As it is Performed at the Theatre-Royal LONDON, M DCC LXIX, T HE chief Defign of the Alterations in the following Play, was to clear the Original as much as poffible from the Jingle and Quibble which were always the Objections to the reviving it. The fudden Change of Romeo's Love from Rofaline to Juliet, was thought by many, at the firft Revival of the Play, to be a blemish in his Character; an Alteration in that particular has been made more in Compliance to that Opinion, than from a Conviction that Shakespear, the best Judge of human Nature, was faulty. Bandello the Italian Novelift, from whom Shakepear has borrow'd the Subject of this Play, bas made Juliet to wake in the Tomb before Romeo dies: This. Circumftance Shakespear has omitted, not, perhaps, from Judgment, but from reading the Story in the French or English Tranflation, both which have in-. judiciously left out this Addition to the Cataftrophe. Otway in his Caius Marius, a Tragedy taken from Romeo and Juliet, has made ufe of this affecting Circumftance, but it is matter of wonder that fo great a dramatic Genius did not work up a Scene from it of more Nature, Terror and Distress Such a Scene was attempted at the Revival of this Play, and it is hop'd, that an endeavour to supply the failure of fo great a Master will not be deem'd arrogant, or the making ufe of two or three of his. introductory Lines, be accounted as a Plagiarism. The Perfons who from their great Good-nature and Love of Juftice have endeavour'd to take away from the prefent Editor the little Merit of this Scene by afcribing it to Otway, have unwittingly, from the Nature of the Accufation, paid him a Compliment which he believes they never intended him.. Dramatis Perfonæ. Mr. Garrick. Mr. Woodward. Mr. W. Vaughan.. Mr, Clough. Abram, Mr. Marr. Mrs. Cibber. Mrs. Bennet. Mrs. Macklin Citizens of Verona, feveral Men and Women The SCENE, in the beginning of the fifth At, is in Mantua during all the rest of ་ ད the Play, in and near Verona, ROMEO |