This line is not in the first quarto; the second omits the idle epithet new, and the line, I think, stands there to much advantage:

"Whiter than snow upon the raven's back.”

152. "All forsworn, all nought, all dissemblers."

This is disgracefully hobbling-we might read,

"All are forsworn, all false, all are dissemblers."

155.

If sour woe delights in fellowship." This, and some other similar applications of the epithet "sour," may serve pretty strongly to support Mr. Strutt's conjecture, that the hiatus in the early copy of Richard the Third,

"Now is the winter of-discontent,"

should be filled up with the word “ sour," instead of the feeble one supplied,

Note on that passage.

66

"" our.' See

Again, 157, scene 3, of the present act of this play,

Too familiar

"Is my dear son with such sour company.'

155. "Which modern lamentation might have mov'd."

Thus in Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 4 :

Violent sorrow seems

"A modern ecstasy.

DD 4

SCENE III.

157. "Hence-banished is banish'd from the world."

Here, as in many other instances, the same word is a dissyllable and a trisyllable.

"And world's exile is death."

The first quarto, "And world-exil'd," which is a better expression.

161. "Wert thou as young as I.”—

We might read, perhaps better,

"If thou wert young as I.".

The difference between the persons referred to, is not that Romeo is younger than the friar, but that the friar is an old man, and Romeo a young

one.

167. "Farewell."

So I should gladly say to this word, in removing it from the text.

SCENE V.

171. "Therefore stay yet, thou need'st not to be

gone."

The first copy, with evident advantage,

"" Then stay awhile; thou need'st not go so soon."

Again, I cannot discover any improvement that has been gained, but clearly the contrary, by the change from these lines in the first quarto:

"It is the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; "I'll say it is the nightingale that beats "The vaulty heaven so high above our heads, "And not the larke, the messenger of morn: "Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. "What says my love? let's talk, it is not day."

172. "I have more care to stay, than will tọ go."

I have a more anxious desire to stay than inclination to depart.

"Some say, the lark and loathed toad change

eyes;

"O, now I would they had chang'd voices too."

Dr. Warburton's emendation may seem plausible, but it is certainly false, as well as needless: Juliet could not possibly mistake the voice of the lark for that of the toad, though she might well, in the furor of amorous and poetic interdiction, desire that the notes of the lark, which disturbed and disappointed her happiness, might be changed, and become henceforward hateful discord.

174. "Art thou gone so? my love! my lord! my friend!"

It is not often that the changes from the first copy are to be commended, but I confess that, in the present case, I have always preferred, as more sweetly tender, the reading of the quarto 1599, adopted in the folio:

"Art thou gone so ? love! lord! ah! husband! friend!"

"I must hear from thee every day i' the hour, "For in a minute there are many days: "O! by this count.”.

The first quarto reads, more consecutively, "For in an hower there are manie minutes; "Minutes are dayes; so will I number them: "O! by this count," &c.

176. "

Renown'd for faith?"—

There

Mr. M. Mason's censure is unfounded. is no breach of amorous fidelity in renouncing a passion for a woman who was inexorable to her lover's addresses; or if there were, Juliet did not know of it, and would naturally judge of Romeo's faith by her own.

heart."

No man, like he, doth grieve my

He," for "him." The line is not in the first

"This

Upon these words, Dr. Johnson says, phrase was interjected, when the hearer was not quite so well pleased as the speaker;" an observation that I cannot understand, either in its application to Juliet and her mother, or to any other speaker and hearer.

180. Now, by St. Peter's church, and Peter "" too.

Juliet swears in tune with Petruchio:

"Now, by my father's son, and that's myself."

"He shall not make me there a joyful bride."

After this line, we find, in the first quarto,

"Are these the news you had to tell me of? Marry, here are news indeed: madam, I will not marrie yet;

"And when I do, it shall be rather Romeo, whom I hate,

"Than countie Paris that I cannot loue."

I would regulate, with only the addition of I swear," which stands hypermetrically in the present text, as in the second quarto:

"Are these the news you had to tell me of? "Marry, here are news indeed: madam, I swear "I will not marry yet; and when I do, "It shall be rather Romeo, whom I hate, "Than countie Paris that I cannot love."

181. "Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body (is).”

This "is" unnecessary, and, besides the awkward redundance, spoils the construction. Capulet says his daughter resembles a bark, a sea, and a wind: thy eyes, says he, I may call the sea; the bark, thy body; and the wind, thy sighs.

183.

We scarce thought us bless'd, "That God had sent us but this only

child;

"But now I see this one is one too much, "And that we have a curse in having

her."

Leonato, on the same subject, more pathetically repines,

Griev'd I, I had but one?"

"Chid I for that, at frugal nature's frame?