The traces of another hand than Shakespeare's that have attracted my attention in the earlier version of this play are not many, but they seem to me quite unmistakable. The first that I noticed is the entire sixth Scene of Act II., a part of which I have already referred to. In the quarto of 1597 this Scene appears as follows. It will be observed that the variations from the later version are of the most material nature; or, rather, that the whole Scene was rewritten, and but a few lines of the earlier version were retained.

"Rom. Now father Lawrence, in thy holy grant Consists the good of me and Juliet.

Fr. Without more words I will doo all I may,

To make you happie if in me it lye.

Rom. This morning here she pointed we should meet,
And consumate those neuer parting bands,

Witnes of our harts love by ioyning hands,
And come she will.

Fr. I gesse she will indeed,

Youths love is quicke, swifter than swiftest speed.

Enter Iuliet somewhat fast, and embraceth Romeo.

See where she comes.

So light of foote nere hurts the troden flower:
Of love and ioy, see see the soueraigne power.

Rom. My Iuliet welcome. As doo waking eyes (Cloased in Nights mysts) attend the frolicke Day, So Romeo hath expected Juliet,

And thou art come.

Jul. I am (if I be Day)

Come to my Sunne: shine foorth, and make me faire.

Rom.

Jul.

All beauteous fairnes dwelleth in thine eyes.

Romeo from thine all brightnes doth arise.

Fr. Come wantons, come, the stealing houres do passe. Defer imbracements till some fitter time,

Part for a while, you shall not be alone,

Till holy Church have joynd ye both in one.

Rom.

Jul.

Lead holy Father, all delay seemes long.

Make hast, make hast, this lingring doth vs wrong. Fr. O, soft and faire makes sweetest worke they say. Hast is a common hindrer in crosse way."

The change made upon the revision was not in all respects for the better. In the Friar's second speech the line,

"So light a foot ne'er hurts the trodden flower,"

contains a daintier and more graceful, and therefore, it would seem, a more appropriate, figure than

"so light a foot

Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint,"

although the three lines that follow these last have a fancy and a rhythm peculiarly Shakespearian; and, again, Juliet's reply — "I am, if I be day,

Come to my sun shine forth, and make me fair"

has a touch of poetry more exquisite and more dramatic than is to be found in the rewritten Scene, which, unmistakably Shakespeare's, is not of Shakespeare's best. Of the remainder of this Scene those passages which are printed above in italic letter will, I think, hardly be attributed to Shakespeare at any period of his career, by readers of discrimination who are well acquainted with his works and those of his elder contemporaries. They are too tame, feeble, and formal, both in rhythm and sense, to have ever been written by him for the stage. Another passage which seems to be not of a piece with the body of the play is the following, from the fifth Scene of Act IV.:

"Par. Haue I thought long to see this mornings face

And doth it now present such prodegies?

Accurst, vnhappy, miserable man,

Forlorne, forsaken, destitute I am :

Borne to the world to be a slaue in it.
Distrest, remediles and unfortunate.
O heavens O nature, wherefore did
To liue so vile, so wretched as I shall.

you

make me,

Cap. O heere she lies that was our hope, our ioy,

And being dead, dead sorrow nips vs all.

All cry.

And all our joy, and all our hope is dead,
Dead, lost, undone, absented, wholly fled.
Cap. Cruel, vnjust, impartiall destinies,
Why to this day have you preseru'd my life?
To see my hope, my stay, my ioy, my life,
Depriude of sence, of life, of all by death,
Cruell, vnjust, impartiall destinies.

Cap. O sad fac'd sorrow map of misery,
Why this sad time have I desird to see.
This day, this vniust, this impartiall day
Wherein I hop'd to see my comfort full,
To be depriude by suddaine destinie.

Moth.

O woe, alacke, distrest, why should I live?

To see this day, this miserable day.

Alacke the time that euer I was borne.

To be partaker of this destinie.

Alacke the day, alacke and welladay."

Here again the entire passage was rewritten for the second version, the order of the speeches changed, and the respective prominence of the characters in the Scene modified. But, although a hint was plainly taken from the old version for an antiphonal expression of woe which should caricature the style in which the poets in vogue in Shakespeare's boyhood wrote such scenes, (the shallow natures, formal habits, and conventional notions of the characters upon the stage in this Scene affording the dramatist an opportunity for such a caricature without violation of dramatic propriety,) yet the purposely commonplace character of the lamentations in the later version seems to me not plainer than that the bathos of the earlier is the result of a hopeless and ambitious flight at lofty sentiment. In this passage also the lines in italic letter cannot be accepted as the fruits even of Shakespeare's earliest dramatic years.

