tion of facts, he at all events needs no spur to urge him forward on the path of happiness. As the day dawns, he hurries off to the cell of his life-long friend and spiritual adviser, Father Laurence, by whose aid he hopes to attain his end. The Friar, trusting that by such alliance the feud between the two families will be healed for ever, yields to the lover's importunities and assents to a secret marriage on the same afternoon. Later in the day, Romeo through Juliet's Nurse is able to convey the glad tidings of the Friar's promise, and early in the afternoon the ceremony is performed. For the present the wedded pair separate, hopefully looking forward to the time when through the instrumentality of the Friar the minds of their parents may be prepared for a discovery of their marriage. Such hope, however, is to be suddenly dashed to the ground. The parting is just over when Romeo meets Tybalt, nephew of the Capulets, who is seeking him out in order to fasten a quarrel upon him for having uninvited been present at the last night's ball. