Chapter 37

“_Mer._ No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but ’tis enough: ’twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man,” &c.

How fine an effect the wit and raillery habitual to Mercutio, even struggling with his pain, give to Romeo’s following speech, and at the same time so completely justifying his passionate revenge on Tybalt!

_Ib._ Benvolio’s speech:—

... “But that he tilts With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast.”

This small portion of untruth in Benvolio’s narrative is finely conceived.

_Ib._ sc. 2. Juliet’s speech:—

“For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.”

Indeed the whole of this speech is imagination strained to the highest; and observe the blessed effect on the purity of the mind. What would Dryden have made of it?

_Ib._—

“_Nurse._ Shame come to Romeo.

_Jul._ Blister’d be thy tongue For such a wish!”

Note the Nurse’s mistake of the mind’s audible struggles with itself for its decision _in toto_.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Romeo’s speech:—

“’Tis torture, and not mercy: heaven’s here, Where Juliet lives,” &c.

All deep passions are a sort of atheists, that believe no future.

_Ib._ sc. 5.—

“_Cap._ Soft! take me with you, take me with you, wife—How! will she none?” &c.

A noble scene! Don’t I see it with my own eyes?—Yes! but not with Juliet’s. And observe in Capulet’s last speech in this scene his mistake, as if love’s causes were capable of being generalised.