Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit,
As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone."

7 As maids &c.] After this line, in the old copies, I find two other verses, containing such ribaldry, that I cannot venture to insert them in the text, though I exhibit them here as a proof that the editors of our poet have sometimes known how to blot:

"O Romeo that she were, ah that she were

"An open et cætera, thou a poprin pear!"?

This pear is mentioned in The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, 1638: "What needed I to have grafted in the stock of such a choke-pear, and such a goodly poprin as this to escape me?" Again, in A new Wonder, a Woman never vexed, 1632: I requested him to pull me

66

"A Katherine Pear, and, had I not look'd to him,

"He'd have mistook, and given me a popperin." In The Atheist's Tragedy, by Cyril Turner, 1611, there is much conceit about this pear. I am unable to explain it with certainty, nor does it appear indeed to deserve explanation.

Thus much may safely be said; viz. that our pear might have been of French extraction, as Poperin was the name of a parish in the Marches of Calais. So, in Chaucer's Rime of Sire Thopas, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. 1775, ver. 13,650:

"In Flandres, al beyonde the see,

"At Popering in the place."

In the edition of Messieurs Boydell I have also omitted these offensive lines. Dr. Johnson has somewhere observed, that there are higher laws than those of criticism. STEEVENS.

These two lines, which are found in the quartos of 1597, 1599, and in the folio, were rejected by Mr. Pope, who in like manner has rejected whole scenes of our author; but what is more strange, his example has, in this instance, been followed by the succeeding editors.

However improper any lines may be for recitation on the stage, an editor, in my apprehension, has no right to omit any passage that is found in all the authentick copies of his author's works. They appear not only in the editions already mentioned, but also in that copy which has no date, and in the edition of 1637.

I have adhered to the original copy. The two subsequent quartos and the folio read, with a slight variation

An open-or thou a poperin pear.

Romeo, good night;-I'll to my truckle-bed;
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep:
Come, shall we go?

BEN.
Go, then; for 'tis in vain
To seek him here, that means not to be found.

[Exeunt.

Shakspeare followed the fashion of his own time, which was, when something indecent was meant to be suppressed, to print et cætera, instead of the word. See Minsheu's Dictionary, p. 112, col. 2. Our poet did not consider, that however such a practice might be admitted in a printed book, it is absurd where words are intended to be recited. When these lines were spoken, as undoubtedly they were to our ancestors, who do not appear to have been extremely delicate, the actor must have evaded the difficulty by an abrupt sentence.

The unseemly name of the apple here alluded to, is well known.

Poperingue is a town in French Flanders, two leagues distant from Ypres. From hence the Poperin pear was brought into England. What were the peculiar qualities of a Poperin pear, I am unable to ascertain. The word was chosen, I believe, merely for the sake of a quibble, which it is not necessary to explain. Probably for the same reason the Popering tree was preferred to any other by the author of the mock poem of Hero and Leander, small 8vo. 1653:

"She thought it strange to see a man
"In privy walk, and then anan
"She stepp'd behind a Popering tree,
"And listen'd for some novelty."

Of the parish of Poperin, or Poperling, (as we called it) John Leland the Antiquary was parson, in the time of King Henry the Eighth. By him the Poperin pear may have been introduced into England. MALONE.

SCENE II.

Capulet's Garden.

Enter ROMEO.

ROM. He jests at scars, that never felta wound.[JULIET appears above, at a Window.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks! It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid," since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.→→
It is my lady;1 O, it is

my

love:

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing; What of that?

• He jests at scars,] That is, Mercutio jests, whom he overheard. JOHNSON.

So, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book—

"None can speake of a wound with skill, if he have not a wound felt." STEEVENS.

He (that person) jests, is merely an allusion to his having conceived himself so armed with the love of Rosalind, that no other beauty could make any impression on him. This is clear from the conversation he has with Mercutio, just before they go to Capulet's. RITSON.

• Be not her maid,] Be not a votary to the moon, to Diana.

"By all Diana's waiting-women yonder,

JOHNSON.

So, in Troilus and Cressida:

STEEVENS.

1 It is my lady;] This line and half I have replaced.

JOHNSON

Her eye discourses, I will answer it.—
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,2
That I might touch that cheek!3

JUL.

ROM.

Ah me!

She speaks:

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,

2

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,] This passage appears to have been ridiculed by Shirley in The School of Compliments, a comedy, 1637:

3

"O that I were a flea upon that lip," &c. STEEVENS.

touch that cheek!] The quarto, 1597, reads: "kiss that cheek." STEEVENS.

4

O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art

As glorious to this night,] Though all the printed copies concur in this reading, yet the latter part of the simile seems to require

As glorious to this sight;

and therefore I have ventured to alter the text so. THEOBAld.

I have restored the old reading, for surely the change was unnecessary. The plain sense is, that Juliet appeared as splendid an object in the vault of heaven obscured by darkness, as an angel could seem to the eyes of mortals, who were falling back to gaze upon him.

As glorious to this night, means as glorious appearance in this dark night, &c. It should be observed, however, that the simile agrees precisely with Theobald's alteration, and not so well with the old reading. STEEVENS.

As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,"
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

JUL. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou.
Romeo?

Deny thy father, and refuse thy name:
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

ROM. Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

[Aside. JUL. 'Tis but thy name, that is my enemy ;Thou art thyself though, not a Montague."

5

the lazy-pacing clouds,] Thus corrected from the first edition, in the other lazy-puffing. POPE.

• Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.] For the present punctuation I am accountable. It appears to me to afford a clear sense, which the line as printed in the old copies, where we have a comma after thyself, and no point after though, does not in my apprehension afford.

Thou art, however, says Juliet, a being sui generis, amiable and perfect, not tainted by the enmity which your family bears to mine.

According to the common punctuation, the adversative particle is used without any propriety, or rather makes the passage

nonsense.

Though is again used by Shakspeare in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act III. sc. last, in the same sense:

"My legs are longer though, to run away."

Again, in The Taming of a Shrew:

"'Would Catharine had never seen him though."

Again, in King Henry VIII:

"I would not be so sick though, for his place." Other writers frequently use though for however. So, in The Fatal Dowry, a tragedy, by Massinger and Field, 1632: "Would you have him your husband that "And can it not be?-He is your servant, though, "And may perform the office of a husband.".

you

love,