you do me wrong. This is not Romeo, he's some other where. Ben. Tell me in sadness, who she is you love? But fadly tell me, who. Rom. Bid a fick man in sadness make his will: O word ill urg'd to one that is so ill! In fadness, coufin, I do love a woman. Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos'd you lov'd. Why, Such is love's tranfgreffion. Such is the consequence of unskilful and mistaken kindness. JOHNSON. 3 Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;] The author may mean being purged but it is perhaps a meaning never given to the word in any other place. I would rather read, Being urg'd, a fire sparkling. Being excited and inforced. To urge the are is the technical term. JOHNSON. of Smoke, + Tell me in fadness,) That is, tell megravely, tell me in ferious nefs. JOHNSON. VOL. X. Rom. Rom. A right good marks-man!-And she's fair Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is foonest hit. With Cupid's arrow, the hath Dian's wit; Ben. Then she hath sworn, that she will still live chaste? 5 And in strong proof &c.] As this play was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, I cannot help regarding these speeches of Romeo as an oblique compliment to her majesty, who was not liable to be displeased at hearing her chastity praised after the was fuspected to have lost it, or her beauty commended in the 67th year of her age, though fine site never possesled any when she was young. Her declaration that she would continue unmarried increases the probability of the present supposition. STEEVENS. 6-in ftrong proof) In chastity of proof, as we fay in armour of proof. JOHNSON. 7-with beauty dies her flore.] Mr. Theobald reads, "With "her dies beauty's fore;" and is followed by the two succeeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because I think it at least as plaufible as the correction. She is rich, says he, in beauty, and enly poor in being subject to the lot of humanity, that ber store, or riches, can be destroyed by death, who shall, by the fame blow, put an end to beauty. JOHNSON. Theobald's alteration may be countenanced by the following paflage in Savetnam Arraign'd, a comedy, 1620: "Nature now shall boast no more "Of the riches of her ftore; "Since, in this her chiefest prize, " All the stock of beauty dies." Again, in the 14th Sonnet of Shakspeare: " Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date." Again, in Maffinger's Virgin-Martyr: 6" with her dies " The abstract of all sweetness that's in woman." STEEVENS. Rom : ! i • Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste; A For beauty, starv'd with her severity, Do I live dead, that live to tell it now. Ben. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her. Examine other beauties. Rom. 'Tis the way To call hers, exquifite, in question more*: * Rom. She hath, and in that sparing, &c.] None of the following speeches of this scene are in the first edition of 1597. POPE. 9 For beauty, Starv'd with her feverity, So in our author's Third Sonnet. "Or who is he so fond will be the tomb "Of his self-love, to stop pofterity ?" Again, in his Venus and Adonis: "What is thy body but a swallowing grave, "Seeming to bury that pofterity, " Which by the rights of time thou need'st must have." MALONE. -too wisely fair.) HANMER. For wisely too fair. JOHNSON. 2 To call hers, exquifite, in question more :) That is, to call hers, which is exquisite, the more into my remembrance and contemplation. It is in this sense, and not in that of doubt, or dispute, that the word question is here used. REVISAL. 3 These happy masks, &c.] i. e. the masks worn by female spectators of the play. Former editors print these instead of these, but without authority. STEEVENS. Farewel; thou canst not teach me to forget. [Exeunt. Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant. Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I, Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; Par. Younger than the are happy mothers made. The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she, & Thou canst not teach me to forget.] But " Of all afflictions taught a lover yet, STEEVENS. And too foon marr'd are those so early made.] The 4to, 1597, reads:-And too foon marr'd are those so early married. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, uses this expreffion, which seems to be proverbial, as an instance of a figure which he calls the Rebound: "The maid that foon married is, foon marred is." The jingle between marr'd and made is likewife frequent among the old writers. So Sidney: "Oh! he is marr'd that is for others made!" Spenser introduces it very often in his different poems. STEEVENS. • She is the hopeful lady of my earth.] This line is not in the first edition. POPE. She : But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, When She is the hopeful lady of my earth,-This is a Gallicism: Fille de terre is the French phrase for an heiress. King Richard II. calls his land, i. e. his kingdom, his earth: " Feed not thy fovereign's foe, my gentle earth." Again, "So weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth.” Earth, in other old plays is likewise put for lands, i, e. landed estate. So in a Trick to catch the old one, 1619: "A rich widow and four hundred a year in good earth." STEEVENS. 7 Earth-treading flars, that make dark heaven light :) This nonsense should be reformed thus: Earth-treading stars that make dark even light: i. e. When the evening is dark, and without stars, these earthly stars fupply their place, and light it up. So again in this play: Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear. WARBURTON. But why nonsense? is any thing more commonly faid, than that beauties eclipse the fun? Has not Pope the thought and the word? " Sol through white curtains shot a tim'rous ray, " And op'd those eyes that must eclipse the day." Both the old and the new reading are philosophical nousense; but they are both, and both equally, poetical sense. JOHNSON. -do lufty young men feel] To say, and to say in pompous words, that a young man shall feel as much in an assembly of beauties, as young men feel in the month of April, is surely to waste sound upon a very poor sentiment. I read: Such comfort as do lusty yeomen feel. You shall feel from the fight and conversation of these ladies, fuch hopes of happiness and fuch pleasure, as the farmer receives from the spring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the profpect of the harvest fills him with delight. JOHNSON. C3 The |