 
I have altered Anselme to the Italian form Anselmo, and in the seventh line inserted and. I think I may fairly claim this list as being in verse. It is always printed as prose. "Take thou this phial, being then in bed, And this distilled liquor drink thou off: When presently through all thy veins shall run A cold and drowsy humour, which shall seize Each vital spirit, &c. And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours, And then awake as from a pleasant sleep." Juliet retires to bed on Tuesday night, at a somewhat early hour. Her mother says after she departs, "'Tis now near night." Say it is eleven o'clock: forty-two hours from that hour bring us to five o'clock in the evening of Thursday; and yet we find the time of her awakening fixed in profound darkness, and not long before the dawn. We should allow at least ten hours more, and read, "Thou shalt remain full two and fifty hours,"— which would fix her awakening at three o'clock in the morning, a time which has been marked in a former scene as the approach of day. "Cap. Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock has crow'd,— The curfew bell hath rung,—'tis three o'clock." Immediately after he says, "Good faith, 'tis day." This observation may appear superfluously minute; but those who take the pains of reading the play critically will find that it is dated throughout with a most exact attention to hours. We can time almost every event. Ex. gr. Juliet dismisses the nurse on her errand to Romeo when the clock struck nine, and complains that she has not returned at twelve. At twelve she does return, and Juliet immediately proceeds to Friar Lawrence's cell, where she is married without delay. Romeo parts with his bride at once, and meets his friends while "the day is hot." Juliet at the same hour addresses her prayer to the fiery-footed steeds of Phoebus, too slowly for her feelings progressing towards the west. The same exactness is observed in every part of the play. I may remark, as another instance of Romeo's ill luck, the change of the original wedding-day. When pressed by Paris, old Capulet says that "Wednesday is too soon,—on Thursday let it be;" but afterwards, when he imagines that his daughter is inclined to consult his wishes, he fixes it for Wednesday, even though his wife observes that Thursday is time enough. Had this day not been lost, the letter of Friar Lawrence might still have been forwarded to Mantua to explain what had occurred. "The old woman assured Varney that Alasco had scarce eaten or drunk since her master's departure, living perpetually shut up in the laboratory, and talking as if the world's continuance depended on what he was doing there. "'I will teach him that the world hath other claims on him,' said Varney, seizing a light and going in search of the alchemist. He returned, after a considerable absence, very pale, but yet with his habitual sneer on his cheek and nostril. 'Our friend,' he said, 'has exhaled.' "'How! what mean you?' said Foster; 'run away—fled with my forty pounds, that should have been multiplied a thousand fold? I will have Hue and Cry!' "'I will tell thee a surer way,' said Varney. "'How! which way?' exclaimed Foster. 'I will have back my forty pounds—I deemed them as surely a thousand pounds multiplied—I will have back my in-put at the least.' "'Go hang thyself, then, and sue Alasco in the devil's court of Chancery, for thither he has carried the cause.' "'How!—what dost thou mean?—is he dead?' "'Ay, truly is he,' said Varney, 'and properly swollen already in the face and body. He had been mixing some of his devil's medicines, and the glass mask, which he used constantly, had fallen from his face, so that the subtle poison entered the brain and did its work.' "'Sancta Maria!' said Foster; 'I mean, God in his mercy preserve us from covetousness and deadly sin!'" "Qui. Have you sent to Bottom's house yet, &c.? Flu. He hath simply the best wit of any man in Athens. Qui. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice. Flu. You must say paragon; a paramour is, God bless us! a thing of naught." I propose that the second admirer's speech be given to Snout, who else has not anything to say, and is introduced on the stage to no purpose. The few words he says elsewhere in the play are all ridiculous; and the mistake of "paramour" for "paragon" is more appropriate to him than to Quince, who corrects the cacology of Bottom himself. [Act iii. sc. 1. "Pyr. Thisby, the flower of odious savours sweet. And, besides, Quince, the playwright, manager, and ballad-monger, ["I'll get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream," says Bottom,] is of too much importance in the company to be rebuked by so inferior a personage as Flute. In the original draft of their play Snout was to perform Pyramus's father, and Quince, Thisbe's father, but those parts are omitted; Snout is the representative of Wall, and Quince has no part assigned him. Perhaps this was intentional, as another proof of bungling. I have not troubled my readers with verbal criticism in this