Master Romeo probably seventeen, and Miss Juliet certainly fourteen years old.
Juliet is, according to her nurse, just fourteen years of age. The story is that of "Villikins and his Dinah":—
There was a rich noble in Verona did dwell,
He had but one daughter an unkimmun fine young gal,
Her name it was Juliet, just fourteen years old,
With a werry large fortune in siliver and gold.
Singing tooral li (ad. lib.).
The southern girl of fourteen equals the northerner of nineteen; and this must ever be the initial difficulty which few experienced actresses, can surmount. Juliet is, in fact, a single girl and a married young woman rolled into one. "Single," "double," and "there's the rub!"
Mrs. Pat Campbell's Juliet takes the poison, but not the cake. Her Juliet has over her the shadow of Paula Tanqueray. From the commencement, except in the Balcony scene, she is a Juliet "with a past." The balcony and the moonlight suit this Juliet. Good, too, is she when, abjectly miserable, she crumples herself up all in a heap, like the victim in a picture of Japanese torture, so that at any moment, without surprising the spectator, she might turn heels over head and straighten herself out at the feet of the irascible old Capulet. Once again let me adapt a verse of the ancient ditty:—
"Oh Papa, oh Papa, I've not made up my mind,