Burleigh, Bacon, Essex, Southampton, Derby, Raleigh, Spenser, Warwick, Gray, Montague, Lancaster, Mountjoy, Blake, and all the great soldiers and sailors of the realm then in London were boxed for a sight of the greatest love tragedy ever enacted on the dramatic stage. All the dramatic authors were present.
William himself took the part of Romeo, for he was a perfect exemplification of the hero of the play. Jo Taylor took the part of Juliet, and I can assure you that his makeup, in the form and dress of the fourteen-year-old Italian beauty, was a great success.
Dick Burbage took the part of Friar Laurence, Condell played Mercutio, Arnim the part of Paris, Field played old Capulet, and Florio played Montague, Hemmings played Benvolio, and John Underwood played the part of Tybalt, and Escalus, the Prince, was played by Phillips.
The curtain went up on a street scene in Verona, where the partisans of the houses of Capulet and Montague quarreled, while Paris, Mercutio, Romeo and Tybalt worked up their hot blood and came to blows.
Romeo and his friends, in mask, attended a ball at the home of Juliet, in a clandestine fashion, and on first sight of this immaculate beauty Romeo exclaims:
"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The dancing done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make happy my rude hand,
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight,
For I ne'er saw true beauty till to-night!"
The poetic apostrophe of Romeo to his new discovered beauty elicited universal applause, led by the "Virgin Queen," who imagined, no doubt, that his tribute to beauty was intended for herself. She never lost an opportunity to appropriate anything that came her way. An epigram of strenuous audacity. A winner!
In the second act Romeo climbs the wall, hemming in his beautiful Juliet, and in defiance of the family feud, locks and bars of old man Capulet, and seeks a clandestine interview with his true love, although at the risk of his life.
It was the evening of the twenty-first birthday of Romeo, and with love as his guide and subject, he felt strong enough to attack a warring world.
Beneath the window of the fair Juliet, Romeo soliloquizes: