27. The earth, &c.

This line is not in the first copy; and in the quarto, 1609, it runs thus:

"Earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she."

The second folio has,

"" Earth up hath swallowed," &c. Perhaps we should read,

"Earth hath up-swallowed," &c.

28. “Earth-treading stars, that make dark heaven light."

This, I believe, is the true reading-the stars in the heavens commonly illuminate the dark earth, but now these earthly stars are to perform that office for the dark heavens. To support Mr. Monk Mason's emendation, and justify his meaning, "earthly stars that outshine the stars of heaven," it would be necessary that we should read, for "light," lights.

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30. May stand in number, though in reckoning none.

I believe a double meaning, here, is assigned to "reckoning," estimation, and the act or condition of being counted.

SCENE III.

37. "What is your will?”

My will would remove this useless hemistic. 40, "It is an honour that I dream not of."

"Houre" or "houer," the reading of the folio,

and of the second quarto, is, perhaps, right—it is an occasion, a period that I have not yet turned my thoughts to.-Juliet, in her present state of mind, would neither regard marriage as any honour really, nor term it so sarcastically; and as to the reply of the nurse, if any consistency could be expected in her responses; "hour" seems at least as applicable as "honour"-hour! cries she, your wit or understanding is not of an hour's date, it was born with you, and attended you in the cradle." Hour," for "occasion," occurs in Macbeth:

"Time and the hour runs through the roughest day."

41. "Examine every married lineament.”

"Married" is certainly right; and is rightly explained by Mr. Steevens; it means suitable, accordant, adapted to each other; thus Milton: They led the vine

"To wed her elm; she, spous'd, about him twines "Her marriageable arms.'

Paradise Lost, Book V.

43. "The fish lives in the sea," &c.

These silly conceits, which are not in the first quarto, and probably were never Shakspeare's, are hardly worth a comment, but I suppose the meaning, such as it is, to be this: Lady Capulet has called Paris a book, a book that has "an explanatory margin," and is every way complete, except that "it lacks a cover," which cover is to be Juliet, enclosing and binding him in wedlock; and, as that crystal fluid the sea is observed to improve the beauty of the fish which swims in it, so, says she, will you have the praise and the ho

nour that belongs to you, as clasping and enfolding the excellence of Paris; and that excellence itself will become more conspicuous in being adorned by the graces which you will give it.

"But no more deep will I endart mine eye, "Than your consent gives strength to make it fly."

This is very obscurely expressed: I believe all that Juliet means is, I shall look upon him with no more earnestness of attention than is merely my obedience to your desire.

SCENE IV.

47. "So stakes me to the ground," &c.

The twelve lines following, added since the first quarto, would, perhaps, be better omitted.

49.

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I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,

"I'll be a candle-holder, and look on."

This old proverb is the maxim to which I will adhere.

56. "Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners legs."

Here is a nominative case without a verb:the first quarto gives the line thus:

"Her waggon-spokes are made of spinners' webs." We should read:

"Her waggon-spokes are made of spinners' legs.' Again:

"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. - Ladies, that have their toes

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Unplagu'd with corns."

What induced Mr. Pope to insert feet, in the