Almoft in the next breath, he fays,

The time and my intents are favage, wild,
More fierce, and more inexorable far,
Than empty tygers, or the roaring sea.

In this fpeech, therefore, there is a manifeft contradiction: For why fhould Romeo diffemble with his fervant at first, and then give him fuch a frightful account of his intention? Having broke open the monument, and flain Paris, he takes a view of his wife, and makes a moft pathetic fpeech to her body, concluding with,

Eyes, look your laft!

Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, Oh you
The doors of breath, feal with a righteous kiis
A datelefs bargain to engroffing death!
Come, bitter conduct! come, unfav'ry guide!
Thou defp'rate pilot, now at once run on
The dafning rocks my fea-fick, weary bark:
Here's to my love! Oh, true apothecary!
[Drinks the poison.

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kifs I die. [Dies.

When

When the friar comes, Juliet awakes, and being told of her husband, fhe feizes the cup; but finding no poifon in it, ftabs herself. This is the catastrophe of Shakespear's tragedy; and it is altered. by Mr. Garrick in the following manner.

As foon as he has drank the poifon, and spoke that line,

The doors of death feal with a righteous kifs,
Juliet awakes; and he adds,

Soft fhe breathes and stirs!

and the speaking, he forgets he is poifoned, and flies into a rapture of joy :

She fpeaks, fhe lives: and we shall still be blefs'd;
My kind propitious stars o'erpay me now
For all my forrows past

And foon after,

'Tis thy husband,

'Tis thy Romeo, Juliet, rais'd from defpair To joys unutterable! quit, quit, this place And let us fly together

She, not quite awake, does not know him; upon which he goes on,

I am that Romeo,

Nor all th'oppofing pow'rs of earth or man,
Shall break our bonds, or tear thee from

my

heart.

She then knowing him, goes to embrace him; Romeo, just at that inftant, recollects that he is poisoned, and turns from his wife This gives rife to one of the finest fcenes of diftrefs that ever was imagined: He talks of poifon; fhe catches the word; and, trembling, afks his meaning. He answers,

It is, indeed

I struggle with him now The transports that I felt to hear thee speak, And fee thy op'ning eyes, flopp'd for a moments His impetuous courfe, and all my mind

Was happiness and thee; but now the poifon Rufhes thro' my veins I've not time to tell

Fate brought me to this place to take a laft, Laft farewel of my love, and with thee die.

At last his raving, and dying with the words.

Oh t

Oh! Juliet! Juliet!

is affecting to the highest degree; the whole fcene is worked up with great. judgment; and perhaps no tragedy that ever was wrote, can afford a thought fo truly pathetic as Romeo's forgetting that he is poifoned. Shakespear's c-taftrophe is very affecting, but nothing in his plot could give rise to any diftrefs like this.. This play, which, as he wrote it, is more. affecting than any of his others*, plainly

fhews

* I know not any other piece of Shakespear's that is fo truly affecting as this. Macbeth will never bring tears into the eyes of an audience; for who can regret or pity the fate of fuch wretches as the chief perfonages of that play are? In Othello, Defdemona is certainly an object of pity; but her character is not drawn forth in thofe colours which attract the chief attention of the fpectator; Othello and lago are every thing in this play: Neither of them are to be pitied; for though Othello has a fine character given him, yet so vile an action as the murder of his wife, Blots out every emotion of pity from the reader's

breaf

fhews, that no fubject is fo proper for tragedy as love, when it is treated as the predominant paffion. Boileau fays very juftly,

Bientôt l'amour fertile en tendres fentimens
S'empara du theatre, ainfi que des Romans.

breaft: it is impoffible a man who is worthy of our pity, could be guilty of fuch a fhocking crime. Hamlet's death is rather to be wished for than pitied, dying after revenging the death of his father. The true pathetic, which overwhelms us with pity, is feldom raifed fingly by death. Mercutio's death touches the audience but little; but when the principal character, in whofe fortune we are most interefted, dies in fo unhappy a manner, on the very verge of blifs, like Romeo, our hearts are infinitely affected. Our emotions on reading Lear, as Shakespear wrote it, are divided, nor can I think them fo touching as Romeo's; we are glad at the death of the two villainous daughters, and old Lear efcapes his wretchedness, and fur. vives the piece; though indeed Cordelia's being dead, makes even his escape very pathetic: However, Romeo and Juliet, and Lear, are the two moft pathetic tragedies; and juft that circumftance of Romeo's forgetting his being poisoned, fuperior to any thing.

De