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"Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wished

Thou shouldst be colored thus."-Act V., Scene 1.

The handkerchief spoken of is the token of Imogen's death, which Pisanio, in the foregoing Act, determined to send to Posthumus.This is a soliloquy of nature, uttered when the effervescence of a mind agitated, and perturbed, spontaneously and inadvertently discharges itself in words. The speech, throughout all its tenor, if the last conceit be excepted, seems to issue warm from the heart. He first condemns his own violence; then tries to disburden himself, by imputing part of the crime to Pisanio; he next soothes his mind to an artificial and momentary tranquillity, by trying to think that he has been only an instrument of the gods for the happiness of Imogen. He is now grown reasonable enough to determine that, having done so much evil, he will do no more; that he will not fight against the country which he has already injured; but, as life is not longer supportable, he will die in a just cause, and die with the obscurity of a man who does not think himself worthy to be remembered.-JOHN

SON.

"You some permit

To second ills with ills, each elder worse;

And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift."

Act V., Scene 1.

The passage stands thus, as amended in the folio, 1632:

"You some permit

To second ills with ills, each later worse,
And make men dread it, to the doer's thrift."
"Athwart the lane,

He, with two striplings (lads more like to run
The country base than to commit such slaughter.)"
Act. V., Scene 3.

This stoppage of the Roman army by three persons is probably an allusion to the story of the Hays, as related by Holinshed, in his "HISTORY OF SCOTLAND: "—

"There was, near to the place of the battle, a long lane, fenced on the sides with ditches and walls made of turf, through the which the Scots which fled were beaten down by the enemies on heaps. Here Hay, with his sons, supposing they might best stay the flight, placed themselves overthwart the lane, beat them back whom they met fleeing, and spared neither friend nor foe, but down they went all such as came within their reach; wherewith divers hardy personages cried unto their fellows to return back unto the battle."

"JUPITER descends in thunder and lightning."- Act V., Scene 4. It appears from "ACOLASTUS," a comody by T. Palsgrave, chaplain to King Henry VIII. (bl. 1. 1540), that the descent of deities was common to our stage in its earliest state:-"Of which the like thing is used to be shewed now-a-days in stage-plays, when some god or some saint is made to appear forth of a cloud, and succoreth the parties which seemed to be towards some great danger through the Soudan's cruelty."

consequently, to speak the language of more simple olden time, and their voices ought also to appear as a feeble sound of wailing, when contrasted with the thundering oracular language of Jupiter. For this reason, Shakspeare chose a syllabic measure, which was very common before his time, but which was then getting out of fashion, though it still continued to be frequently used, especially in transla tions of classical poets. In some such manner might the shades express themselves in the then existing translations of Homer and Vir gil. The speech of Jupiter is, on the other hand, majestic; and in form and style bears a complete resemblance to the Sonnets of Shakspeare."

"Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock; and now
Throw me again.”— Act V., Scene 5.

On this little loving incident a pleasant comment has been written by Mr. Pye:-"Imogen comes up to Posthumus, as soon as she knows that the error is cleared up; and, hanging fondly on him, says (not as upbraiding him, but with kindness and good-humor) 'How could you treat your wife thus?'-in that endearing tone which most readers who are fathers and husbands will understand, who will add poor to wife. She then adds, 'Now you know who I am, suppose we were on the edge of a precipice, and throw me from you:'—meaning, in the same endearing irony, to say, 'I am sure it is as impossible for you to be intentionally unkind to me, as it is for you to kill me.' Perhaps some very wise persons may smile at part of this note: but however much black-letter books may be necessary to elucidate Shakspeare, there are others which require some acquaintance with those familiar pages of the book of nature,

"Which learning may not understand,
And wisdom may disdain to hear."

Something approaching to an adequate eulogy is also given by Schlegel to the general merits of "CYMBELINE." He pronounces it to be "one of Shakspeare's most wonderful compositions, in which the Poet has contrived to blend together, into one harmonious whole, the social manners of the latest times with heroic deeds, and even with appearances of the gods. In the character of Imogen not a feature of female excellence is forgotten: - her chaste tenderness, her softness, and her virgin pride; her boundless resignation, and her magnanimity towards her mistaken husband, by whom she is unjustly persecuted; her adventures in disguise, her apparent death, and her recovery,- form altogether a picture equally tender and affecting.

"The two princes, Guiderius and Arviragus, both educated in the wilds, form a noble contrast to Miranda and Perdita. In these two young men, to whom the chase has imparted vigor and hardihood, but who are unacquainted with their high destination, and have always been kept far from human society, we are enchanted by a naive heroism, which leads them to anticipate and to dream of deeds of valor, till an occasion is offered which they are irresistibly impelled to embrace. When Imogen comes in disguise to their cave; when Guiderius and Arviragus form an impassioned friendship, with all the innocence of childhood, for the tender boy (in whom they neither suspect a female nor their own sister); when, on returning from the chase, they find her dead, sing her to the ground, and cover the grave with flowers; - these scenes might give a new life for poetry to the most deadened imagination.

