W. S. Hasleden.
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