Some—Juliet, and some-Paris; and all run,
With open outcry, toward our monument.

Prince. What fear is this, which startles in your ears?

1 Watch. Sovereign, here lies the county Paris slain; And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Warm and new kill'd. Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murther

comes. 1 Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man; With instruments upon them, fit to open These dead men's tombs.

Cap. O, Heaven !—0, wife! look how our daughter bleeds! This dagger hath mista’en,-for, lo! his house Is empty on the back of Montague, – And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.

La. Cap. O me! this sight of death is as a bell, That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

Enter MONTAGUE and others.
Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir now early down.

Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night;
Grief of my son's exile bath stopp'd her breath:
What further woe conspires against my age?

Prince. Look, and thou shalt see.
Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave ?

Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent ;
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death : Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.-
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

Fri. I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murther;

And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus’d.

Prince. Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

Fri. I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,
And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife:
I married them; and their stolen marriage-day
Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d and would have married her perforce
To county Paris :—Then comes she to me;
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or, in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor'd by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death : meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow'd grave,
Being the time the potion's force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, friar John,
Was stay'd by accident; and yesternight
Return’d my letter back : Then all alone,
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred's vault;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo :
But when I came (some minute ere the time
Of her awaking), here untimely lay
The noble Paris, and true Romeo, dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of Heaven with patience :
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But (as it seems) did violence on herself.

All this I know ; and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy : And, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific'd, some hour before the time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man.-
Where 's Romeo's man? what can he say to this?

Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death;
And then in post he came from Mantua,
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father;
And threaten'd me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

Prince. Give me the letter, I will look on it.-
Where is the county's page, that rais'd the watch ?-
Sirrah, what made your master in this place ?

Page. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave; And bid me stand aloof, and so I did : Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb; And, by and by, my master drew on him ; And then I ran away to call the watch.

Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death;
And here he writes—that he did buy a poison
Of a poor 'pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet! Montague !-
See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen :-all are punish'd.

Cap. O, brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter's jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

Mon. But I can give thee more:
For I will raise her statue in pure gold;
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at that rate be set,
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Cap. As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity!
Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun for sorrow will not show his head :
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished : 3
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

[Exeunt.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF ACT V.

SCENE 1.-“ Mantua." To the poetical traveller it would be difficult to say whether Mantua would excite the greater interest as the birthplace of Virgil or as the scene of Romeo's exile. Surely, an Englishman cannot walk through the streets of that city without thinking of the apothecary in whose

“ needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-shap'd fishes; and about his shelves

A beggarly account of empty boxes." Any description of the historical events connected with Mantua, or any account of its architectural monuments, would be here out of place.

Scene I._“I do remember an apothecary.” The criticism of the French school has not spared this famous passage. Joseph Warton, an elegant scholar, but who belonged to this school, has the following observations in his · Virgil' (1763, vol. i., p. 301):

“ It may not be improper to produce the following glaring instance of the absurdity of introducing long and minute descriptions into tragedy. When Romeo receives the dreadful and unexpected news of Juliet's death, this fond husband, in an agony of grief, immediately resolves to poison himself. But his sorrow is interrupted, while he gives us an exact picture of the apothecary's shop from whom he intended to purchase the poison :

• I do remember an apothecary,' &c. I appeal to those who know anything of the human heart, whether Romeo, in this distressful situation, could have leisure to think of the alligator, empty boxes, and bladders, and other furniture of this beggarly shop, and to point them out so distinctly to the audience. The description is, indeed, very lively and natural, but very improperly put into the mouth of a person agitated with such passion as Romeo is represented to be.”

The criticism of Warton, ingenious as it may appear, and true as applied to many “ long and minute descriptions in tragedy," is here based upon a wrong principle. He says that Romeo, in his distressful situation, had not “ leisure " to think of the furniture of the apothecary's shop. What then had he leisure to do? Had he leisure to run off into declamations against fate, and into tedious apostrophes and generalizations, as a less skilful artist than Shakspere would have made him indulge in? From the moment he had said,

“ Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night,

Let's see for means," the apothecary's shop became to him the object of the most intense interest. Great passions, when they have shaped themselves into firm resolves, attach the most distinct importance to the minutest objects connected with the execution of their purpose. He had seen the apothecary's shop in his placid moments as an object of common curiosity. He had hastily looked at the tortoise and the alligator, the empty boxes, and the earthen pots; and he had looked at the tattered weeds and the overwhelming brows of their needy owner. But he had also said, when he first saw these things,