late years vindicated Shakespeare's judgment in following Brooke's narration of the Italian story, and pronounced that this softening the catastrophe is, in relation to the dramatic form of the story, the deliberate choice of exquisite taste and true feeling. After such a chain of events of deep and exciting interest, where wild hope and rapturous joy alternate with desperate grief, further prolongation of mental agony, (and that mixed with bodily suffering,) must cease to be pathetic, for it becomes merely painful. The simpler termination which the Poet deliberately preferred, leaves the youthful lovers to sink into death with calm resolution. They repose together in their antique tomb as placid as the lovely children on Chantrey's exquisite monument; the fiercer passions are hushed in their presence; old enmities die away, and a quiet solemn melancholy is spread over the scene as the day breaks slowly in gloom and sorrow over a mourning city.

(Bills and Partisans, from specimens.)

PERIOD OF THE ACTION, COSTUME, AND SCENERY. « The slight foundation of historical truth which can be established in the legend of Romeo and Juliet—that of the civil broils' of the two rival houses of Verona-would place the period of the action about the time of Dante. But this one circumstance ought not very strictly to limit this period. The legend is so obscure that we may be justified in carrying its date forward or backward, to the extent even of a century, if any thing may be gained by such a freedom. In this case, we may venture to associate the story with the period which followed the times of Petrarch and Boccaccio-verging towards the close of the fourteenth century—a period full of rich associations of literature and art. To date the period of the action of ROMEO AND JULIET before this revival of learning and the arts, would be to make its accessories out of harmony with the exceeding beauty of Shakespeare's drama.

“ Assuming that the incidents of this tragedy took place (at least traditionally) at the commencement of the fourteenth century, the costume of the personages represented would be that exhibited to us in the paintings of Giotto and his pupils or contemporaries.”—KNIGHT.

Mr. Knight is as usual historically accurate, but as there is no historical or other connection to fix the date at any precise period of Italian story, the incidents may well have occurred at any time during the middle ages, while Italy was divided into small independent states, and its cities distracted by the fierce family factions of their nobles; as from the year 1300 almost down to the Poet's own times. Mr. Knight has therefore manifested usual good taste in adding to his notice of the strictly historical costume of the long robes and the fantastic hats and hoods of the supposed times of the hero and heroine, that “ artists of every description are perfectly justified in clothing the dramatis persone of this tragedy in the habits of the time in which it was written, by which means all serious anachronisms will be prevented.”

But in another respect this play allows much less latitude to art. Romeo and Juliet have so long been the historical belief of Italy, and the poetical faith of the rest of the world, as to be characters indissolubly connected with the real scenery, palaces, churches, and monuments of Verona and Mantua. All the localities of the story are preserved by old tradition and popular opinion; and their Palladian palaces, remains of Roman grandeur, and natural beauties, still represent the very scenes that floated before the Poet's fancy: Above all, the painter will observe that the Poet, by some Mesmeric faculty of his imagination, had transported himself into Italy, and become as familiar with the banks of the Adige as with those of his own Avon. His incidental descriptions, his allusions to rural beauties, are none of them drawn from the silver clouds, the chill moons, the long-lingering spring, and fadeless green of England; but they are all brilliant and joyous with “ summer's ripening breath,” beneath the hot blaze of an Italian sun, or are bathed in such moonlight as often “tips with silver” the cliffs of our Palisades or Catskills.

PROLOCUE

CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows

Do, with their death, bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

!

SCENE I.-A Public Place.

Gre. That shows thee a weak slave; for the

weakest goes to the wall. Enter Sampson and GREGORY, armed with Swords

Sam. "Tis true; and therefore women, being the and Bucklers.

weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall :-thereSam. Gregory, on my word, we'll not carry coals. fore, I will push Montague's men from the wall, Gre. No, for then we should be colliers.

and thrust his maids to the wall. Sam. I mean, an we be in choler, we'll draw.

Gre. The quarrel is between our masters, and Gre. Ay, while you live, draw your neck out of us their men. the collar.

Sam. 'Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant : Sam. I strike quickly, being moved.

when I have fought with the men, I will be civil Gre. But thou art not quickly moved to strike. with the maids; I will cut off their heads. Sam. A dog of the house of Montague moves me. Gre. The heads of the maids ?

Gre. To move is to stir, and to be valiant is to Sam. Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidstand; therefore, if thou art moved, thou run'st enheads; take it in what sense thou wilt. away.

Gre. They must take it in sense, that feel it. Sam. A dog of that house shall move me to Sam. Me they shall feel, while I am able to stand. I will take the wall of any man or maid of stand; and, 'tis known, I am a pretty piece of flesh. Montague's.

Gre. 'Tis well, thou art not fish; if thou hadst, 12