There are various other passages in which I think that I detect here and there the vestiges of a predecessor of our author; but I shall notice only two others, and they are of a different character from those that I have cited above. In Act V. Scene 3 we find this passage in the quarto of 1597:

"Enter Fryer with a Lanthorne.

How oft to night haue these my aged feete
Stumbled at graues as I did passe along.
Whose there?

Man. A frend and one that knowes you well.
Fr. Who is it that consorts so late the dead,

What light is yon? if I be not deceiued,
Me thinks it burnes in Capels monument?

Man. It doth so, holy Sir, and there is one
That loves you dearly.

Man.

Full halfe an houre and more.

Fr. Goe with me thether.

Man. I dare not sir, he knowes not I am heere:
On paine of death he chargde me to be gone,
And not for to disturbe him in his enterprize.
Fr. Then must I goe: my minde presageth ill.

Fryer stoops and lookes on the blood and weapons.

What bloud is this that staines the entrance

Of this marble stony monument?

What meanes these maisterles and goory weapons?
Ah me I doubt, whose heere? what Romeo dead?
Who and Paris too? what vnluckie houre

Is accessary to so foule a sinne ?

The Lady sturres."

A comparison of these lines with those which correspond to them in the authentic text will make it clear, I think, to any

For the convenience of the reader they are here given.

"Fri. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? - Who's there?
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well.
Fri. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond' that vainly lends his light

To grubs and eyeless sculls? As I discern,

It burneth in the Capels' monument.

Bal. It doth so holy sir; and there's my master,
One that you love.

Fri.

Bal.

Fri. How long hath he been there?
Bal.

Who is it?

Romeo.

Full half an hour.

I dare not, sir:

Fri. Go with me to the vault.
Bal.

My master knows not, but I am gone hence,

And fearfully did menace me with death,

If I did stay to look on his intents.

Fri. Stay then, I'll go alone; - Fear comes upon me:

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

Bal. As I did sleep under this yew-tree here,

I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

Fri.

Romeo? [Advances.

Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains

The stony entrance of this sepulchre? -
What mean these masterless and gory swords

To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the Monument.
Romeo! O, pale! Who else? what, Paris too?

student of this subject that the former are merely an imperfect and garbled presentation of the latter. The first compared with the second seems as fair water might seem after it had passed through some medium which absorbed part of it and fouled the rest. The other passage, and the last that I shall notice, is the following, from the Friar's confession in the last Scene of the tragedy.

"But he that had my Letters (Frier John)

Seeking a Brother to associate him,
Whereas the sicke infection remaind
Was stayed by the Searchers of the Towne,
But Romeo vnderstanding by his man
That Iuliet was deceasde, returnde in post
Unto Verona for to see his love.

What after happened touching Paris death,
Or Romeos is to me vnknowne at all.
But, when I came to take the Lady hence,

I found them dead, and she awakt from sleep:
Whom faine I would have taken from the tombe,

Which she refused seeing Romeo dead."

*

It is quite possible that these lines were a part of the Friar's speech as it was first written; for the speech was plainly enough rewritten for the revised version of the play. But, if they were a part of the original speech, that speech was very surely not written by Shakespeare; as every reader who sympathizes with my appreciation of Shakespeare's flow of thought and verse will at once decide. They seem to me, however, to be different in kind from the rest of the speech in the quarto of 1597, as well as inferior to it; while that speech, as a whole, is decidedly inferior to its counterpart in the corrected and augmented quarto of 1599. These two passages last cited appear to be the production of some verse-monger who attempted to supply deficiencies in the copy surreptitiously procured for the publisher of the first quarto. In the attempt to decide questions of this kind, opinion must, of necessity, seem arbitrary, perhaps be so. A signature is pronounced to be a forgery because, in the opinion of an

And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour

Is guilty of this lamentable chance!

The lady stirs.

[Juliet wakes and stirs."

The entire speech as it appears in the quarto of 1597 will be found in the Notes to this edition.