Slmkrsp, avian Criticism. 



15 



" Another essay I had projected on the geography of Shakespeare. 

 I would show what great natural changes have been wrought since the 

 times in which the scenes of his plays are laid. For example, Bo- 

 hemia, now an inland country, must once have had a seaport, and 

 Mantua, regarded in modern times as a rather unhealthful locality, 

 was so salubrious in the days of Romeo and Juliet, that an apothecary 

 had nearly starved to death there for want of custom. 



" Another essay I had designed on the punctuation of Shakespeare, 

 to show that by altering the received mode of punctuation, any of his 

 plays could be made quite different, and the sense completely changed. 

 For example, in Romeo and Juliet, the following passage has always 

 seemed obscure to me : ' Servant. Madam, the guests are come, you 

 called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry and 

 every thing in extremity,' etc. Now what is the sense of ' the Nurse 

 cursed in the pantry?' Who should curae her in the pantry, and 

 why should she be cursed ? Of course, the inference is, that she was 

 cursed by the other servants ; but why, pray ? And why should one 

 servant inform her mistress that these other servants were cursing the 

 nurse ? This is all wrong. Now we know that Juliet was of a hot 

 and impetuous temper, and that the Mirse was her personal attend- 

 ant. We may infer too, that Nurse, like other servants, was fre- 

 quently out of the way when wanted. Let U3 then alter the punctu- 

 ation, and a flood of light breaks on us from this passage, and renders 

 it at once sensible and characteristic: 'Madam, the guests are come, 

 you called, my young lady asked for the Nurse, cursed in the pantry, 

 and every thing in extremity." 



Then follows the passage from the play in relation to the Nurse's 

 deceased husband, which is too broad, as well as too long, for quota- 

 tion here. The reader will not find it in the judicious Mr. Bowdler's 

 Family Shakespeare. The gist of it is that Nurse has been gabbling 

 away about Juliet and her age, and tells how when she was an infant 

 she fell down and bumped her forehead: 



with a rather indelicate jest, to which the precocious Juliet responded 

 "Ay." 



The commentary then proceeds : 



'•The first query that naturally arises in an examination of these 

 passages is whether the Nurse's deceased husband really was a merry 

 man in his life-time, or whether it was his widow's affectionate par- 

 tiality that induced her so to report him. All will agree, that there 



