I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

Rom. Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!-
Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses; I will hence to night.
Bal. Pardon me, sir, I will not leave
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

Rom.

you

thus:

Tush, thou art deceiv'd;

Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do:
Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?
Bal. No, my good lord.

gone,

Rom. No matter: Get thee And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.

[Exit BALTHASAR.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to night.
Let's see for means:-O, mischief! thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,-

And hereabouts he dwells,-whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples; meager were his looks,
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves

9 An alligator stuff'd,] I was many years ago assured, that formerly, when an apothecary first engaged with his druggist, he was gratuitously furnished by him with these articles of show, which were then imported for that use only. I have met with the alligator, tortoise, &c. hanging up in the shop of an ancient apothecary at Limehouse, as well as in places more remote from our metropolis. See Hogarth's Marriage Alamede, Plate III.-It may be remarked, however, that the apothecaries dismissed their alligators, &c. some time before the physicians were willing to part with their amber-headed canes and solemn periwigs. STEEVENS.

Enter Apothecary.

A beggarly account of empty boxes,

Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of pack thread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I said

1

An if a man did need a poison now,

Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but fore-run my need;
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.-
What, ho! apothecary!

Ap.

Enter Apothecary.

Who calls so loud?

Rom. Come hither, man.-I see, that thou art

poor ;

Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have

A dram of poison; such soon-speeding geer
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead;
And that the trunk may be discharg'd of breath
As violently, as hasty powder fir'd

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law Is death, to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou so bare, and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes, Upon thy back hangs ragged misery,

The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law : The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

'An if a man, &c.] This phraseology which means simplyIf, was not unfrequent in Shakspeare's time and before.