Here lives a caitiff that would sell him one.”
——:o:——
The Shakespeare of the Period.
Shakespeare pur et simple will soon be beyond the comprehension of audiences accustomed to burlesque, sensation drama, and the cancan. An enterprising manager (we believe he thinks of turning Somerset House into a theatre, with hotel accommodation, so that visitors from the country can take a ticket, including entrance, supper, bed, and breakfast) has offered a prize for the best modern version of Shakespeare’s plays. We have been favoured with a perusal of the M.S.S. sent in, and give the following versions of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, without the kind permission of the authors:—
ROMEO.
by William Shakespeare and T. W. Robertson.
ACT THE SECOND.—ASSIGNATION!
SCENE.—CAPULET’S Garden.
Enter ROMEO.
Rom.—That board says “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” I am a trespasser; but what matters prosecution so that I can stand beneath the window of the girl I love? What is love? Men live for it, die for it, and lose caste for it; but—