Where shall we dine?-O me!--What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. [Striking his breast. 4 Why then, O brawling love! Oloving hate! purfue his defire. That the blind should find paths to ill is no great wonder. JOHNSON. The quarto 1597, reads Should, without laws, give path-ways to our will! This reading is the most intelligible. STEEVENS. + Why then, O brawling love, &c.] Of thefe lines neither the fenfe nor occafion is very evident. He is not yet in love with an enemy, and to love one and hate another is no fuch uncommon ftate, as can deferve all this toil of antithefis. JOHNSON. Had Dr. Johnfon attended to the letter of invitation in the next fcene, he would have found that Rofaline was niece to Capulet. ANONYMOUS. Every fonetteer characterifes Love by contrarieties. Watson begins one of his canzonets: "Love is a fowre delight, a fugred griefe, "A living death, an euer-dying life, &c." Turberville makes Reafon harangue against it in the fame manner: "A fierie froft, a flame that frozen is with ife! "A heavie burden light to beare! a vertue fraught "with vice! &c." Immediately from the Romaunt of the Rofe, "A free aquitaunce without reles "A laughter that in weping aie, "Rest that trauaileth night and daie, &c." This kind of antithens was very much the tafte of the Provencal and Italian poets; perhaps it might be hinted by the ode of Sappho preferved by Longinus. Petrarch is full of it: "Pace non trovo, & non hó da far guerra, "Et temo, & fpero, & ardo, & fon un ghiaccio, Et volo fpora'l cielo, & ghiaccio in terra, "Et nulla fringo, & tuttol mondo abbraccio, &c." Son. 105. Sir Tho. Wyat gives a tranflation of this fonnet, without any notice of the original, under the title of, Defcription of the contrarious Paffions in a Louer, amongst the Songes and Sonnettes, by the Earle of Surrey, and others, 1574. FARMER. Oh, Oh, any thing, of nothing firft create! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Ben. No, coz, I rather weep. Rom. Good heart, at what? Ben. At thy good heart's oppreffion. Rom. 5 Why, fuch is love's tranfgreffion.Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast; Which thou wilt propagate, to have them prest With more of thine: this love, that thou haft shown, Doth add more grief to too much of mine own. Love is a fmoke rais'd with the fume of fighs; 6 Being purg'd, a fire fparkling in lovers' eyes; 7 Being vex'd, a fea nourish'd'with lovers' tears: What is it elfe? a madness most discreet, A choaking gall, and a preferving fweet. Farewel, my coz. [Going. Ben. Soft, I will go along: Ben. Tell me in fadnefs, who fhe is you love? Rom. What, fhall I groan and tell thee? Why, fuch is love's tranfgreffion.-] Such is the confequence of unfkilful and mistaken kindness. JOHNSON. 6 Being purg'd, a fire Sparkling in lovers' eyes;] The author may mean being purged of smoke, but it is perhaps a meaning never given to the word in any other place. I would rather read, Being urged, a fire fparkling. Being excited and inforced. To urge the fire is the technical term. JOHNSON. 7 Being vex'd, &c.] As this line ftands fingle, it is likely that the foregoing or following line that rhym'd to it, is loft. JOHNSON. Tell me in fadnefs,] That is, tell me gravely, tell me in ferioufness. JOHNSON. Ben. Ben. Groan? why, no; but fadly tell me, who. Rom. Bid a fick man in fadness make his will:O word, ill-urg'd to one that is fo ill! In fadnefs, coufin, I do love a woman. Ben. I aim'd fo near, when I fuppos'd you lov'd. Rom. A right good mark's-man!-and fhe's fair, I love. Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is fooneft hit. · Rom. But, in that hit, you mifs. She'll not be hit With Cupid's arrow; fhe hath Dian's wit; 9 And, in ftrong proof of chastity well arm'd, That when she dies, 2 with beauty dies her store. 3 Rom. She hath, and in that fparing makes huge wafte. As this play was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, I cannot help regarding these speeches of Romeo as an oblique compliment to her majesty, who was not likely to be difpleafed at hearing her chastity praised after fhe was fufpected to have loft it, or her beauty commended in the 67th year of her age, though the never poffeffed any when he was young. declaration that he would continue unmarried, increases the probability of the fuppofition. STEEVENS. Her -in ftrong proof] In chastity of proof, as we fay in armour of proof. JOHNSON. 2 with beauty dies her ftore.] Mr. Theobald reads, "With "her dies beauties fore;" and is followed by the two fucceeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because I think it at least as plaufible as the correction. She is rich, fays he, in beauty, and only poor in being fubject to the lot of humanity, that her ftore, or riches, can be deftroyed by death, who fhall, by the fame blow, put an end to beauty. JOHNSON. 3 Rom. She bath, and in that sparing, &c.] None of the following speeches of this fcene in the first edition of 1597. POPE. For beauty, ftarv'd with her severity, Ben. Be rul'd by me, forget to think of her. Rom. 'Tis the way To call hers, exquifite, in queftion more: Enter Capulet, Paris, and Servant. Cap. And Montague is bound as well as I, In penalty alike; and 'tis not hard, I think, For men fo old as we to keep the peace. [Exeunt. Par. Of honourable reckoning are you both; S too wifely fair.] HANMER. For wifely too fair. JOHNSON. "Of all affictions taught a lover yet, "'Tis fure the hardeft fcience, to forget.-Pope's Eloifa. STEEVENS. Cap. Cap. But faying o'er what I have faid before: Par. Younger than fhe are happy mothers made. Cap. And too foon marr'd are thofe fo early made. The earth hath fwallowed all my hopes but fhe, She is the hopeful lady of my earth: But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart, Such as I love; and you, among the ftore, And too foon marr'd are thofe fo early made.] The 4to, 1597. reads:And too foon marr'd are thofe fo early married. Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, ufes this expreffion, which feems to be proverbial, as an inftance of a figure which he calls the Rebound: "The maid that foon married is, foon marred is." STEEVENS. 2 She is the hopeful lady of my earth.] This line is not in the firft edition. POPE. The lady of his earth is an expreffion not very intelligible, unless he means that she is heir to his eftate, and I fuppofe no man ever called his lands his earth. I will venture to propose a bold change: She is the hope and fray of my full years. JOHNSON. She is the hopeful lady of my earth. This is a Gallicism: Fede terre is the French phrafe for an heirefs. Lad of land is often used by the old play-writers for an heir. So in Shirley's Conftant Maid, 1640." This lady fhall be lord o'the foil." Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady : "A full caroufe to you, and to my lord of land here.” STEEVENS. VOL. X. B 3 Earth |