as in almost everything concerning Shakespeare, probability must be our guide. We have no evidence of the existence of the drama before the notification in the First Quarto of 1597 that it had "been often with great applause plaid publiquely by the right Honourable, the L. of Hunsdon his Serveaunts." But in the nurse's speech (I, iii, 23) we find the line ""Tis since the earthquake now eleven years," which undoubtedly refers to the shock of the earthquake felt in London in April, 1580, of which we have vivid accounts both in Holinshed and in Stowe. In this topical allusion, directly appealing to the experience of his audience, - and such allusions, however anachronistic in relation to their context, are very common in Shakespeare and in the Elizabethan dramatists, the poet was in all probability making a statement which was to be taken literally; if so, that would fix the appearance of the play in or about We have, therefore, evidence not merely intrinsic for supposing that "Romeo and Juliet" grew, so to speak, directly out of his work as a poet and is the most interesting and important of all the links between the poems and the plays. 1591. We come now to the problem presented by the Quartos, which, if the obvious solution be the correct one, enables us to see how the play grew up under his hand. The First Quarto of 1597 was printed anonymously and surreptitiously by John Danter, probably from an acting copy, representing more or less faithfully the text of the play as the play first came from Shakespeare's hands, presumably in or about 1591, its deviations from that text being probably unimportant and due simply to carelessness and blunders on the part of the printers. This, however, is not the opinion of Mommsen, Collier, Grant White, the Cambridge editors, and Mr. P. A. Daniel, who in varying degrees of emphasis and modification conjecture that it was made up partly from copies of portions of the original play, partly from recollection and from notes taken during the performance. But it was very strongly the opinion of Knight, of Ulrici, of Halliwell, and, as I gather, of Dyce. In any case, the most sceptical of critics could not doubt that the Quarto of 1597, whatever may have been its source a text very or sources, represents an earlier text, carefully revised and augmented in the Quarto of 1599. Even conceding what the critics above mentioned infer,— and certainty on such a matter is impossible, - the point of importance is not much affected. It still remains indisputable that the poet carefully revised and worked over the play, transforming the text of 1597 into the text of 1599, which is practically its present form. It was fortunate for Shakespeare's comfort that he does not appear to have been very sensitive to the tortures inflicted by printers. He must have taken immense pains with the revision of the second Quarto. But his copy" was first mercilessly mutilated by the transcriber, who not merely imported blunders of his own into it, but took unwarrantable liberties with the text, on more than one occasion transferring verse into prose. Then followed the printer, who sowed a more abundant harvest of corruption, mispunctuation or no punctua 66 tion, errors clerical, errors of omission, errors of misplacement, making the confusion of the transcriber's copy worse confounded. A third Quarto followed in 1609, printed from that of 1599, but with additional errors. The next, reprinting the third, is undated, and is remarkable as being the first which has Shakespeare's name on the title-page. It corrects some obvious blunders, but it does little else. The next Quarto, a reprint of Quarto four, appeared, printed by R. Young for John Smethwicke in 1637. Its chief feature is a careful revision of the punctuation. The text of the First Folio of 1623 is based on that of the Third Quarto, and where it differs from it, it differs generally for the worst, except only in more correct punctuation and in fuller and more correct stage-directions. The consequence of all this is that the text of this, one of the most purely beautiful of Shakespeare's compositions, remains a patchwork made up at the discretion of its editors from readings selected chiefly from the unrevised Quarto of 1597 and the revised Quarto of 1599, with occasional contributions from conjecture from the other Quartos and the Folios, a melancholy illustration of the relation of the text as we have it now to the text as it came from his pen. It may be well to give a few illustrations of the process by which the text of 1597 was transformed into the text of 1599. Can any one doubt, when he turns to the following passages, that we see the poet not restoring what some stenographer or stupid printer has maltreated or omitted, but revising and improving his own work, and this in the maturity of his powers, after an interval during which he had produced such dramas as "The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” the "Midsummer Night's Dream," the "Merchant of Venice," "King John," and the two parts of " Henry IV"? The additions and alterations are printed in italics, except where parallel passages are given at length. "Welcome Gentlemen, welcome Gentlemen, Shee that makes daintie, shee Ile sweare hath Corns. Am I come neere you now, welcome Gentlemen, welcome." "Welcome gentlemen, Ladies that have their toes Unplagued with Cornes, will walke about with you: Ah my mistresses, which of you all Will now denie to daunce, she that makes daintie, That I have worne a visor and could tell A whispering tale in a faire Ladies eare: Such as would please: tis gone, tis gone, tis gone, You are welcome, gentlemen come, Musitions play." Q. 1599. The following lines are added in Friar Laurence's speech, II, iii : "The earth that's natures mother is her tombe, What is her burying grave, that is her wombe: And from her wombe children of divers kinde, None but for some, and yet all different." And the following are added to Juliet's soliloquy, II, v: "Oh she is lazie, Loves heralds should be thoughts, Q. 1597. "Oh she is lame, loves heraulds should be thoughts, Of this dayes journey, and from nine till twelve, My words would bandie her to my sweete love." Q. 1599. The fine and pathetic soliloquy of Juliet in IV, iii, is evolved out of these few meagre lines: "Farewell, God knowes when wee shall meete againe. Ah, I doo take a fearfull thing in hand. What if this Potion should not worke at all, Must I of force be married to the Countie? This shall forbid it. Knife, lye thou there. Our former marriage? Ah, I wrong him much, I will not entertaine so bad a thought. What if I should be stifled in the Toomb? And playing with my dead forefathers bones." |