Is it e'en fo? Why, then I thank you all;
I thank you, honeft gentlemen'; good night:
More torches here!-Come on, then let's to bed.
Ah, firrah, by my fay, it waxes late;

I'll to my rest.

[Exeunt. Jul. Come hither, nurfe+: What is yon gentleman? Nurfe. The fon and heir of old Tiberio.

Jul. What's he, that now is going out of door?
Nurfe. That, as I think, is young Petruchio.
Jul. What's he, that follows there, that would not
dance?

Nurfe. I know not.

Jul. Go, afk his name :-if he be married, My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

Nurfe. His name is Romeo, and a Montague; The only fon of your great enemy.

ful. My only love fprung from my only hate!
Too early feen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I muft love a loathed enemy.
Nurfe. What's this? what's this?
Ful. A rhyme I learn'd even now

Of one I danc'd withal. [One calls within, Juliet.
Nurfe. Anon, anon:-

Come, let's away; the ftrangers all are gone.

[Exeunt.

often meant in old times, nothing more than a collation of fruit, wine, &c. So, in the Life of Lord Cromwell, 1602:

"Their dinner is our banquet after dinner,"

Again, in Howel's Chronicle of the Cigil Wars, 1661, p. 662: After dinner, he was ferved with a banquet."

MALONE.

3-boneft gentlemen ;] Here the quarto, 1597, adds:

"I promife you, but for your company,

I would have been in bed an hour ago:
"Light to my chamber, ho!" STEEVENS.

Come hither, nurfe: What is yon gentleman ?] This and the following questions are taken from the novel. STEEVENS.

Enter

Now old defire doth on his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair, for which love groan'd fore, and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov'd, and loves again,

Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe fuppos'd he must complain,

And she steal love's fweet bait from fearful hooks: Being held a foe, he may not have access

To breathe fuch vows as lovers ufe to fwear; And fhe as much in love, her means much lefs To meet her new-beloved any where :

But paffion lends them power, time means to meet, Temp'ring extremities with extream sweet,

[Exit Chorus..

ACT II. SCENE

The STREET.

Enter Romeo alone.

I.

Rom. Can I go forward, when my heart is here? Turn back, dull earth, and find thy center out. [Exit.

Enter Benvolio, with Mercutio.

Ben. Romeo! my coufin Romeo!

5 CHORUS.] This chorus added fince the first edition. Pore. Chorus. The use of this chorus is not eafily difcovered; conduces nothing to the progrefs of the play, but relates what is already known, or what the next fcene will thew; and relates it without adding the improvement of any moral fentiment. JOHNSON.

E 3

Mer.

Mer. He is wife;

And, on my life, hath ftol'n him home to bed.
Ben. He ran this way, and leap'd this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

Mer. Nay, I'll conjure too.

Why, Romeo! humours! madman! paffion! lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a figh,

Speak but one rhyme, and I am fatisfied;
Cry but-Ay me! couple but-love and dove^;
Speak to my goffip Venus one fair word,
One nick-name to her purblind fon and heir,
7 Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,
When king Cophetua lov'd the beggar-maid.

He

6 Cry but-Ay me! couple but love and dove] The quarto, 1597, reads pronounce, the two fucceeding quartos and the firit folio, provant: the 2d, 3d, and 4th folios couply; and Mr. Rowe, who printed from the last of thefe. formed the prefent reading. Provant, in ancient language, fignifies provifion. So, in "The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, called Joan Cromwell, the wife of the late ufurper, truly defcribed and reprefented," 1664, p. 14. "-carrying fome dainty provant for her own and her daughter's repaft." To provant is to provide; and to provide is to furnish. Provant but love and dove," may therefore mean furnish, but fuch hackney'd rhimes as these are, the trite effufions of lovers. STEEVENS,

7 Young Adam Cupid,] All the old copies read, Abraham Cupid. The alteration was propofed originally by Mr. Upton. (See Obfervations, p. 243.) It evidently alludes to the famous archer, Adam Bell, EDITOR.

