Balth. No, my good lord.

Rom. No matter: Get thee gone,

And hire those horfes; I'll be with thee ftraight.
[Exit Balthafar.
Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
Let's fee for means :-O, mischief! thou art fwift
To enter in the thoughts of defperate men!
I do remember an apothecary,;

And hereabouts he dwells,-whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of fimples; meager were his looks,
Sharp mifery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy fhop a tortoise hung,
An alligator ftuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-fhap'd fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,

Green

2 A beggarly account of empty boxes;] Dr. Warburton would read, a braggartly account; but beggarly is probably right: if the boxes were empty, the account was more beggarly, as it was more pompous. JOHNSON.

This circumftance is likewife found in Painter's translation, tom. ii. p. 241. "beholdyng an apoticaries fhoppe of lytle furniture, and leffe ftore of boxes and other thynges requifite for that fcience, thought that the verie povertie of the mayfter apothecarye woulde make him wyllyngly yelde to that whych he pretended to demaunde." STEEVENS.

It is clear, I think, that Shakspeare had here the poem of R。meus and Juliet before him; for he has borrowed an expreffion from thence:

"An apothecary fat unbufied at his door,

"Whom by his heavy countenance he gueffed to be poor; "And in his fhop he faw his boxes were but few,

"And in his window of his wares there was fo fmall a

fhew,

"Wherefore our Romeus affuredly hath thought,
"What by no friendship could be got, with money
fhould be bought;

"For needy lack is like the poor man to compel

"To fell that which the city's law forbiddeth him to fell

"Take fifty crowns of gold (quoth he).

45 -Fair

Green earthen pots, bladders, and mufty feeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rofes,
Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a fhew.
Noting this penury, to myfelf I faid-
An if a man did need a poifon now,
Whofe fale is prefent death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would fell it him.
O, this fame thought did but fore-run my need;
And this fame needy man muft fell it me.
As I remember, this fhould be the house:
Being holiday, the beggar's fhop is fhut.-
What, ho! apothecary!

Enter Apothecary.

Ap. Who calls fo loud?

Rom. Come hither, man.-I fee that thou art poor; Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have A dram of poifon; fuch foon-fpeeding geer As will difperfe itfelf through all the veins, That the life-weary taker may fall dead; And that the trunk may be difcharg'd of breath As violently, as hafty powder fir'd

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

Ap. Such mortal drugs I have; but Mantua's law Is death, to any he that utters them.

Rom. Art thou fo bare, and full of wretchednefs, And fear'ft to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppreffion starveth in thine eyes 3,

Upon

«Fair Sir, (quoth he) be fure this is the feeding.

geer,

"And more there is than you fhall need; for half of that

is there

"Will ferve, I undertake, in lefs than half an hour
"To kill the ftrongest man alive, fuch is the poifon's
pow'r," MALONE.

3 Need and oppreffion ftarveth' in thine eyes,] The first quarto reads:

"And ftarved famine dwelleth in thy cheeks."

The

4 Upon thy back hangs ragged mifery,

The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law:
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.
Ap. My poverty, but not my will, confents.
Rom. I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.
Ap. Put this in any liquid thing you will,
And drink it off; and, if you had the ftrength
Of twenty men, it would difpatch you straight.
Rom. There is thy gold; worfe poifon to men's
fouls,

Doing more murders in this loathfome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou may'ft not fell:
I fell thee poifon, thou haft fold me none.

Farewel; buy food, and get thyfelf in flesh.i
Come, cordial, and not poifon; go with me
To Juliet's grave, for there muft I use thec. [Exeunt.

John. Holy Francifcan friar! brother, ho!

Enter

The quartos, 1599, 1609, and the folio;

Our modern editors, without authority,

"Need and oppreffion farveth in thine eyes."

Need and oppreffion ftare within thine eyes.

The paffage might, perhaps, be better regulated thus:

Need and oppreffion ftareth in thy eyes.

STEEVENS.

