"That _enemies_ eyes may wink,"
MR. DYCE, in his recent _Few Notes_, properly rejects that reading, and
submits another conjecture of his own, founded on the supposition that the
word _roving_ having been written illegibly, _roavinge_ was mistaken for
_run-awayes_, and proposes to read--
"That _roving_ eyes may wink."
Every suggestion of MR. DYCE, certainly the most competent of living
commentators on Shakspeare, merits attention; but I cannot say that I think
he has succeeded in either of his proposed readings.
Monck Mason seems to have had the clearest notion of the requirements of
the passage. He saw that "the word, whatever the meaning of it might be,
was intended as a proper name;" but he was not happy in suggesting
_renomy_, a French word with an English termination.
In the course of his note he mentions that Heath, "the author of the
_Revisal_, reads '_Rumour's_ eyes may wink;' which agrees in sense with the
rest of the passage, but differs widely from _run-aways_ in the trace of
the letters."
I was not conscious of having seen this suggestion of Heath's, when, in
consequence of a question put to me by a gentleman of distinguished taste
and learning, I turned my thoughts to the passage, and at length came to
the conclusion that the word must have been _rumourers_, and that from its
unfrequent occurrence (the only other example of it at present known to me
being one afforded by the poet) the printer mistook it for _runawayes_;
which, when written indistinctly, it may have strongly resembled. I
therefore think that we may read with some confidence:
"Spread thy close curtains, love-performing Night,
That _rumourers'_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, _untalk'd of_ and _unseen_."
It fulfils the requirements of both metre and sense, and the words
_untalk'd of_ and _unseen_ make it nearly indisputable. I had at first
thought it might be "_rumorous_ eyes;" but the personification would then
be wanting. Shakspeare has personified _Rumour_ in the Introduction to the
Second Part of _King Henry IV._; and in _Coriolanus_, Act IV. Sc. 6., we
have--
"Go see this _rumourer_ whipp'd."
I am gratified by seeing that I have anticipated your able correspondent,
the REV. MR. ARROWSMITH, in his elucidation of "_clamour_ your tongues," by
citing the same passage from Udall's _Apophthegmes_, in my _Vindication of
the Text of Shakspeare_, p. 79. It is a pleasure which must console me for
having subjected myself to his just animadversion on another occasion. If
those who so egregiously blunder are to be spared the castigation justly
merited, we see by late occurrences to what it may lead; and your
correspondent, in my judgment, is conferring a favour on all true lovers of
our great poet by exposing pretension and error, from whatever quarter it
may come,--a duty which has been sadly neglected in some late partial
reviews of MR. COLLIER's "clever" corrector. MR. ARROWSMITH's
communications have been so truly _ad rem_, that I think I shall be
expressing the sentiments of all your readers interested in such {4}
matters, in expressing an earnest desire for their continuance.