Remains,' vol. ii., p. 174.)-Shakspere has himself given us the key to his philosophy of presentiments. Venus, dreading the death of Adonis by the boar, says—

"The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed;

And fear doth teach it divination;

I prophesy thy death."

Such presentiments, which may or may not be realised, appertain to the imagination when in a highly excited state. Our poet has exhibited the feeling under three different aspects in Romeo and Juliet;' when Romeo, before going to the mas

querade, exclaims

My mind misgives

Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels"

he is under the influence of his habitual melancholy,—-the sentiment of unrequited love, which colours all his imagination with a gloomy foreshadowing of coming In the passage before us, when Juliet sees her husband

events.

"As one dead in the bottom of a tomb,"

we have "the fear" which doth "teach" her heart "divination." But Romeo, in the fifth act, has a presentiment directly contrary to the approaching catastrophe ; and this arises out of his "unaccustomed " animal spirits :

66 My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne."

All these states of mind are common to the imagination deeply stirred by passionate emotions. Nothing, in all Shakspere's philosophy, appears to us finer than the deceiving nature of Romeo's presages in the last act, as compared with the truedivining fears of Juliet.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.-Friar Laurence's Cell.

Enter Friar LAURENCE and PARIS.

Fri. On Thursday, sir? the time is very short.
Par. My father Capulet will have it so:
And I am nothing slow, to slack his haste.a

Fri. You say, you do not know the lady's mind;
Uneven is the course, I like it not.

Par. Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt's death,
And therefore have I little talk'd of love:
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous,
That she doth give her sorrow so much
And, in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears;
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society:

sway;

Now do you know the reason of this haste.

Fri. I would I knew not why it should be slow'd. [Aside. Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

Enter JULIET.

Par. Happily met, my lady, and my wife!

Jul. That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

Par. That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

Jul. What must be shall be.

Fri.

That's a certain text.

Par. Come you to make confession to this father?

a In (4) the passage is

"And I am nothing slack to slow his haste." Jackson conjectures that the to of all the editions should be too.

is obvious as it stands :

"I am nothing slow, (so as) to slack his haste."

But the meaning

Jul. To answer that, I should confess to you.
Par. Do not deny to him, that you love me.
Jul. I will confess to you, that I love him.
Par. So will you, I am sure, that you love me.
Jul. If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.
Par. Poor soul, thy face is much abus'd with tears.
Jul. The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough, before their spite.

Par. Thou wrong'st it, more than tears, with that report.
Jul. That is no slander, sir, which is a truth;

And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

Par. Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander'd it.

Jul. It may be so, for it is not mine own.—

Are you at leisure, holy father, now;

Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

Fri. My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now :— My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

Par. God shield I should disturb devotion !—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse you:
Till then, adieu! and keep this holy kiss.

[Exit PARIS.

Jul. O, shut the door! and when thou hast done so, Come weep with me: Past hope, past care, past help! Fri. O Juliet, I already know thy grief;

It strains me past the compass of my wits:

I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,

On Thursday next be married to this county.

Jul. Tell me not, friar, that thou hear'st of this, Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:

If, in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,

Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I'll help it presently.

God join'd my heart and Romeo's, thou our hands ;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo seal'd,
Shall be the labe to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both:
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc'd time,a

a Nine lines, ending with this, are not in (4).

Give me some present counsel; or, behold,
'Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the umpire; arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak; I long to die,
If what thou speak'st speak not of remedy.

Fri. Hold, daughter; I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry county Paris,
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop'st with death himself to 'scape from it;
And, if thou dar'st, I'll give thee remedy.

a

Jul. O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower;
Or walk in thievish ways; or bid me lurk
Where serpents are; chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,

O'er-cover'd quite with dead men's rattling bones,
With reeky shanks, and yellow chapless skulls;
Or bid me go
into a new-made grave,

And hide me with a dead man in his shroud ; b
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble;
And I will do it without fear or doubt,

To live an unstain'd wife to my sweet love.

Fri. Hold, then; go home, be merry, give consent To marry Paris: Wednesday is to-morrow;

To-morrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:
Take thou this phial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off:
When, presently, through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse

a In (A), yonder; in (C) and folio, any.

b In (D), shroud; in folio, grave.

Shall keep his native

progress,

but surcease.a

No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou livest;
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly bashes; thy eyes' windows fall,
Like death, when he shuts up the day of life;
Each part, depriv'd of supple government,
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold, appear like death :
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.

C

Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead :
Then (as the manner of our country is)
In thy best robes, uncover'd, on the bier,'
Be borne to burial in thy kindreds' grave,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault,
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the mean time, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift;
And hither shall he come; and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night

Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.

And this shall free thee from this present shame;
If no inconstant toy, nor womanish fear,

Abate thy valour in the acting it.

a

Jul. Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear.

Fri. Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous

· (4) gives this passage thus:

"A dull and heavy slumber, which shall seize

Each vital spirit; for no pulse shall keep

His natural progress, but surcease to beat."

We give the text of (C) and the folio. This speech of the friar, in the author's “ amended ” edition (B), is elaborated from thirteen lines to thirty-three; and yet the modern editors have been bold enough, even here, to give us a text made up of Shakspere's first thoughts and his last.

b In (D), paly; in (C), many.

c This line, which is in all the ancient copies, has been left out in all the modern. The editors have here gone far beyond their office;-nor can we understand why the more particular working out of the idea in the next two lines should have given them offence. "Be borne," means "to be borne."

d And he and I will watch thy waking, is omitted in the folio, but is found in (C).