ON A CELEBRATED PASSAGE IN "ROMEO AND JULIET," ACT III. SC. 2.

Few passages in Shakspeare have so often and so ineffectually been "winnowed" as the opening of the beautiful and passionate soliloquy of Juliet, when ardently and impatiently invoking night's return, which was to bring her newly betrothed lover to her arms. It stands thus in the first folio, from which the best quarto differs only in a few unimportant points of orthography:

"Gallop apace, you fiery footed steedes,

Towards Phœbus' lodging, such a wagoner

As Phaeton should whip you to the wish,

And bring in cloudie night immediately.

Spred thy close curtaine, Loue-performing night,

That run-awayes eyes may wincke, and Romeo

Leape to these armes, untalkt of and unseene", &c.

The older commentators do not attempt to change the word run-awayes, but seek to explain it. Warburton says Phœbus is the runaway. Steevens has a long argument to prove that Night is the runaway. Douce thought Juliet herself was the runaway; and at a later period the Rev. Mr. Halpin, in a very elegant and ingenious essay, attempts to prove that by the runaway we must understand Cupid.

Mr. Knight and Mr. Collier have both of them adopted Jackson's conjecture of unawares, and have admitted it to the honour of a place in the text, but Mr. Dyce has pronounced it to be "villainous;" and it must be confessed that it has nothing but a slight similarity to the old word to recommend it. Mr. Dyce himself has favoured us with three suggestions; the first two in his Remarks on Collier and Knight's Shakspeare, in 1844, where he says—

"That ways (the last syllable of run-aways) ought to be days, I feel next to certain; but what word originally preceded it I do not pretend to determine:

'Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night!

That rude/soon (?) Day's eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen,' &c."

The correctors of Mr. Collier's folio having substituted—

"That enemies eyes may wink,"

Mr. Dyce, in his recent Few Notes, properly rejects that reading, and submits another conjecture of his own, founded on the supposition that the word roving having been written illegibly, roavinge was mistaken for run-awayes, and proposes to read—

"That roving eyes may wink."

Every suggestion of Mr. Dyce, certainly the most competent of living commentators on Shakspeare, merits attention; but I cannot say that I think he has succeeded in either of his proposed readings.

Monck Mason seems to have had the clearest notion of the requirements of the passage. He saw that "the word, whatever the meaning of it might be, was intended as a proper name;" but he was not happy in suggesting renomy, a French word with an English termination.

In the course of his note he mentions that Heath, "the author of the Revisal, reads 'Rumour's eyes may wink;' which agrees in sense with the rest of the passage, but differs widely from run-aways in the trace of the letters."

I was not conscious of having seen this suggestion of Heath's, when, in consequence of a question put to me by a gentleman of distinguished taste and learning, I turned my thoughts to the passage, and at length came to the conclusion that the word must have been rumourers, and that from its unfrequent occurrence (the only other example of it at present known to me being one afforded by the poet) the printer mistook it for runawayes; which, when written indistinctly, it may have strongly resembled. I therefore think that we may read with some confidence:

"Spread thy close curtains, love-performing Night,

That rumourers' eyes may wink, and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

It fulfils the requirements of both metre and sense, and the words untalk'd of and unseen make it nearly indisputable. I had at first thought it might be "rumorous eyes;" but the personification would then be wanting. Shakspeare has personified Rumour in the Introduction to the Second Part of King Henry IV.; and in Coriolanus, Act IV. Sc. 6., we have—

"Go see this rumourer whipp'd."

I am gratified by seeing that I have anticipated your able correspondent, the Rev. Mr. Arrowsmith, in his elucidation of "clamour your tongues," by citing the same passage from Udall's Apophthegmes, in my Vindication of the Text of Shakspeare, p. 79. It is a pleasure which must console me for having subjected myself to his just animadversion on another occasion. If those who so egregiously blunder are to be spared the castigation justly merited, we see by late occurrences to what it may lead; and your correspondent, in my judgment, is conferring a favour on all true lovers of our great poet by exposing pretension and error, from whatever quarter it may come,—a duty which has been sadly neglected in some late partial reviews of Mr. Collier's "clever" corrector. Mr. Arrowsmith's communications have been so truly ad rem, that I think I shall be expressing the sentiments of all your readers interested in such

matters, in expressing an earnest desire for their continuance.

S. W. Singer.

Mickleham.