Nurse. Now, by my maiden-head, -at twelve year old, I bade her come. - What, lamb! what, lady-bird!- Enter Fuliet. Jul. How now, who calls? Nurse. Your mother. Jul. Madam, I am here; what is your will? awhile, We must talk in secret.-Nurse, come back again; Nurse. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. Nurse. I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, - tide? La. Cap. A fortnight, and odd days. And -to my teen-] To my forrow. JOHNSON. This old word is introduced by Shakspeare for the fake of the jingle between teen, and four, and fourteen. See vol. i. p. 13. STEEVENS. 8 It is fince the earthquake now eleven years;) But how comes the nurse to talk of an earthquake upon this occafion? There is no such circumstance, I believe, mentioned in any of the novels from which Shakspeare may be supposed to have drawn his story; and therefore And she was wean'd, -I never shall forget it, And fince that time it is eleven years : For then she could stand alone'; nay, by the rood, therefore it feems probable, that he had in view the earthquake, which had really been felt in many parts of England in his own time, viz. on the 6th of April, 1580. [See Stowe's Chronicle, and Gabriel Harvey's letter in the preface to Spenser's'avorks, ed. 1679.] If fo, one may be permitted to conjecture, that Romeo and Juliet, or this part of it at least, was written in 1591; after the 6th of April, when the eleven years fince the earthquake were completed; and not later than the middle of July, a fortnight and odd days before Lammas-tide. TYRWHITT. 9 Well, I do bear a brain.] That is, I have a perfect remembrance or recollection. So in The Country Captain, by the Duke of Newcastle, 1649, p. 51. "When these wordes of command are rotten, wee will fow fome other military feedes; you beare a braine and memory." EDITOR. So, in Ram-alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: "Dash, we must bear fome brain." Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtefan, 1604: -nay an I bear not a brain," Again, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611: " As I can bear a pack, so I can bear a brain." STEEVENS. -could ftand alone,] The 4to, 1597, reads: "could stand bigh lone, i. e. quite alone, completely alone. So in another of our author's plays, bigh fantastical means entirely fantastical. STEEVENS. Yea Yea, quoth he, dost thou fall upon thy face? La. Cap. Enough of this; I pray thee, hold thy peace Nurse. Yes, madam; Yet I cannot chuse but laugh, To think it should leave crying, and fay-Ay. And yet, I warrant, it had upon its brow A bump as big as a young cockrel's stone; A par'lous knock; and it cried bitterly. Yea, quoth my husband, fall'ft upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou com'ft to age; Wilt thou not Jule? it stinted, and faid, - Ay. Jul. And stint thou too, I pray thee, nurse, say I. Nurse. Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that ere I nurs'd: La. Cap. Marry, that marry is the very theme 9-it flinted,] i. e. it stopped, it forbore from weeping. So, fir Thomas North, in his translation of Plutarch, speaking of the wound which Antony received, says : " for the blood flinted a little when he was laid." Again, in Cynthia's Revells, by Ben Jonfon : "Stint thy babbling tongue." Again, in What you will, by Marston, 1607: " Pish! for shame stint thy idle chat." Again, in the Misfortunes of King Arthur, an ancient drama, 1587: " - Fame's but a blast that founds a while, " And quickly Aints, and then is quite forgot." Spenfer uses this word frequently in his Faerie Queen. STEEVENS. Nurse. Yes, madam; yet I cannot chuse, &c.] This speech and tautology is not in the first edifion. POPE. : 2 I came to talk of :-Tell me, daughter Juliet, La. Cap. Well, think of marriage, now; younger Here in Verona, ladies of esteem, Nurse. A man, young lady! lady, such a man, * It is an honour) The first quarto reads honour; the folio hour. I have chofen the reading of the quarto. The word hour seems to have nothing in it that could draw from the Nurse that applause which she immediately bestows. The word honour was likely to strike the old ignorant woman, as a very elegant and difcreet word for the occafion. STEEVENS. 3 Instead of this speech, the quarto, 1597, has only one line: Well, girl, the noble County Paris seeks thee for his wife. STEEVENS 4-a man of wax.] So, in Wily Beguiled: STEEVENS. -a man of wax. - Well made, as if he had been modelled In wax, as Mr. Steevens by a happy quotation has explained it. " When you, Lydia, praise the waxen arms of Telephus," (says, Horace.) Waxen, well shaped, finely turned : " With paffion swells my fervid breast, Dr. Bently changes cerea into lactea, little understanding that the praise was given to the shape, and not the colour. S. W. 5 Nurse.] After this speech of the Nurse, Lady Capulet in the old quarto says only : "Well, Juliet, how like you of Paris' love?" She answers, "I'll look to like, &c." and fo concludes the scene, without the intervention of that stuff to be found in the later quartos and the folio. STEEVENS. La • La. Cap. What say you? can you love the gentle man? This night you shall behold him at our feaft : The fish lives in the fea; and 'tis much pride, So 6 La. Cap. What say you? &c.] This ridiculous speech is entirely added fince the first edition. POPE. 7 Read o'er the volume, &c.] The fame thought occurs in Pericles Prince of Tyre: "Her face the book of praises, where is read "Nothing but curious pleasures." STEEVENS. * Examine ev'ry several lineament,] The quarto, 1599, reads, every married lineament. -Shakspeare meant by this last phrafe, Examine how nicely one feature depends upon another, or accords with another, in order to produce that harmony of the whole face which seems to be implied in content. -In Troilus and Cressida, he speaks of " the married calm of states;" and in his 8th Sonnez has the fame allufion : "If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, " By unions married, do offend thine ear." STEVEENS. 9-the margin of his eyes.] The comments on the ancient books were always printed in the margin. So Horatio in Hamlet says = -I knew you must be edify'd by the margent, &C. STEEVENS. • The fish lives in the fea ;] i. c. is not yet caught. Fish-fkin covers to books anciently were not uncommon. Such is Dr. Farmer's explanation of this passage, and it may receive fome support from what Ænobarbus says in Antony and Cleopatra "The tears live in an onion, that should water this forrow." STEEVENS. That in gold clasps locks in the golden story ;) The golden ftory is perhaps the golden legend, a book in the dark ages of popery much read, and doubtless often exquisitely embellished, but of which Canus, |