8 When king Cophetua, &c.] Alluding to an old ballad preferved in the first volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient Eng lib Poetry. STEEVENS.

her pur-blind fon and heir,
"Young Adam Cupid, he that fhot so trim,

"When, &c."

This word trim, the first editors confulting the general fenfe of the paffage, and not perceiving the allufion, would naturally alter to true; yet the former feems the more humourous expreffion, and, on account of its quaintnefs, more likely to have been used by Mercutio. PERCY.

So trim is the reading of the oldest copy, and this ingenious conjecture is confirmed by it. In Decker's Satiromafia, is a reference to the fame archer;

He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I muft conjure him..
I conjure thee by Rofaline's bright eyes,
By her high forehead, and her fcarlet lip,
By her fine foot, ftraight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demefnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

Ben. An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him. Mer. This cannot anger him: 'twould anger him To raise a spirit in his miftrefs' circle

Of fome strange.nature, letting it there ftand
'Till fhe had laid it, and conjur'd it down ;
That were fome fpight: my invocation

Is fair and honeft, and, in his miftrefs' name,
I conjure only but to raife up him.

Ben. Come, he hath hid himself among thofe trees,
To be conforted with the humorous night':
Blind is his love, and beft befits the dark.

Mer. If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark. Now will he fit under a medlar tree,

And with his mistress were that kind of fruit,

He fhoots his bolt but feldom; but when Adam lets go, he hits :"

"He fhoots at thee too, Adam Bell; and his arrows stick here." STEEVENS.

The ape is dead,- This was a term of endearment in our author's time. So, in Nath's Apologic of Pierce Pennilee, 1593: EUPHUES I read, when I was a little ape at Cambridge.' MALONE.

be humorous night.] I fuppofe Shakspeare means humid, the moift dewy night. Chapman ufes the word in that fenfe in hit tranflation of Homer, book II. edit. 1598:

"The other gods and knights at arms flept all the humorous night."

Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, fong 3:

"Such matter as he takes from the grofs humorous earth,”

Again, fong 13th:

which late the bumorous night

"Befpangled had with pearl"

Again, in his Barons' Wars, canto 1 :

1

"The bumorous fogs deprive us of his light," STARVENO.!

2

* As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.-
Romeo, good night ;-I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to fleep:
Come, fhall we go?

Ben. Go, then; for 'tis in vain.

To feek him here, that means not to be found.

SCENE

Capulet's Garden.

Enter Romeo.

II.

[Exeunt.

Rom. He jefts at scars, that never felt a wound.But, foft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the fun!

[Juliet appears above, at a window.

f 2 As maids,' &c.] After this line in the quarto, 1597, I find two other verfes, containing fuch ribaldry, that I cannot venture to infert them in the text, though I exhibit them here as a proof that either the poet or his friends knew fometimes how to blot : O Romeo that fhe were, O that she were

An open Et cætera, thou a Poprin Pear!

This pear is mentioned in the Wife Woman of Hogsdon, 1638: "What needed I to have grafted in the stock of fuch a chokepear, and fuch a goodly Poprin as this to escape me ?"

Again, in A Woman never vex'd, 1632:

"I requested him to pull me

"A Katherine Pear, and had I not look'd to him

"He would have mistook and given me a Popperin."

In the Atheist's Tragedy, by Cyril Turner, 1611, there is much conceit about this Pear. I am unable to explain it, nor does it appear indeed to deferve explanation.

Thus much may fafely be faid; viz. that our Pear might have been of French extraction, as Popering was the name of a parish in the Marches of Calais, So, Chaucer's Rime of Sire Thopas, edit. 1775, ver. 13650;

"In Flandres, al beyonde the fee

"At Popering in the place." STEEVENS,

He jefts at fears,] That, is, Mercutio jefts, whom he over. heard. JOHNSON,

f. He