The two following illustrations, though not of much force, are entitled to our notice. The first illustrates the religious point, and evinces a Catholic doctrinal abhorrence of suicide; the second bears, though vaguely, upon the question of relative social estimation:

IMO.

IMO.

Against self-slaughter

There is a prohibition so divine
That cravens my weak hand.

Two beggars told me

Act III, Scene 4.

I could not miss my way; will poor folks lie
That have afflictions on them; knowing 'tis
A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,
When rich ones scarce tell true; to lapse in fulness
Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood
Is worse in kings than beggars.

Act III, Scene 6.

Dr. Johnson, in speaking of this play, remarks that "it has many just sentiments, some natural dialogues, and some pleasing scenes"; but adds, "they are obtained at the expense of much incongruity. To remark the folly of the fiction, the absurdity of the conduct, the confusion of the names and manners of different times, and the impossibility of the events in any system of life, were to waste criticism upon unresisting imbecility, upon faults too evident for detection and too gross for aggravation."

Dr. Drake protests against the enormous injustice of the above paragraph by the egotistical leviathan, declaring very correctly that "nearly every page of 'Cymbeline' will, to a reader of any taste or discrimination, bring the most decisive evidence." In connection with this vindication, however, Drake is forced to admit "that 'Cymbeline' possesses many of the too common inattentions of Shakespeare; that it exhibits a frequent violation as to costume, and a singular confusion of noinenclature, can not be denied: but these," says he, "are trifles light as air when contrasted with merits which are of the very essence of dramatic worth, rich and full in all that breathes of vigor, animation, and intellect."

These observations by both Johnson and Drake of the incongruities of the piece as to time, manners, and costumes,

and, moreover, the fact mentioned by Harness, that the poet has peopled his Rome with modern Italians, must all be considered as decisive against the presumed authorship by Bacon, for Sir Francis had traveled in Italy and knew better; while, on the other hand, they are just such errors as might easily have been fallen into by William Shakespeare, the untraveled London manager.

ROMEO AND JULIET."

The tragedy of "Romeo and Juliet," though not ranked by the critics among our poet's greatest works, has the singular fortune of presenting two questions which have aroused more curiosity and comment than perhaps any others which direct the attention of the reader toward the personality of Shakespeare, both as respects his religious persuasion and the caprice which often governed him in the formation of his characters. I refer first to the doubts raised by the appearance in the earlier editions of this play of the term "evening mass" (sufficiently treated in Chapter VII), and, second, as to the remarkable character of the nurse of Juliet, which, though universally regarded for more than two hundred years as one of the great masterpieces of him who is admitted to be, par excellence, the Poet of Nature, makes the greatest blunder that Shakespeare ever made a blunder which the admirers of Bacon, however far they may be disposed to go in claiming for their idol the authorship of Shakespeare's works, can never admit would have been perpetrated by the Master of Philosophers: the blunder of representing a woman of nearly seventy years of age to have been the wetnurse, when nearly sixty, of a girl who has only attained the age of fourteen-circumstances which place the old crone beyond the age of nurture long before her own child Susan or Juliet was born. The character of the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" is known as one of the most conspicuous parts in the whole range of the Shakespearean drama; it is so wonderfully stamped with special descriptive force that it has figured among actors for over two hundred years as "the first old

woman of the stage' -a circumstance which is somewhat of a contradiction in itself when we reflect that there were no actresses in Shakespeare's time, when "Romeo and Juliet" was put upon the stage, all female parts, whether young or old, being performed by boys or men.

But this is not the only contradiction which perplexes us. We have only to recall the unhappy story of this otherwise admirable tragedy to observe that Lady Capulet, the mother of the heroine, was but twenty-eight when Juliet died; and it seems to be mere absurdity to suppose that the rose-leaf which was lifted from the mother's bosom nearly fourteen years before was consigned by the most powerful house in Mantua to such a wet-nurse and foster-mother as the decrepit one described to us. Nevertheless, this old crone is the picture of Juliet's nurse which has so long been current with the world. A brief reference to the text of the play will show how strangely the Poet of Nature is at cross purposes with Nature in his management of this extraordinary character.

