What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young fon, it argues a ditemper'd head,
So foon to bid good morrow to thy bed :
Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brains
Doth couch is limbs, there golden sleep doth reign;
Therefore my earliness doth me affure,
Thou art up-rous'd by some distemp'rature;
Or if not to, then here I hit it right-
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Rom. That last is true, the sweeter reit was mine,
Fri. God pardon fin! waft thou with Rosaline?

Rom. With Rosaline, my ghostly father? no;.
I have forgot that name, and that name's woe.
Fri. That's my good son: But where haft thou been

then?
Rom. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again,
I have been feasting with mine enemy;
Where, on a sudden, one hath wounded me,
That's by me wounded; both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physick lies 6 :
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo,
My interceflion likewise steads my foe.

Fri. Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling íhrift.

Rom. Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin'd, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage : When, and where, and how,
We met, we woo'd, and made exchange of vow,
I'll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us this day,
Ş-wirb uufuff d brain, &c.] The copy, 1597, reads :

with upstuft'd brains
Doth couch his limmes, there golden seep remaines.

STEEVENS. 6 borb our remedies

Wiibin tby belp and boly pbyfick lies :) See Vol. VIII. p. 357, n.4; and Vol. X. p. 66, n. 9. MALONE,

Fri. Holy saint Francis! what a change is here !
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love fo dear,
So soon forsaken? young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jefu Maria! what a deal of brine
Hath wash'd thy fallow cheeks for Rosaline !
How much salt water thrown away in walte,
To season love, that of it doth not tafte!
The fan not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears ;
Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sig
Of an old tear that is not wash'd off yet :
If e'er thou waft thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline ;
And art thou chang'd? pronounce this sentence then
Women may fall, when there's no strength in men,

Rom. Thou chidd'l me oft for loving Rosaline,
Fri. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.
Rom. And bad at me bury love.

Fri, Not in a grave,
To lay one in, another out to have.

Rom. I pray thee, chide not: fe, whom I love now,
Doth grace for grace, and love for love allow ;
The other did not so.

Fri. O, she knew well,
Thy love did read by rote, and could not spell?.
But come, young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I'll thy asliitant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your housholds' rancour to pure love 8.

Rom. Ó, let us hence ; I stand on sudden haste.
Fri. Wisely, and flow; They stamble, that run fast.

[Exeunt, !. --and could not spell.] Thus the quarto, 1597. The subsequent ancient copies all have

Thy love did read by rote that could not spell, I mention there minute variations only to shew, what I have so often ärged, the very high value of first editions. MALONI.

• The two following lincs were added anse the first copy of this play. STEEVINS.

F 4

SCENE

SCENE IV.

A Street,
Enter BeNVOLIO, and MERCUTIO,
Mer. Where the devil should this Romee be!--Came
he not home to-night?

Ben. Not to his father's; I spoke with his man.
Mer. Ah; that same pale hard-hearted wench, that

Rosaline,
Torments him fo, that he will sure run mad.

Ben. Tybalt; the kinsman of old Capulet,
Hath sent a letter to his father's house.

Mer. A challenge, on my life. Ben. Romeo will answer it.

Meri Any man, that can write, may answer a letter,

Ben: Nay, he will answer the letter's master, how he dares, being dared.

Mer. Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead! ftabb'd with a white wench’s black eye ; fhot thorough the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's but-haft'; And is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

Ben. Why, what is Tybalt?
Mer, More than prince of cats', I can tell you? O,

9-mibe very pin of bis bear! cleft wité the blind bow.bey's bur.fhaft;] The allusion is to archery. : The clout, or white mark at which the arrows are directed, was fastened by a black pin placed in the center of it. To hit this was the highest ambition of every marksman. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657:

« They have shot two arrows without heads,
“ They cannot stick i' the but yet : hold out, knight,

And I'll cleave the black pin i' the midst of the wbite."
Again, in Marlowe's Tomburlaine, 1590:

" For kings are clouts that every man shoots at;

« Our crown the pin that thousands seek to cleave." MALONĘ.

More tban prince of cats,-) Tyberi, the name given to the cei, in the ftory-book ct Reynord tbe Fox. WARBURTON.

