Rom. Is the day so young'?
Ben. But new ftruck nine.

Rom. Ah me! sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?

Ben. It was :-What sadness lengthens Romeo's hours?
Rom.Not having that, which, having, makes them short,
Ben. In love?
Rom. Out-
Ben. Of love?
Rom. Out of her favour, where I am in love,

Ben. Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled ftill,
Should, without eyes, see path-ways to his will?!
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 :-
Why then, O brawling love3! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create !

O heavy

* Is tbe day sa young?] i. e. is it so early in the day? The same ex. pression (which might once have been popular) I meet with in Aco. Laftus, a comedy, 1540 : “ It is yet young nygbre, or there is yet much of the nighte to come." STEEVENS.

2-to bis will!] The meaning may be, that love finds out means to pursue his defire. JOHNSON.

It is not unusual for those who are blinded by love to overlook every difficulty that opposes their pursuit. NICHOLS.

This passage seems to have been mi prehended. Benvolio has la. mented that the God of love, who appears so gentle, should be a tyrant. It is no less to be lamented, adds Romeo, that the blind god should yet be able to direct his arrows at those whom he wishes to hit, that he should wound whomever he wills, or defires to wound.

MALONE. The quarto 1597, reads

Should, without laws, give path-ways to our will! This reading is the most intelligible. STEEVENS.

3 Wby oben, 0 brawling love ! &c.] Of these lines neither the senre nor occasion is very evident. He is not yet in love with an enemy; and to love one and hate another is no fuch uncommon state, as can deserve all this toil of antithefis. JOHNSON.

Had Dr. Johnson attended to the letter of invitation in the next scene, he would have found that Rosaline was niece to Capulet.

ANONYMUS.

O heavy lightness ! serious vanity!
Mif-thapen chaos of well-feeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, fick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

Ben. No, coz, I rather weep.
Rom. Good heart, at what ?
Ben. At thy good heart's oppreffion.

Rom. Why, luch is love's transgression --
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast;
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine: this love, that thou hast shown,
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Every sonnetteer characterises love by contratieties. Watson begins one of his canzonets :

66 Love is a lowre delight, a sugred griefe.

« A living death, an ever-dying life,'' &c.
Turberville makes Reason harangue against it in the same manner :

“ A fierie frost, a flame chat frozen is with ise !
“ A heavie burden light to be are ! a vertue fraught with vice !"

&c.
Immediately from the Romaunt of ebe Roje:

“ Love it is an hatefuil pees,
" A free aquitaunce without reles,
« An beavie burtben light to beare,
" A wicked wawe awaie to weare :
“ And health full of maladie,
“ And charitie full of envie ;--
“ A laughter that is weping aie,

« Rest that trauaileth night and daie," &c. This kind of antithesis was very much the taste of the Provençal and Italian poets ; perhaps it might be hinted by the ode of Sappho prea lerved by Longinus. Petrarch is full of it:

óPace non trcvo, c non ho da far guerra,
" E temo, e spero, e ardo, e con un ghiaccio,
« E volo sopra'l cielo, e ghiaccio in terra,

" E nulla ftringo, e tut!o'l mondo abbraccio," Son. 105. Sir Tho. Wyat gives a translation of this sonnet, without any notice of the original, under the title of “ Description of ibe contraricus Pallions in a Louer," amongst the Songes and Sonnentes, by the Earle of Surrey, and others, 1574.

FARMER. 4 Wby, fucb is love's transgreffionem] Such is the consequence of unskilful and mistaken kindness, JOHNSON.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of fighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyess;
Being vex'd', a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewel, my coz.

[goingi
Ben. Soft, I will go along;
An if

you

leave me so, you do me wrong.
Rom. Tut, I have lost myself; I am not here ;
This is not Romeo, he's some other where.

Ben. Tell me in sadness?, who she is you love.
Rom. What, shall I groans and tell thee?

Ben. Groan? why, no;
But sadly tell me, who.

Rom. Bid a fick man in sadness make his will:
Ah, word ill urg'd to one that is so ill!-
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

Ben. I aim'd so near, when I suppos’d you lov’d.
Rom. A right good marks-man! And she's fair /

love.
Ben. A right fair mark, fair coz, is foonest hit.

Rom. Well, in that hit, you miss: she'll not be hit.
With Cupid's arrow, she hath Dian's wit;
And, in firong proof of chastity well arm'ds,

From

3

5 Being purgid, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;] The authour 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 urg'd, a fire sparkling, Being excited and inforced. To urge the fire is the technical term. JOHNSON.

