found? or can it be Juliet herself? She who had just been secretly married to the enemy of her parents might with some propriety be termed a runaway from her duty; but she had not abandoned her native pudency. She therefore invokes the night to veil those rites which she was about to perform, and to bring her Romeo to her arms in darkness and in silence. The lines that immediately follow may be thought to favour this interpretation; and the whole scene may possibly bring to the reader's recollection an interesting part in the beautiful story of Cupid and Psyche. Sc. 5. p. 483. JUL. Hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day. Of the notes on this line, that by Mr. Malone is most to the point. He has shown from Cotgrave, that the hunt's-up was "a morning song to a new married woman, &c. ;" and it was, no doubt, an imitation of the tune to wake the hunters, noticed by Mr. Steevens, as was that in the celebrated Scotish booke of godly and spirituall songs, beginning, "With hunts up, with huntis up, It is now perfite day : Jesus our king is gane in hunting, Quba likes to speed they may." It is not improbable that the following was the identical song composed by the person of the name of Gray mentioned in Mr. Ritson's note. It occurs in a collection entitled Hunting, hawking, &c., already cited in the course of the remarks on The merry wives of Windsor. There was likewise a country dance with a similar title. The hunt is up, the hunt is up, CHO. {Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up; Сно. The birds they sing, The Deare they fling, Hey, nony nony-no: The hounds they crye, Hey trolilo, trololilo. The hunt is up, ut supra. The wood resounds To heere the hounds, Hey, nony nony-no : The rocks report This merry sport, Hey, trolilo, trololilo. The hunt is up, the hunt is up, Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up. Then hye apace, Unto the chase, Hey nony, nony-no; Whilst every thing Doth sweetly sing, Hey trolilo, trololilo. The hunt is up, the hunt is up, CHO. {Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up. NURSE. Sc. 5. p. 496. an eagle, madam, Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye. Besides the authorities already produced in favour of green eyes, and which show the impropriety of Hanmer's alteration to keen, a hundred others might, if necessary, be given. The early French poets are extremely fond of alluding to them under the title of yeux vers, which Mons. Le Grand has in vain attempted to convert into yeux vairs, or grey eyes*. It must be confessed that the scarcity, if not total absence of such eyes in modern times, might well have excited the doubts of the above intelligent and agreeable writer. For this let naturalists, if they can, account. It is certain that green eyes were found among the ancients. Plautus thus alludes to them in his Curculio: "Qui hic est homo Cum collativo ventre, atque oculis herbeis ?” Lord Verulam says: 66 Great eyes with a green circle between the white and the white of the *Fabliaux ou contes, tom. iv. p. 215. VOL. II. eye, signify long life." Hist. of life and death, p. 124. Villa real, a Portuguese, has written a treatise in praise of them, and they are even said to exist now among his countrymen. See Pinkerton's Geography, vol. i. p. 556, and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. v. 164. 203. ACT IV. Scene 2. Page 508. CAP. Where have you been gadding? Mr. Steevens remarks that "the primitive sense of this word was to straggle from house to house and collect money under pretence of singing carols to the blessed Virgin ;" and he quotes a note on Milton's Lycidas by Mr. Warton: but this derivation seems too refined. Mr. Warton's authority is an old register at Gadderston, in these words, "Receyvid at the gadyng with Saynte Mary songe at Crismas." If the original were attentively examined, it would perhaps turn out that the word in question has some mark of contraction over it, which would convert it into gaderyng, i. e. gathering or collecting money, and not simply going about from house to house according to Mr. Warton's explanation. FRI. Sc. 5. p. 525. and stick your rosemary On this fair corse This plant was used in various ways at funerals. Being an evergreen, it was regarded as an emblem of the soul's immortality. Thus in Cartwright's Ordinary, Act v. Sc. 1. If there be Any so kind as to accompany My body to the earth, let them not want In an obituary kept by Mr. Smith, secondary of one of the Compters, and preserved among the Sloanian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 886, is the following entry: "Jan. 2. 1671. Mr. Cornelius Bee bookseller in Little Britain died; buried Jan. 4. at Great St. Bartholomew's with out a sermon, without wine or wafers, only gloves and rosmary." And Mr. Gay, when describing Blouzelinda's funeral, records that "Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore." |