"Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat.”

The construction requires the verb is after waggoner," as we find it in the first quarto, where Mercutio's speech differs, in other respects, from the present text;

"The traces are the moonshine's watrie beames: "The collars, crickets' bones; the lash of filmes : "Her waggoner is a small gray-coated flie, "Not halfe so big as is the little worm "Pickt from the lasie finger of a maide, "And in this sorte she gallops up and downe "Through louers' braines, and then they dream of loue:

"O'er courtiers' knees, who straight on cursies dreame:

"O'er ladies' lips, who dreame on kisses straight." &c. &c.

"Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose.”

All the editors, by a strange concurrence, agree in calling this the old reading; whereas, in the first quarto (1597), we find it,

"Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawer's lap," Which agrees better with the line following: "And then dreams he of smelling out a suit."

The repetition, which cannot be avoided without removing a line, is alike offensive in either case. I suppose the poet intended the rejection of the first line, but omitted to strike it out of the copy.

56. "O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees."

I wish there were authority for reading "doc

tors' fingers," which would save the speech from the repetition that must else be endured:-the line is not in the first quarto.

58. "

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep." The first quarto :

"Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep."

This repetition of "nose," which we had a line or two before, together with the reading of that line in the earliest copy, persuades me that the former line was

"Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's lip."

This has relation to the lawyer's loquacity, and the change of a letter at the press may easily be supposed, and is frequently happening.

60.

Puffs away from thence."

The first quarto, much better, both as to sense and expression,

The quarto reads "expiers," which forms better concord, and probably means, the term expires, according to a mode of speech not unusual, though perhaps improper.

64.

66

SCENE V.

Ladies, that have their toes

Unplagu'd with corns."

What induced Mr. Pope to insert feet, in the

place of " toes," I cannot guess. It is on the toes, properly, and not on the feet, that corns generally grow; and it might as well be said that a hand, instead of a finger, was plagued with a whitlow, as that a foot was plagued with corns. But whatever was the poetical editor's motive for the change, I cannot suppose it to have been what Mr. Malone ascribes-delicacy; for where is the delicacy or indelicacy of either foot or toe, any more than of hand or finger?

Milton, the most delicate of poets, in L'Alegro has, in the same sense as that of Capulet,

"Come and trip it as you go,

"On the light fantastic toe."

Which of you all

"Will now deny to dance? she that makes dainty, (she,)

"I'll swear, hath corns."

The repetition of " she," in this passage, is a careless insertion at the press, or of the transcriber. 68. "So shews a snowy dove trooping with

The recurrence of similar sounds, which spoils the euphony of this line, shew-snow-crow, is a fault that, at least, is diminished in the first quarto, which reads,

"So shines a snow-white swan, trooping with

crows,'

A swan among ravens is a familiar phrase, denoting high pre-eminence.

"A snowy dove."

With all my partiality for the dove, I incline

much to restore the swan here; yet I think dove would hardly have taken its place but by the poet's own alteration. CAPEL LOFFT.

70. "Be quiet, or-More light."

We often meet with this kind of abruptionIago says, "Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-Some drink, ho!-are nothing to your English." It is highly dramatic. "Patience perforce."

74.

Patience imposed on us against our will.

CHORUS.

This chorus, added since the first quarto, is very justly condemned by Dr. Johnson.

"That fair, which love groan'd for, and would die."

"Fair," says Mr. Steevens, is here a dissyllable; but the solitary instance, from the Tempest, of a line which I take to be imperfect, is not sufficient to justify an assertion which I believe has no support in our author's practice: although air, fire, hour, or rather aer, fier, houer, commonly enough assume that quantity: but, out of doubt, this critic has properly rejected Mr. Malone's reading, taken from the second quarto:

"That fair, for which love groaned for, and would die,"

as well as the evidence of the passages which that gentleman had advanced in support of such gross violation of grammar. Perhaps we should read, "That fair, for which love gróanéd, and would die,"

ACT II. SCENE I.

76." Romeo! humours! madman! passion!

79.

lover !"

The first quarto:

Madman! passion! liver!"

The humorous night."

"Humorous," I believe, means, distempered, capricious, peevish, like Romeo himself, whom the speaker had a little before called humorous, madman, &c. and now he says, this person is going to be "consorted" with what so much resembles himself,

82.

"Blind is his love, and best befits the dark."

SCENE II.

"He jests at scars, that never felt a wound."

I think Dr. Johnson has mistaken: I don't believe that Shakspeare supposed Romeo to have overheard Mercutio, or to have him in his thoughts, I take this to be intended for a general position, like that quoted by Mr. Steevens, from Sidney's Arcadia.-Romeo only means to say, that, before he was in love, he regarded the sufferings of lovers as a subject rather of mirth than pity. LORD CHEDWORTH,

Juliet, is the sun!—

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,”