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too-Beauty is thus personified in her. Theobald's conjectural transposition,

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I think, ought to be adopted.

"And when she's dead," &c.

Something of the thought appears in Raphael's

Epitaph:

24.

Timuit quo sospite vinci

"Rerum magna parens, et moriente mori."

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Wisely too fair."

Too wisely fair."

CAPEL LOFFT.

25. "What doth her beauty serve, but as a note?"

"What doth it serve?" cannot stand for "what doth it serve for?" we might read:

"How doth her beauty serve," &c.

Or else:

"What doth her beauty serve for, but a note, "Where I may read?"

"A note," equivocally, for a memento, and a written paper.

"I'll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt."

I owe to you, as a friend, this wholesome conviction; and whilst I live, shall endeavour to impress it. This is not in the first quarto; and it may be observed, that most of the obscure and objectionable passages in this play have been superadditions to that copy.

26. "

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SCENE II.

I think."

This should be ejected.

"Let two more summers wither in their pride."

Let them

pass into autumn.

'Younger than she are happy mothers made." Capulet's reply to these words,

"And too soon marr'd are those so early made," makes me suspect that we should read, "married mothers;" the jingle is exactly of that kind so prevalent in these works; thus, in As You Like It, when Oliver asks Orlando,-" What mar you?" which I suppose was pronounced, mar'e, or mar'ye; Orlando replies, Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which heaven made," &c. and in K. Henry VI. Last Part, scene between Gloster and Brakenbury,

Glos.

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She may, sir, ay, marry may she.” Black. "What marry, may she?"

Glos.

27.

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Marry with a king !”

"The earth hath swallow'd all my hopes but she,

"She is the hopeful lady of my earth.”

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I believe the meaning is, all my children, except her, are gone into the grave; and when I die, she only will survive to dispose of my remains, (i. e. my earth.) She," in the first line, should at once be made "her," even were it certain that the mistake was the poet's own, and not that of his transcribers.

27. "The earth, &c.

This line is not in the first copy; and in the quarto, 1609, it runs thus:

"Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she."

The second folio has,

"Earth up

hath swallowed," &c.

Perhaps we should read,

"Earth hath up-swallowed," &c.

28. "Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light."

This, I believe, is the true reading-the stars in the heavens commonly illuminate the dark earth, but now these earthly stars are to perform that office for the dark heavens. To support Mr. Monk Mason's emendation, and justify his meaning, "earthly stars that outshine the stars of heaven," it would be necessary that we should read, for "light," lights.

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30. May stand in number, though in reckoning none.

I believe a double meaning, here, is assigned to "reckoning," estimation, and the act or condition of being counted.

SCENE III,

37. "What is your will?"

My will would remove this useless hemistic. 40," It is an honour that I dream not of."

"Houre" or "houer," the reading of the folio,

and of the second quarto, is, perhaps, right—it is an occasion, a period that I have not yet turned my thoughts to.-Juliet, in her present state of mind, would neither regard marriage as any honour really, nor term it so sarcastically; and as to the reply of the nurse, if any consistency could be expected in her responses; "hour" seems at least as applicable as "honour"-hour! cries she, your wit or understanding is not of an hour's date, it was born with you, and attended you in the cradle." Hour," for " occasion," occurs in Macbeth:

"Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."

41. "Examine every married lineament."

"Married" is certainly right; and is rightly explained by Mr. Steevens; it means suitable, accordant, adapted to each other; thus Milton: They led the vine

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"To wed her elm; she, spous'd, about him twines "Her marriageable arms."

Paradise Lost, Book V.

43. The fish lives in the sea," &c.

These silly conceits, which are not in the first quarto, and probably were never Shakspeare's, are hardly worth a comment, but I suppose the meaning, such as it is, to be this: Lady Capulet has called Paris a book, a book that has "an explanatory margin," and is every way complete, except that "it lacks a cover," which cover is to be Juliet, enclosing and binding him in wedlock; and, as that crystal fluid the sea is observed to improve the beauty of the fish which swims in it, so, says she, will you have the praise and the ho

nour that belongs to you, as clasping and enfolding the excellence of Paris; and that excellence itself will become more conspicuous in being adorned by the graces which you will give it.

"But no more deep will I endart mine eye, "Than your consent gives strength to make it fly."

This is very obscurely expressed: I believe all that Juliet means is, I shall look upon him with no more earnestness of attention than is merely my obedience to your desire.

SCENE IV.

47. "So stakes me to the ground," &c.

The twelve lines following, added since the first quarto, would, perhaps, be better omitted.

49.

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I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,

"I'll be a candle-holder, and look on."

This old proverb is the maxim to which I will adhere.

56. "Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners legs."

Here is a nominative case without a verb:the first quarto gives the line thus:

"Her waggon-spokes are made of spinners' webs." We should read:

"Her waggon-spokes are made of spinners' legs." Again:

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