paper, but I shall here venture on one conjectural emendation. Hermia, chiding Demetrius, says, Act iii. sc. 2, "If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep, Being o'er shoes in blood, wade in the deep, And kill me too," Should we not read "knee deep?" As you are already over your shoes, wade on until the bloody tide reaches your knees. In Shakspeare's time knee was generally spelt kne; and between the and kne there is not much difference in writing. I. "Donne, e voi che le donne avete in pregio, Per Dio, non date a questa istoria orecchia, A questa che 'l ostier dire in dispregio, E in vostra infamia e biasmo s'apparecchia; Benche, ne, macchia vi puo, dar ne, fregio Lingua sÌ vile; e sia l'usanza vecchia, Che 'l volgare ignorante ognun riprenda, E parle piu, de quel meno intenda. II. Lasciate questo canto, che senz'esso, Puo star l'istoria, e non sara men chiara; Mettendolo Turpino, anch'io l'Ò messo, Non per malevolenzia, ne per gara; Ch'io v'ami oltre mia lingua che l'a expresso, Che mai non fu di celebrarvi avara, N'Ò falto mille prove, e v'o dimostro Ch'io son ne potrei esser se non vostro. III. Passi chi vuol tre carte, o quattro, senza Leggerne verso, e chi pur legge vuole Gli dia quella medesima credenza, Che si vuol dare a finzion, e a fole," &c. which thus may be rollingly Englished, Ladies, and you to whom ladies are dear, For God's sake don't lend to this story an ear. Care not for fables of slander or blame Which this scandalous chronicler flings on your name. Spots that can stain you with slight or with wrong Cannot be cast by so worthless a tongue. Well is it known, as an usage of old, That the ignorant vulgar will ever be bold, Satire and censure still scattering, and Talking the most where they least understand. Passed over unread let this canto remain, Without it the story will be just as plain. As Turpin has put it, so I put it too; But not from ill-feeling, dear ladies, to you. My love to your sex has been shown in my lays; To you I have never been niggard of praise; And many a proof I have given which secures That I am, and can never be other than yours. Skip three or four pages, and read not a word; Or, if you will read it, pray deem it absurd, As a story in credit not better or worse Than the foolish old tales you were told by the nurse. I do not mean to defend my doggrel; but I think Ariosto has not yet had an adequate translator in English, or indeed in any language; nor, in my opinion, will he easily find one. The poem is too long, and requires the aid of the music of the original language to carry the reader through. I do not know what metre in English could contend against the prolixity; but I do know that Ariosto sadly wants—as what classic in the vernacular languages does not?—a better critic of his text than he has yet found, in Italian. In the above passage it is somewhat amusing to find Ariosto assuring his readers that they might pass this particular canto, because without it "puo star l'istoria;" as if there were a canto in the whole poem of which the same might not be said. "The land Salique lies in Germany, Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe, Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons, There left behind and settled certain French, Who, holding in disdain the German women For some dishonest manners of their life, Established there this law, to wit, no female Should be inheritrix in Salique land." Here is a knocking indeed! If a man Were porter of hell-gate, he should have old Turning the key. Knock—knock—knock! Who is there, In the name of Beelzebub? Here is a farmer That hanged himself [up]on the expectation Of plenty: come in time. Have napkins enough About you. Here you'll sweat for it. Knock—knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name? [I'] faith Here's an equivocator, that could swear In both the scales 'gainst either scale; [one] who Committed treason enough for God's sake, yet Cannot equivocate to heaven. Oh! come in, Equivocator. Knock—knock—knock! Who's there? 'Faith, here's an English tailor come hither For stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor. Here you may roast your goose. Knock—knock— Never in quiet. Who are you? but this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no longer. I had thought T'have let in some of all professions, That go the primrose-path to th' everlasting darkness. The alterations I propose are very slight. Upon for on, i'faith for 'faith, and the introduction of the word one in a place where it is required. The succeeding dialogue is also in blank verse. So is the sleeping scene of Lady Macbeth; and that so palpably, that I wonder it could ever pass for prose. Transcriber's Notes Minor punctuation errors have been corrected where they appeared to be from the printer. Spelling and hyphenation show many inconsistencies, but these have been left as printed, unless obvious slips. French, Italian and Latin snippets are often poorly or wrongly accented, but have been left as printed.
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