Whose names are written there,' [Gives a Paper.] and to them say,

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay. [Exeunt CAPULET and PARIS.

SERV. Find them out, whose names are written here? It is written-that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to find those persons, whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned:-In good time.

This passage is neither intelligible as it stands, nor do I think it will be rendered so by Steevens's amendment." To search amongst view of many," is neither sense nor English. The old folio, as Johnson tell us, reads

Which one more view of many

And this leads us to the right reading, which I should to have been this:

suppose

Whilst on more view of many, mine being one, &c. With this alteration the sense is clear, and the deviation from the folio very trifling. M. MASON.

1

-find those persons out,

Whose names are written there,] Shakspeare has here closely followed the poem already mentioned:

"No lady fair or foul was in Verona town,

"No knight or gentleman of high or low renown,
"But Capilet himself hath bid unto his feast,
"Or by his name, in paper sent, appointed as a guest."
MALONE.

Find them out, whose names are written here?] The quarto, 1597, adds: “And yet I know not who are written here: I must to the learned to learn of them: that's as much as to say, the tailor," &c. STEEVENS.

Enter BENVOLIO and ROMEO.

BEN. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,

One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish:

Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.1

3

with another's languish:] This substantive is again found in Antony and Cleopatra.-It was not of our poet's coinage, occurring also (as I think) in one of Morley's songs, 1595: "Alas, it skills not,

"For thus I will not,

"Now contented,

"Now tormented,

"Live in love and languish.”

MALONE.

7

Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning,

Take thou some new infection to thy eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.] So, in the poem: "Ere long the townish dames together will resort:

"Some one of beauty, favour, shape, and of so lovely

port,

"With so fast-fixed eye perhaps thou may'st behold,
"That thou shalt quite forget thy love and passions past

of old.

"And as out of a plank a nail a nail doth drive,

"So novel love out of the mind the ancient love doth rive."

Again, in our author's Coriolanus:

"One fire drives out one fire; one nail one nail."

So, in Lyly's Euphues, 1580: “ a fire divided in twayne burneth slower-one love expelleth another, and the remembrance of the latter quencheth the concupiscence of the first." MALONE.

Veterem amorem novo, quasi clavum clavo repellere, is a morsel of very ancient advice; and Ovid also has assured us, that"Alterius vires subtrahit alter amor."

"Successore novo truditur omnis amor"

Priorem flammam novus ignis extrudit, is also a proverbial phrase. STEEVENS.

ROM. Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.5 BEN. For what, I pray thee?

ROM.

For your broken shin. BEN. Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROM. Not mad, but bound more than a madman

is:

Shut up in prison, kept without my food, Whipp'd, and tormented, and-Good-e'en, good fellow.

SERV. God gi' good e'en.-I pray, sir, can you read?

ROM. Ay, mine own fortune in my misery. SERV. Perhaps you have learn'd it without book: But I pray, can you read any thing you see? ROм. Ay,if I know the letters, and the language. SERV. Ye say honestly; Rest you merry! ROM. Stay, fellow; I can read.

[Reads.

Signior Martino, and his wife, and daughters; County Anselme, and his beauteous sisters; The lady widow of Vitruvio; Signior Placentio, and his lovely nieces; Mercutio, and his brother Valentine; Mine

Tackius tells us,

5 Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.] that a toad, before she engages with a spider, will fortify herself with some of this plant; and that, if she comes off wounded, she cures herself afterwards with it. DR. GREY.

The same thought occurs in Albumazar, in the following lines: "Help, Armellina, help! I'm fall'n i' the cellar:

66

Bring a fresh plantain leaf, I've broke my shin." Again, in The Case is Alter'd, by Ben Jonson, 1609, a fellow who has had his head broke, says: ""Tis nothing, a fillip, a device: fellow Juniper, prithee get me a plantain."

The plantain leaf is a blood-stauncher, and was formerly applied to green wounds. STEEVens.

uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters; My fair niece Rosaline; Livia; Signior Valentio, and his cousin Tybalt; Lucio, and the lively Helena.

A fair assembly; [Gives back the Note.] Whither should they come?

SERV. Up.

ROM. Whither?

SERV. To supper; to our house."

ROM. Whose house?

SERV. My master's.

ROM. Indeed, I should have asked you that before.

SERV. Now I'll tell you without asking: My master is the great rich Capulet; and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray, come and crush a cup of wine. Rest you merry. [Exit. BEN. At this same ancient feast of Capulet's Sups the fair Rosaline, whom thou so lov'st; With all the admired beauties of Verona: Go thither; and, with unattainted eye, Compare her face with some that I shall show, And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

6 To supper; to our house.] The words to supper are in the old copies annexed to the preceding speech. They undoubtedly belong to the Servant, to whom they were transferred by Mr. Theobald. MALONE.

7

crush a cup of wine.] This cant expression seems to have been once common among low people. I have met with it often in the old plays. So, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599:

"Fill the pot, hostess &c. and we'll crush it.” Again, in Hoffman's Tragedy, 1631:

66 -we'll crush a сир of thine own country wine." Again, in The Pinder of Wakefield, 1599, the Cobler says: "Come, George, we'll crush a pot before we part." We still say, in cant language to crack a bottle. STEEVENS.

ROM. When the devout religion of mine eye Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires!

And these, who, often drown'd, could never die,Transparent hereticks, be burnt for liars!

One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun Ne'er saw her match, since first the world begun.

BEN. Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by, Herself pois'd with herself in either eye: But in those crystal scales, let there be weigh'd Your lady's love against some other maid" That I will show you, shining at this feast, And she shall scant show well, that now shows best. ROM. I'll go along, no such sight to be shown, But to rejoice in splendour of mine own. [Exeunt.

8

SCENE III.

A Room in Capulet's House.

Enter Lady CAPULET and Nurse.

LA. CAP. Nurse, where's my daughter? call her forth to me.

NURSE. Now, by my maiden-head,-at twelve year old,—

in those crystal scales,] The old copies have-that crystal, &c. The emendation was made by Mr. Rowe. I am not sure that it is necessary. The poet might have used scales for the entire machine. MALONE.

let there be weigh'd

Your lady's

Your lady's love against some other maid-] love is the love you bear to your lady, which in our language is commonly used for the lady herself. HEATH.