In reference to this scene of the apparitions, Schlegel ingeniously reasons thus: "Pope, as is well known, was strongly disposed to declare whole scenes to be interpolations of the players; but his opinions were not much listened to. However, Steevens still accedes to the opinion of Pope, respecting the apparition of the ghosts and of Jupiter in Cymbeline, while Posthumus is sleeping in the dungeon. But Posthumus finds, on waking, a tablet on his breast, with a prophecy on which the denouement of the piece depends. Is it to be imagined that Shakspeare would require of his spectators the belief in a wonder without a visible cause? Is Posthumus to dream this tablet with the prophecy? But these gentlemen do not descend to this objection. The verses which the apparitions deliver do not appear to them good enough to be Shakspeare's. I imagine I can dis-erwise; -the false and wicked Queen is merely an instrument of the cover why the Poet has not given them more of the splendor of diction. They are the aged parents and brothers of Posthumus, who, from concern for his fate, return from the world below: they ought,

"The wise and virtuous Belarius, who, after living long as a hermit, again becomes a hero, is a venerable figure; — the dexterous dissimulation and quick presence of mind of the Italian, Iachimo, is quite suitable to the bold treachery he plays;-Cymbeline, the father of Imogen (and even her husband, Posthumus), during the first half of the piece, are somewhat sacrificed, but this could not be oth

plot; she and her stupid son Cloten, whose rude arrogance is portrayed with much humor, are got rid of, by merited punishment, before the conclusion."

ROMEO AND JULIET.

troductory Remarks

LOVE, the universal inspirer of poetry and enthusiasm, has found in the young, impassioned Capulet and Montague, the truest exponents of his divinest and profoundest oracles. Their names are identified with his purest, most fervid worship; and "Juliet and her Romeo" can never die while sympathy controls the youthful heart, or glorious intellect asserts its genial sway o'er all mankind. Victims to the senseless feuds of their families, the lovers perish like twin roses in a tempest; but the memory of their transient passion, their keen delights and keener agonies, embalmed in Shakspeare's verse, is destined to flourish, fragrant and immortal.

To relieve the weight of woe that this sad tale of blighted love is calculated to engender, the generous Poet, pursuing his usual plan of shewing human life in all its phases, has conjured up the sprightly antidote, Mercutio: "a fellow" certainly "of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;" but, unluckily, as ready for a fray as even the fiery and brutal Tybalt. Their encounter is the bitter spring from whence flow Romeo's banishment, and all the suffering of the gentle, hapless pair: - even as the harmless, glittering pinnace, freighted with joy and beauty, perishes by a random shot, from its unsought proximity to two contending burly ships of war. - Peace, however, to the brave Mercutio: he meets his early fate with characteristic gaiety; and remembering his riotous spirits, and glowing picture of Queen Mab, it is impossible to think of him as "a grave man," despite his own prediction to the contrary.

The Friar, like others of his profession, as delineated by Shakspeare, presents a grateful relief to the perturbed and clashing elements at work around him. He looks with compassionate interest on the woes and contentions of active life, its fierce and feverish alternations, from which the rules of his order, and his own calm good sense, alike contribute to secure himself. The freshness of innocence and early day seems odorous to the moral sense, in the cell soliloquy, when, in his own sweet phrase,

"The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Checkering the eastern clouds with streaks of light," -

And the benevolent Friar goes forth to moralize, and to collect his medicinal herbs and precious flowers,

"Now ere the sun advance his burning eye,

The day to cheer, and night's dank dew to dry."

In the Nurse, we have an instance of the falseness of those conventional and stilted notions that would confine the language of tragedy to eminent persons and sounding rhythm. The garrulity and coarseness of this ignorant, half-kind, half-selfish old crone, bring out with double force the grace and purity that wait on Juliet. The numerous other subordinate characters of the drama, are all essential to the plot, and, whether grave or gay, are invariably supported with unflagging spirit.

There were several separate editions of "ROMEO AND JULIET," previous to its appearance in the original folio. The first was published in 1597, with this title: " An excellent conceited Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet. As it hath been often (with great applause) plaid publiquely by the Right Hon. the L. of Hunsdon his seruants." The second edition appeared in 1599, "Newly corrected, augmented, and amended." There were also three other separate editions, all mainly founded on that of 1599. In addition to these strongest evidences of public liking, a passage in Marston's tenth satire (1599) tends to shew that the play at once acquired that unbounded popularity which has ever since attended it:

"Luscus, what's played to-night?-I' faith, now I know:

I see thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow
Nought but pure Juliet and Romeo."

Lord Byron states that, "Of the truth of Juliet's story, they," the Veronese, "seem tenacious to a degree; insisting on the fact, giving a date (1303), and shewing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves."-Some mention will be found in the Notes, of the various sources from which the Poet derived suggestions for the plot of this great effort of dramatic genius.

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