Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a wagoner As Phaeton would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night; That run-aways' eyes may wink; and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!--- Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties: or if love be blind, It best agrees with night.--Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Thinks true love acted, simple modesty. Come night!--Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven's back.--- Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night, Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world shall be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.--- O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess'd it; and though I am sold, Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day, As is the night before some festival To an impatient child, that hath new robes, And may not wear them. We the rather insert this passage here, inasmuch as we have no doubt it has been expunged from the Family Shakespeare. Such critics do not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, without disguising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German critic, Schlegel. Speaking of Romeo and Juliet, he says, 'It was reserved for Shakespeare to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagination, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionate violence, in one ideal picture.' The character is indeed one of perfect truth and sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettish about it;--it is a pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does not consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of imagination and tenderness of heart with the most voluptuous sensibility. Love is a gentle flame that rarefies and expands her whole being. What an idea of trembling haste and airy grace, borne upon the thoughts of love, does the Friar's exclamation give of her, as she approaches his cell to be married: Here comes the lady. Oh, so light of foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint: A lover may bestride the gossamer, That idles in the wanton summer air, And yet not fall, so light is vanity.