In Act I, Scene 2, Paris applies to old Capulet for his daughter's hand, but the father refuses on the score that his daughter is not yet fourteen. He then bids him be patient and wait till two more summers have withered in their prime." Paris replies that "younger than she hath happy mothers made." Whereupon Capulet tells him that, if he can get the young lady's consent, he, as a father, is content.

Act I, Scene 3, introduces Lady Capulet, Juliet, and the Nurse. In this scene Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she must prepare herself to accept the County Paris as her husband, and repeats the statement of old Capulet to the effect that Juliet is nearly fourteen years of age. The Nurse here interposes the remark that she is just two weeks short of fourteen; that she suckled her, and knows all about it, for "come Lammas-eve at night" (then but two weeks due), eleven years before, when Juliet was three years of age, she weaned her, and made her refuse the breast by "laying wormwood to her dug." Moreover, she adds that Juliet supplied the place of her own child Susan, who was of the same age, but was now "with God"; to the truth of all of which she offers to wager the only remaining four teeth in her head. Lady Capulet

adds at the same time, in order to overcome the scruples of Juliet at so early a match, that "I was a mother much about your time"-presumably with Juliet's "time," for we hear of no other child of Lady Capulet in the course of the play. But, perhaps, for the sake of greater exactness, we had better at this point quote the text:

Act I, Scene 3.

A room in CAPULET's house.

NURSE. 'Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAP. She's not fourteen.

NURSE.

LADY CAP.
NURSE.

I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,

And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four-
She is not fourteen.-How long is it now

To Lammas-tide?

A fortnight, and odd days.

Even or odd, of all days in the year,

Come Lammas-eve at night, shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she-God rest all Christian souls!-

Were of an age.-Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me; But, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean'd-I never shall forget it-
Of all the days of the year, upon that day;
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dove-house wall,
My lord and you were then at Mantua:-
Nay, I do bear a brain :-but, as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple

Of my dug, and felt it bitter, pretty fool!

To see it techy, and fall out with the dug.

Shake, quoth the dove-house: 'twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is eleven years;

For then she could stand alone; nay, by the rood,

She could have run and waddled all about.

God mark thee to his grace!

Thou wast the prettiest babe that ere I nurs’d.

It follows from all these statements, both of Lady Capulet and her husband, for the purpose of marrying their daughter

with the County Paris, that Juliet was fully competent to all the duties of maternity at the age of fourteen; and it likewise follows that, in that country of early maturity, the rich and powerful house of Capulet would hardly have consigned their only heir to the breast of a wet-nurse who was over thirty years of age. Perhaps it would have been more likely for them to have chosen one of twenty-one.

It certainly seems strange that, though over two centuries have elapsed since the play of "Romeo and Juliet" appeared, no one has stumbled over this singular incongruity or blunder; or, if any one ever did, that no one has shown sufficient courage to expose it against a writer whom it has been so dangerous to criticise. Still do I deem it right that Jupiter himself should be held responsible for error, for even mythology concedes that correction, weil applied, improves the gods.

But it may be well, before entirely disposing of the subject, to remark that, inasmuch as there were no actresses in Shakespeare's time, he may have written this particular character of the Nurse to fit some old actor who was great in garrulous female parts. This policy is quite in accordance with the business of theatrical managers and play-actors of all times. If, however, the incongruities and inconsistencies of the Nurse are not to be accounted for in this business way, I can not conceive how else they came about.

"No play of Shakespeare's," says Hunter, "has been, from the first, more popular than this-perhaps none so popular. The interest of the story, the variety of the characters, the appeals to the hearts of all beholders, the abundance of what may be called episodical passages of singular beauty, such as Queen Mab, the Friar's husbandry, the starved Apothecary, and the gems of the purest poetry, which are scattered in rich abundance-these all concur to make it the delight of the many, as it is also a favorite study for the few. But so tragical a story ministers to a depraved appetite in the many. The mass of Englishmen love scenes of horror, whether in reality or in the mimic representations on the stage. Shakespeare seems to have understood this, and, both here and in Hamlet,' he leaves scarcely any one alive. Even the insignificant Benvolio is not permitted to live out the