So, in Have wirb you 19 Safron Walden, &c. 1596: “ -not Tibele prince of cats," &c,

STEEVENS. 2 I can tell you.) So the first quarto. These words are emitted in all the subsequent ancient copies,' MALONE,

hę

he is the courageous captain of compliments. He fights as you fing prick-long, keeps time, distance, and proportion * ; reits me his minim retts, one, two, and The third in your bolom : the very butcher of a silk but. ton, a duellift, a duellift; a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause? : Ah, the immor. tal passado! the punto reverso! the hay !-

Ben. The what

Mer. The pox of such antick, lisping, affecting fantafticoes 9; these new tuners of accents !-By Jeju, a very good blade! - a very tall man!-a very good whore!

3 courageous captain of compliments.] A complete master of all the laws of ceremony, the principal man in the doctrine of punctilio.

“ A man of compliments, whom right and wrong

« Have chose as umpire;”. says our authour of Don Armado, the Spaniard, in Love's Labour's Loj,

JOHNSON. * -keeps rime, diftance, and proportion;] So Jonson's Bobadil: “ Note your distance, keep your due proportion of time."

STEEVENS. s-bis minim refts-] A minim is a note of now time in musick, Equal to two crotchets. MALONE.

6-be very burcber of a filk button,] So, in the Return from Pare malus:

« Strikes his poinado at a button's breadth." STEEVENS. 7 A gentleman of the very firf boule; -of tbe forf and second cause :] “A gentleman of the first boule ;-of the forf and second cause,'' is a gentleman of the first rank, of the first eminence among these duellifts; and one who understands the whole science of quarrelling, and will tell you of the firfit cause, and the second cause, for which a man is to fight.-- The Ciowa, in As you like it, talks of the seventb cause in the same sense, STEEVENS.

-be bay ! ] All the terms of the modern fencing-school were originally Italian; the rapier, or small thrusting sword, being first used in Italy. The bay is the word bai, you bave it, used when a thrust reaches the antagonist, from which our fencers, on the same occasion, without knowing, I suppose, any reason for it, cry out, ba! JOHNSON.

9-affecting fantoffices;] Thus the old copies, and rightly. The modern editors read, pbanta fies. Nath, in his Have with you to Saffron Walden, 1596, says". Follow some of these new-fangled Galiardo's and Signor Fantastico's," &c. Again, in Decker's comedy of Old Fortunatus, 1600:-" I have danc'd with queens, dallied with ladies, worn strange attires, seen fantasticoes, convers'd with humor. ifts." &c. STEEVENS.

Fantasticoes is the reading of the first quarto, 1997; all the subsequent Ancient copies read arbitrarily and corruptly-pbantacies MALONE.

-Why,

Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandfire', that
we should be thus affli&ted with these strange flies, these
fashion-mongers, these pardon-mes', who itand so much
on the new form, that they cannot fit at ease on the old
bench? O, their bons, their bons 3!

Enter ROMEO.
Ben. Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo,

Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring :-O Hesh, flesh, how art thou filhified !-Now is he for the num. bers that Petrarch flow'd in: Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen-wench ;-marry, she had a better love to be-rhyme her: Dido, a dowdy; Cleopatra, a gipsy; Helen and Hero, hildings and harlots ; Thisbé, a grey

Wby, is not this a lamentable thing, grandfire,] Humorously apoftrophifing his ancestors, whose sober times were unacquainted with the fopperies here complained of. WARBURTON.

2bese pardon-mes,] Pardonnez-moi became the language of doubt or hesitation among men of the fword, when the point of honour was grown fo delicate, that no other mode of contradiction would be endured. JOHNSON.

The old copies have these pardon-mees, not, these pardon nezomcit. Theb bald forf substituted the French word, without any necesity.

MALONE. 3 Ò, their bons, their bons !) Mercutio is here ridiculing those frenchifed fantastical coxcombs whom he calls pardonnezmoi's: and therefore, I suspect here he meant to write French too.

0, their bon's! their bon's! i.e. how ridiculous they make themselves in crying out good, and being in ecftafies with every trifle ; as he had just described them before

“ - a very good blade !'' &c. THEOBALD. The old copies read—0, their bones, their bones! Mr. Theobald's emendation is confirmed by a pallage in Green's Tu Quoque, from which we learn chat bon jour was the common salutation of those who affected to appear fine gentlemen in our authour's time: "No, I want the bon jour and the tu quoque, which yonder gentleman has."

MALONZ. They stand so mucb on tbe new form, obat they cannot fit at ease on the

old bench.) This conceit is lost, if the double meaning of the word form be not attended to. FARMER.

A quibble on the two meanings of the word form occurs in Love's Labour's Loft, A& J. sc ii : “_fitting with her on the form, and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is, in manner and form following." STIIVING.

eye