For they cannot, properly, be faid to farve in his eyes; though ftarved famine may be allowed to dwell in his cheeks. Thy not thine is the reading of the folio, and those who are converfant in our author, and efpecially in the old copies, will fcarcely notice the grammatical impropriety of the propofed emendation.

REMARKS.

4 Upon thy back hang's ragged mifery,] This is the reading of the oldeft copy. I have reitored it in preference to the following line, which is found in all the subsequent impreffions:

Contempt and beggary hang upon thy back."

2

In

Enter Friar Laurence.

Lau. This fame fhould be the voice of friar
John.-

Welcome from Mantua: What fays Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.
John. Going to find a bare-foot brother out,
5 One of our order, to affociate me,

Here

In the First Part of Jeronimo, 1605, is a paffage fomewhat refembling this of Shakspeare:

Whofe famifh'd jaws look like the chaps of death, "Upon whose eye-brows hang damnation." STEEVENS. Perhaps from Kyd's Cornelia, a tragedy, 1594:

"Upon thy back where mifery doth fit,

"O Rome, &c." MALONE.

5 One of our order to affociate me,] Each friar has always a companion affigned him by the fuperior when he asks leave to go out; and thus, fays Baretti, they are a check upon each other.

Going to find a bare-foot brother out,
One of our order, to affociate me,

Here in this city vifiting the fick,

And finding him, the fearchers of the town

STEEVENS.

Sufpecting, &c.] So, in The Tragicall Hiftory of Romeus and

Juliet, 1562:

"Apace our friar John to Mantua him hies

;

"And, for because in Italy it is a wonted guife

"That friars in the town fhould feldom walk alone,

"But of their convent aye fhould be accompanied with one "Of his profeffion, straight a house he findeth out

"In mind to take fome friar with him, to walk the town about.'

Our author having occafion for friar John, has here departed from the poem, and supposed the peftilence to rage at Verona, inftead of Mantua.

Perhaps the third and fourth lines are misplaced, and that this paffage ought to be regulated thus:

Going to find a bare-foot brother out,

One of our order, to affociate me,

And finding him, the fearchers of the town
Here in the city vifiting the fick,
Sufpecting, &c.

Here in this city vifiting the fick,

And finding him, the fearchers of the town,
Sufpecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious peftilence did reign,
Seal'd up the doors, and would not let us forth;
So that my fpeed to Mantua there was stay'd.
Lau. Who bare my letter then to Romeo?
John. I could not fend it,-here it is again,-
Nor get a meffenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

"

Lau. Unhappy fortune! by my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge
Of dear import; and the neglecting it

May

Friar John fought for a brother merely for the fake of form, to accompany him in his walk, and had no intention of vifiting the fick; whereas, on the other hand, it was the bufinefs of the fearchers to vifit the fick, and to mark those houses in which the peftilence raged.

The phrafe of vifiting the fick might have deceived the tranferiher, and perhaps induced him to mifplace this line, in order that it might apply to the friar. The error however (ifit be one) is in the quarto, from which the folio is manifeftly printed.

If however the words" to affociate me" be included in 1 parenthefis, the line, Here in the city vifiting the fick," will refer to the brother whom friar John fought as a companion; and all will be right. MALONE.

4-

was not nice,i. e. was not written on a trivial or idle fubject.

Nice fignifies foolish in many parts of Gower and Chaucer. So, in the fecond book De Confeffione Amantis, fol. 37:

"My fonne, efchewe thilke vice,
"My father elles were I nice."

So, in Chaucer's Scogan unto the Lordes, &c..
the most complaint of all,

Is to thinkin that I have be fo nice,

"That I ne would in vertues to me call, &c." Again, in The longer thou liveft the more Fool thou art, 1570: "You must appeare to be ftraunge and nyce.'

The learned editor of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1775, obferves, that H. Stephens informs us, that nice was the old French word for niais, one of the fynonymes of fot. Apol. Herod. l. i. c. 4.

STEEVENS.

A line