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Romeo and Juliet.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Sam. Gregory, o' my word, we'll not carry coals.
Greg. No, for then we should be colliers.

We'll not carry coals.] Dr. Warburton very justly observes, that this was a phrase formerly in use to signify the bearing injuries; but, as he has given no instances in support of his declaration, I thought it necessary to subjoin the following:

Nash, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1595, says: "We will bear no coles, I warrant you." So, Skelton:

"

-You, I say, Julian,
"Wyll you beare no coles?"

STEEV.

A quibble on coal, Eng. and colle, Fr. Colle is what we call sham, hum, imposition. "We'll not carry coles," or colles-—i. e. "We'll not be imposed on. We'll not be bamboozled." B.

Rom. Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see path-ways to his will!

To his will!] Sir T. Haumer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read, to his ill. The present reading has some obscurity; the meaning may be, that love finds out means to pursue his desire. That the blind should find paths to ill is no great wonder. JoHN.

"To his will!" The reading of the quarto, 1597, and which Mr. S. would recommend, is unsuitable to the situation and character of Romeo. The text requires no other alteration than that of printing seek in place of "see," and ill for "well."

"Alas! that love, whose view is muffled still,

"Should, without eyes, seek path-ways to his ill.”

i. e. "Alas! that love, who is blind, and who, consequently, should not pursue his way unguided, will yet obstinately do so: by which

he runs into misery-by which he encounters every ill." It is seen that the word seek at once gives force and clearness to the sentiment.

Rom. Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes.

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 urg'd, a fire sparkling. Being excited and inforced. To urge the fire is the technical term. JOHN.

I do not believe that " purg'd" has any reference to smoke. "Being purg'd," is being pure. Love, says the poet, is for the most part as a smoke; but when pure, it is as a fire," &c. B.

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And like her most, whose merit most shall be:
Such, amongst view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Such, amongst view of many, mine, being one,

May stand in number, though in reckoning none.]

The first of these lines I do not understand. The old folio gives no help: the passage is there, "Which one more view." I can offer nothing better than this:

Within your view of many, mine, being one,

May stand in number, &c.

JOHN.

A very slight alteration will restore the clearest sense to this passage, Shakspeare might have written the lines thus:

"Search among view of many: mine, being one,

"May stand in number, though in reckoning none." i. e. "Amongst the many you will view there, search for one that will please you. Chuse out of the multitude." This agrees exactly with what he had already said to him:

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Hear all, all see,

"And like her most, whose merit most shall be."

“My daughter" (he proceeds) "will, it is true, be one of the number, but her beauty can be of no reckoning" (i. e. estimation) "among those whom you will see here." Reckoning for estimation, is used before in this very scene:

"Of honorable reckoning you are both." STEEV.

"Such, among view of many, mine, being one, "May stand in number, tho' in reckoning none." The reading of the text I conceive to be right. "Such" has reference to "merit," in the immediately preceding line. "See all, hear all; you will find at my house many females of merit, and among such [among the many having merit] my daughter may stand in number; though you, perhaps, may take no [reckoning] account of her; some other particularly attracting your notice." There is, apparently, a play on the words number and reckoning, which somewhat obscures the meaning. B.

Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own.

word:

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire.

Tut! dun's the mouse, the constable's own word.] This poor obscure stuff should have an explanation in mere charity. It is an answer to these two lines of Romeo:

For I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase ;—and

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

Mercutio, in his reply, answers the last line first. The thought of which, and of the preceding, is taken from gaming. I'll be a candleholder (says Romeo) and look on. It is true, If I could play myself, I could never expect a fairer chance than in the company we are going to: but, alas! I am done. I have nothing to play with: I have lost my heart already. Mercutio catches at the word done, and quibbles with it, as if Romeo had said, The ladies indeed are fair, but I am dun, i. e. of a dark complexion. And so replies, Tut! dun's the mouse; a proverbial expression of the same import with the French, La nuit tous les chats sont gris: as much as to say, You need not fear, night will make all your complexions alike. And because Romeo had introduced his observations with,

I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase,

Mercutio adds to his reply, the constable's own word as much as to say, If you are for old proverbs, I'll fit you with one; 'tis the constable's own word; whose custom was, when he summoned his watch, and assigned them their several stations, to give them what the soldiers call, the word. But this night-guard being distinguished for their pacific character, the constable, as an emblem of their harmless disposition, chose that domestic animal for his word, which, in time, might become proverbial. WAR. A proverbial saying, used by Mr. Tho. Heywood, in his play entitled The Duchess of Suffolk, act iii.

"A rope for Bishop Bonner, Clunce run,
"Call help, a rope, or we are all undone.
"Draw dun out of the ditch."

Dr. GREY.

Draw dun out of the mire, seems to have been a game. In an old collection of Satyres, Epigrams, &c. I find it enumerated among other pastimes:

"At shove-groate, venter-point, or crosse and pile,
"At leaping o'er a Midsommer bone-fier,

"Or at the drawing dun out of the myer."