6 Being vex'd, &c.] As this line stands fagie, it is likely that the foregoing or following line that rhymed to it is loft. Johnson.

It does not seem necessary to suppose any line loft. in the former speech about love's contrarieties, there are several lines which have no other to rhime with them; as also in the following, about Rosaline's chastity. STEEVENS.

7 Tell me in sadness,] That is, tell me gravely, tell me ia serious*ifs. JOHNSON See Vol. II. p. 223, n. 1. MALONE.

8 And, in ftrong proof of cbaftiry well arm’d, &c.] As this play was written in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, I cannot help regarding there speeches of Romeo as an oblique compliment to ber majesty, who was

Vo. X

not

From love's weak childish bow she lives unharm's.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms',
Nor bide the encounter of affailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to faint-feducing gold :
0, she is rich in beauty; only poor,
That, when the dies, with beauty dies her store'.
Ben. Then the hath sworn, that she will still live

chaíte? not liable to be displeased at hearing her chastity praised after the was suspected to have lost it, or her beauty commended in the 67th year of her age, though the never pofletted any when the was young. Her declaration that he would continue unmarried, increases the probability of the present supposition. STILVENS. -- inftrong proof-] In chasity of proof; as we sayin armour of proof.

JOHNSON. 9 Sbe will not say obe siege of loving terms] So, in our authour's Venus and Adonis :

“ Remove your fiege from my unyielding heart;

“ To loves alarm it will not ope the gate." MALONE. <!--witb beauty dies ber fore.] Mr. Theobald reads, “Witb her dies beauty's flore;” and is followed by the two succeeding editors. I have replaced the old reading, because I think it at least as plaufible 23 the correction. Sbe is ricb, fays he, in beauty, and only poor in being subject to the lot of humanity, that ber froreor riches, can be deftroyed by dealb, who hall, by the same blow, put an end to beauty.

JOHNSON. Words are sometimes shuffled out of their places at the press; but that they should be at once transposed and corrupted, is highly impro. bable. I have no doubt that the old copies are right. She is ricb in beau. ty; and poor in this circumstance alone, that with her, beauty will expire; her store of wealth which the poet has already said was the fairness of her person,) will not be transmitted to pofterity, inasmuch as the will “ lead her graces to the grave, and leave the world no copy," MALONE.

Theobald's alteration may be countenanced by the following pallage 'in Swetnam Arraign'd, a comedy, 1620 :

" Nature now shall boatt no more
« Of the riches of her store;
« Since, in this her chiefest prize,

" All the stock of beauty dies." Again, in the 14th Sonnet of Shakspeare :

“ Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date." Again, in Maltinger's Virgin-Martyr :

Rom. She hath, and in that sparing makes huge

waste;
For beauty, Itary'd with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity 3.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair:
She hath forsworn to love ; and, in that vow,
Do I live dead”, that live to tell it now,

Ben. Be ruld by me, forget to think of her.
Rom. O, teach me how I ihould forget to think.

Ben. By giving liberty unto thine eyes ;
Examine other beauties,

Rom. 'Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more 6 :
These happy maks?, that kiss fair ladies' brows,

2 Sbe barb, and in rbar sparing makes bage waste ;] So, in our au thour's First Sonnet :

“ And, tender churl, mak'st wasle in niggarding." MALONI. 3 For beauty, fiaro'd with ber severity,

Curs beauty of from all pojterity. ] So, in our authour's Third Sonnet :

" Or who is he lo fond will be the tomb

“ Of his self-love, to fop pofterity ?" Again, in his Venus and Adonis :

“ What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
" Seeming to bury that pofterity,
• Which by the righus of time thou needs must have"

MALONE. -wisely too fair, &c.] There is in her too much fanctimonious wisdom united with beauty, which induces her to continue chaste with the hopes of attaining heavenly bliss. MALONE.

None of the followiag speeches of this scene are in the first edition of 1597. POPE. s Do I live dead,] Sp Richard the Third :

- now they kill me with a living dearb." Sec Vol. VI. p. 467, n. 7.

MALONE. 5 in question more.] More into talk; to make her unparalleled beauty more the subject of thought and conversation. See Vol. Ill. p. 77, n. 2. MALONE.

1 These bappy masks, &c.] i. e. the masks worn by female spectators of the play. Former editors print those instead of chefe, but without authority. STEEVENS.

These happy masks, I believe, means no more than be happy masks. Such is Mr, Tyrwhite's opinion. See Vol. II. p. 53, n. S. MALONE, C2

Being