Some-Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run, Prince. What fear is this, which startles in your ears? 1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris slain; And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Warm and new kill'd. Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murther comes. 1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man; With instruments upon them, fit to open These dead men's tombs. Cap. O, Heaven!—O, wife! look how our daughter bleeds! This dagger hath mista’en,—for, lo! his house Is empty on the back of Montague,a— And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom. Enter MONTAGUE and others. Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up, To see thy son and heir now early down. Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night; Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath: What further woe conspires against my age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see. Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave? Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities, And know their spring, their head, their true descent; And then will I be general of your woes, And lead you even to death: Meantime forbear, Bring forth the parties of suspicion. Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least, The dagger was worn at the back. And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excus'd. Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this. Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet, Or, in my cell there would she kill herself. The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo, Came I to take her from her kindred's vault; All this I know; and to the marriage Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man. Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it.— Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave; And bid me stand aloof, and so I did: Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb; And, by and by, my master drew on him; And then I ran away to call the watch. Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words, Their course of love, the tidings of her death; And here he writes-that he did buy a poison Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love! Have lost a brace of kinsmen :-all are punish'd. Mon. But I can give thee more: Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie; Poor sacrifices of our enmity! Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun for sorrow will not show his head : Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished: " For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. [Exeunt. ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT V. 'SCENE I.-" Mantua." To the poetical traveller it would be difficult to say whether Mantua would excite the greater interest as the birthplace of Virgil or as the scene of Romeo's exile. Surely, an Englishman cannot walk through the streets of that city without thinking of the apothecary in whose "needy shop a tortoise hung, Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves Any description of the historical events connected with Mantua, or any account of its architectural monuments, would be here out of place. 2 SCENE I.-"I do remember an apothecary." The criticism of the French school has not spared this famous passage. Joseph Warton, an elegant scholar, but who belonged to this school, has the following observations in his 'Virgil' (1763, vol. i., p. 301):— "It may not be improper to produce the following glaring instance of the absurdity of introducing long and minute descriptions into tragedy. When Romeo receives the dreadful and unexpected news of Juliet's death, this fond husband, in an agony of grief, immediately resolves to poison himself. But his sorrow is interrupted, while he gives us an exact picture of the apothecary's shop from whom he intended to purchase the poison :— 'I do remember an apothecary,' &c. I appeal to those who know anything of the human heart, whether Romeo, in this distressful situation, could have leisure to think of the alligator, empty boxes, and bladders, and other furniture of this beggarly shop, and to point them out so distinctly to the audience. The description is, indeed, very lively and natural, but very improperly put into the mouth of a person agitated with such passion as Romeo is represented to be." The criticism of Warton, ingenious as it may appear, and true as applied to many " long and minute descriptions in tragedy," is here based upon a wrong principle. He says that Romeo, in his distressful situation, had not "leisure to think of the furniture of the apothecary's shop. What then had he leisure to do? Had he leisure to run off into declamations against fate, and into tedious apostrophes and generalizations, as a less skilful artist than Shakspere would have made him indulge in? From the moment he had said, "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night, Let's see for means," the apothecary's shop became to him the object of the most intense interest. Great passions, when they have shaped themselves into firm resolves, attach the most distinct importance to the minutest objects connected with the execution of their purpose. He had seen the apothecary's shop in his placid moments as an object of common curiosity. He had hastily looked at the tortoise and the alligator, the empty boxes, and the earthen pots; and he had looked at the tattered weeds and the overwhelming brows of their needy owner. But he had also said, when he first saw these things, |