_On "Run-awayes" in Romeo and Juliet._--
"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steedes,
Towards Phoebus' lodging such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudie night immediately.
Spred thy close curtaine, Love-performing night,
That run-awayes eyes may wincke, and Romeo
Leape to these armes, vntalkt of and vnseene."
Your readers will no doubt exclaim, is not this question already settled
for ever, if not by MR. SINGER'S substitution of _rumourer's_, at least by
that of R. H. C., viz. _rude day's_? I must confess that I thought the
former so good, when it first appeared in these pages, that nothing more
was wanted; yet this is surpassed by the suggestion of R. H. C. As
conjectural emendations, they may rank with any that Shakspeare's text has
been favoured with; in short, the poet might undoubtedly have written
either the one or the other.
But this is not the question. The question is, did he write the passage as
it stands in the first folio, which I have copied above? Subsequent
consideration has satisfied me that he did. I find the following passage in
the _Merchant of Venice_, Act II. Sc. 6.:
"---- but come at once,
For the close night doth play the run-away,
And we are staid for at Bassanio's feast."
Is it very difficult to believe that the poet who called the departing
_night_ a _run-away_ would apply the same term to the _day_ under similar
circumstances?
Surely the first folio is a much more correctly printed book than many of
Shakspeare's editors and critics would have us believe.