It is no wonder that a gentleman who is so clever as to be able to say such extremely fine things, forgets, in the next scene, the devout religion of his eye, without any apprehension of the transparent heretic being burnt for a liar by the transmutation of tears into the flames of an _auto da fe_. He is doomed to discover that love in his case is not a madness most discreet when he defies the stars; there are then no lines of magnificent declamation. "Is it even so? then I defy you, stars! Thou knowest my lodging: get me ink and paper, And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night." Nothing can be plainer prose than these verses. But how were they delivered? Balthazar will tell us. "Pardon me, sir; I dare not leave you thus: Your looks are pale and wild, and do import Some misadventure." Again, nothing can be more quiet than his final determination: "Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night." It is plain Juliet,--unattended by any romantic epithet of love. There is nothing about "Cupid's arrow," or "Dian's wit;" no honeyed word escapes his lips,--nor again does any accent of despair. His mind is so made up,--the whole course of the short remainder of his life so unalterably fixed, that it is perfectly useless to think more about it He has full leisure to reflect without disturbance upon the details of the squalid penury which made him set down the poor apothecary as a fit instrument for what now had become his "need;" and he offers his proposition of purchasing that soon-speeding gear which is to hurry him out of life, with the same business-like tone as if he were purchasing a pennyworth of sugar-candy. When the apothecary suggests the danger of selling such drugs, Romeo can reflect on the folly of scrupling to sacrifice life when the holder of it is so poor and unfortunate. Gallant and gay of appearance himself, he tells his new-found acquaintance that bareness, famine, oppression, ragged misery, the hollow cheek and the hungry eye, are fitting reasons why death should be desired, not avoided; and with a cool philosophy assures him that gold is worse poison than the compound which hurries the life-weary taker out of the world. The language of desperation cannot be more dismally determined. What did the apothecary think of his customer as he pocketed the forty ducats? There you go, lad,--there you go, he might have said,--there you go with that in your girdle that, if you had the strength of twenty men, would straight despatch you. Well do I know the use for which you intend it. To-morrow's sun sees not you alive. And you philosophise to me on the necessity of buying food and getting into flesh. You taunt my poverty,--you laugh at my rags,--you bid me defy the law,--you tell me the world is my enemy. It may be so, lad,--it may be so; but less tattered is my garment than your heart,--less harassed by law of one kind or another my pursuit than yours. What ails that lad? I know not, neither do I care. But that