Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, fick health! Ben. No, coz, I rather weep. 2 Ben. At thy good heart's oppreffion. Rom. Why, fuch is love's tranfgreffion.Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breaft; Which thou wilt propagate, to have it preft With more of thine: this love, that thou haft shown, Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a fmoke rais'd with the fume of fighs; Being purg'd, a fire fparkling in lovers' eyes; *Being vex'd, a fea nourish'd with lovers' tears: What is it elfe? a madness most discreet, A choaking gall, and a preserving sweet. Farewel, my coz. [Going Ben. Soft, I will go along; An if you leave me fo, you do me wrong. Ben. Tell me in sadness, who she is you love? But fadly tell me, who. Rom. Bid a fick man in fadnefs 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 fo near, when I fuppos'd you lov'd. Why, fuch is love's tranfgreffion. Such is the confequence of unskilful and mistaken kindness. JOHNSON. 3 Being purg'd, a fire fparkling in lovers' eyes;] The author may mean being purged of smoke, 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 fre is the technical term. JOHNSON. T + Tell me in fadness,] That is, tell megravely, tell me inferiousnefs. JOHNSON. VOL. X. Rom. Rom. A right good marks-man!-And fhe's fair I love. Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is foonest hit. Rom. Well, in that hit, you mifs: fhe'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow, the hath Dian's wit; And, in ftrong proof of chastity well arm'd, From love's weak childish bow the lives unharm'd. She will not stay the fiege of loving terms, Nor bide the encounter of affailing eyes, Nor ope her lap to faint-feducing gold: O, the is rich ia beauty; only poor, That, when she dies, with beauty dies her ftore. Ben. Then the hath fworn, that fhe will ftill live chafte? 5 And in ftrong 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 majefty, who was not liable to be displeased at hearing her chastity praised after the was fufpected to have loft it, or her beauty commended in the 67th year of her age, though fie never poffeffed any when the was young. Her declaration that he would continue unmarried in creafes the probability of the present fuppofition. STEEVENS. 6-in firong proof] In chastity of proof, as we fay in armour of pronf. JOHNSON. 7-with beauty dies her flore.] Mr. Theobald reads, "With "her dies beauty's fore;" and is followed by the two fucceeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because I think it at leaft as plaufible as the correction. She is rich, fays he, in beauty, and only poor in being subject to the lot of humanity, that her flore, or riches, can be deftroyed by death, who fhall, by the fame blow, put an end to beauty. JOHNSON. Theobald's alteration may be countenanced by the following paffage in Swetnam Arraign'd, a comedy, 1620: "Nature now fhall boaft no more Again, in the 14th Sonnet of Shakspeare: "Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.” Again, in Maffinger's Virgin-Martyr: 66 with her dies ―― “The abstract of all sweetness that's in woman.” STEEVANS. Rom Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge wafte; For beauty, ftarv'd with her severity, Ben. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her. Rom. 'Tis the way 3/ To call hers, exquifite, in question more": What doth her beauty ferve, but as a note Rom. She bath, and in that sparing, &c.] None of the follow ing fpeeches of this scene are in the first edition of 1597. POPE. 9 For beauty, ftarv'd with her feverity, Cuts beauty off from all pofterity.] So in our author's Third Sonnet. "Or who is he fo fond will be the tomb "What is thy body but a swallowing grave, "Which by the rights of time thou need'st must have." MALONE. 1-too wifely fair.] HANMER. For wifely too fair. JOHNSON. 2 To call hers, exquifite, in queflion more:] That is, to call hers, which is exquifite, the more into my remembrance and contemplation. It is in this fenfe, and not in that of doubt, or dispute, that the word question is here used. REVISAL. 3 Thefe happy masks, &c.] i. e. the masks worn by female fpectators of the play. Former editors print thofe instead of thefe, but without authority. STEEVENS. C 2 Farewel; Farewel; thou canst not teach me to forget. [Exeunt. SCENE II. A STREET. Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant. Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think, For men fo old as we to keep the peace. . Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both Cap. But faying o'er what I have faid before: Par. Younger than fhe are happy mothers made. But 4 Thou canst not teach me to forget.] ""Tis fure the hardeft fcience, to forget."-Pope's Eloifa. And too foon marr'd are thofe fo early made.] The 4to, 1597, reads:-And too soon marr'd are thofe fo early married. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, utes this expreffion, which feems to be proverbial, as an inftance 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!” Spenfer 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 1 But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, 8 When She is the hopeful lady of my carth,-This is a Gallicifm: 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, fmiling, greet I thee, my earth." Earth, in other old plays is likewife put for lands, i, e. landed eftate. 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 ftars, that make dark heaven light:] This nonfenfe fhould be reformed thus: Earth-treading ftars that make dark even light: i. e. When the evening is dark, and without ftars, thefe earthly ftars 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 nonfenfe is any thing more commonly faid, than that beauties eclipfe the fun? Has not Pope the thought and the word? "" "Sol through white curtains fhot a tim❜rous ray, "And op'd thofe eyes that muft eclipfe the day. Both the old and the new reading are philofophical nousense; but they are both, and both equally, poetical fenfe. JOHNSON. -do lufy young men feel] To fay, and to say in pompous words, that a young man fhall feel as much in an affembly of beauties, as young men feel in the month of April, is surely to waste found upon a very poor fentiment. I read: Such comfort as do lufty yeomen feel. You fhall feel from the fight and converfation of thefe ladies, fuch hopes of happiness and fuch pleasure, as the farmer receives from the fpring, when the plenty of the year begins, and the profpect of the harvest fills him with delight. JOHNSON. The C 3 |