"Dun's the mouse,

STEEV.

"If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire." This is very obscure. The passage indeed is so entangled, that' it is scarcely possible to render it intelligible: I will, however, attempt it. In the first place, "Dun's the mouse," is said in allusion to the ordinary color of the mouse. But the quibble rests on the English word mouse, and the. French word mousse, which signifies dull, heavy, stupid. He plays likewise (as Dr. W. observes) on done and dun. Romeo remarks that he is done, or, being in love, that he is done for, as we now express it. Mercutio replies: "To say that you are done is to say that you are dull, or of little wit;" for, he continues, " dun's the mouse," i. e. to be done is the same as to be mousse or dull: a word suited to, or the character

that should be given of a constable. In conformity to this opinion respecting the distinguishing quality of the officer in question, the Poet has sef down among the Dramatis Personæ of one of his plays "DULL, a Constable." " Dun," is a contraction of dunce, or a blockish, stupid character.

To draw dun out of the mire" is a proverbial expression. It means, to draw a man out of trouble, to extricate from difficulties such persons as from want of sense or forecast may have run into them. B.

Mer. O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with She is the fairies' midwife.

O, then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.

you.

She is the FAIRIES' midwife.] Thus begins that admirable speech upon the effects of the imagination in dreams. But, Queen Mab the fairies' unid-wife? What is she then Queen of? Why, the fairies. What! and their midwife too? but this is not the greatest of the absurdities. Let us see upon what occasion she is introduced, and under what quality. It is as a being that has great power over human imagination. But then the title given her must have reference to the employment she is put upon First then, she is called Queen; which is very pertinent, for that designs her power: then she is called the fairies midwife; but what has that to do with the point in hand? If we would think that Shakspeare wrote sense, we must say he wrote the FANCY's midwife; and this is a proper title, as it introduces all that is said afterwards of her vagaries. Besides, it exactly quadrates with these lines:"

-I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasie.

These dreams are begot upon fantasie, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth. And fancy's midwife is a phrase altogether in the manner of our author. WARB.

All the copies (three of which were published in our author's lifetime) concur in reading fairies' midwife, and Dr. Warburton's alteration appears to be quite unnecessary. The fairies' midwife does not mean the midwife to the fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies, whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those children of an idle brain. When we say the king's judges, we do not mean persons who are to judge the king, but persons appointed by him to judge his subjects. STEEV.

"O, then, I see, Queen Mab has been with you.

"She is the fancy's midwife, and she comes

"In shape," &c.

I am of opinion that "midwife" is not the poet's word; and that the commentators, in their attempt at explication, are consequently wrong. I would read:

"O, then, I see, Queen Mab has been with you.

"She is the fairies' missive, and she comes," &c.

"Missive" is not, in this place, messenger simply, and as it is generally understood, but one who has a mission from the fairiesshe, whom the fairies have invested with power; as we now pronounce of the kingly character, that he derived his authority ori

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ginally from the people. There is, morcover, a material objection to "midwife," since it is the function of Mab to fill or impregn the mind in sleep; which impregnation is then called dream or fancy, which is the immediate province or business of nature, of awakened nature, to remove, to take away the load under which the sleeping imagination (if the language be permitted me) may be said to suffer. The mistake, in regard to this expression, has, like mány others in Shakspeare, had its rise as it would seem at the printing-house, and is easily accounted for. The long s has been carelessly turned by the compositor, so as to appear like d in the sheet first thrown off, Mijdive: this " middive," being discovered by him, and the language affording no such word, he sup. posed from the sound that it should be midwife; and he has corrected it as we find in the text.

It will be seen by Warburton's comment, that he had found (as almost every one must do) "fairies' midwife" to be absurd: but "fancy's midwife" mends not the expression in the least. And it will be further seen, by attending more particularly to the Bishop's argument, and when he speaks of the power of Mab as a queen, and of her occupation as a midwife, it will then appear, I say, that "the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning." He runs at the same time into another error in saying, (and in order to prove that Mab is fancy's midwife) "These dreams are begot upon fantasie, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth;" for dreams are not begotten upon fantasie. Dream and fancy are one and the same. This mistake of the learned prelate has arisen from his not having understood the following lines, and which must be pointed thus:

"I talk of dreams,

"Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing: but vain fantasie."

"

The construction is: "Dreams are begotten of nothing: [they are] but vain fantasie!"

B.

1 Serv. Away with the joint stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate.

Court-cupboard.] I am not very certain that I know the exact signification of court-cupboard. Perhaps it is what we call at present the side-board. It is however frequently mentioned in the old plays: so, in a Humorous Day's Mirth, 1599: "shadow these tables with their white veils, and accomplish the court-cupboard." STEEV.

"Court cupboard." This cupboard was made use of in former days as the sideboard is now. This receptacle or stand for plate, China-ware, &c. is still found in certain houses, and is known by the name of buffett. The meaning of the word court, which is here prefixed to it, is: Such buffett or cupboard set out with more than usual splendor for public meetings or rejoicing days. B,

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