It is curious to observe how persistently the players, in making up the stage-travesties of Shakespeare's plays, have followed the uncertain lead of the quartos, where they and the folio differ. It almost seems as if the stage-editors found something more congenial in a text made up from the actors' recollections, plentifully adorned with what we now call "gag." They appear to forget one capital fact: that Shakespeare was at once actor, author, and manager,--that he wrote for the stage exclusively, producing plays for the immediate use of his own company,--and that his plays may therefore be reasonably supposed to be "adapted to representation" in their original state. Does Mr. Crummles know better than Master Shakespeare knew how "Romeo and Juliet" should be ended with the best effect,--not only to the ear in the closet, but theatrically on the stage? The story was not a new one; and the dramatist deliberately followed one of two existing versions rather than the other. In Boisteau's translation of Bandello's novel, Juliet wakes from her trance before Romeo's death; in Brooke's poem, which the great master chose to adopt as his authority, all is over, and she wakes to find her lover dead. Garrick must needs know better than Shakespeare, the actor-author; and no stage Romeo has the grace to die until he has, in elegant phrase, "piled up the agony" with lines like these:-- "JULIET. ... Death's in thy face. ROM. _It is indeed_. I struggle with him now: The transports that I felt, To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes, Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course, And all my mind was happiness and thee:-- But now," etc., "My powers are blasted; 'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted; _But death is strongest_." And then, to give a chance for the manoeuvre beloved by dying actors,--that getting up and falling back into the arms of the actress kneeling by him, with a proper amount of gasping and eyes rolling in delirium,--the stage Romeo adds:-- "ROM. She is my wife,--our hearts are twined together:-- Capulet, forbear:--Paris, loose your hold:-- Pull not our heart-strings thus;--they crack,--they break:-- Oh, Juliet, Juliet!" [_Dies. Juliet faints on his body._ Is this Garrick or Otway? (for I believe Garrick borrowed some of his improvements from Otway's "Caius Marius.") I don't know, and don't care. It is not Shakespeare. It may "show something of the skill of kindred genius," as the preface to the acting edition says it does. I confess I do not see it. I would have such bombast delivered with the traditional accompaniment of red fire; and the curtain should descend majestically to the sound of slow music. That would be consistent and appropriate. * * * * *