Raise up the Montagues.--Some others; search:--
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry]
Here seems to be a rhyme intended, which may be easily restored;
"Raise up the Montagues. Some others, go.
"We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
"But the true ground of all _this_ piteous _woe_
"We cannot without circumstance descry."
V.iii.194 (136,2) What fear is this, which startles in our ears?]
[Originally _your ears_] Read,
"What fear is this, which startles in _our_ ears?
V.iii.229 (138,6) _Fri._ I will be brief] It is much to be lamented,
that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a
narrative of events which the audience already knew.
(141) General Observation. This play is one of the most pleasing of our
author's performances. The scenes are busy and various, the incidents
numerous and important, the catastrophe irresistibly affecting, and the
process of the action carried on with such probability, at least with
such congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.
Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the
conversation of gentlemen, to represent the airy sprightliness of
juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily
reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that _he was
obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been
killed by him_. Yet he thinks him _no such formidable person, but that
he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed_, without
danger to a poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of truth, that,
in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had to the words than the
thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigorously understood.
Mercutio's wit, gaiety, and courage, will always procure him friends
that wish him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated, he has
lived out the time allotted him in the construction of the play; nor do
I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his existence,
though some of his sallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose
genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but
acute, argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime.
The Nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted: he
has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious
and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.
His comic scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetic strains are
always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however
distressed, _have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable
conceit_.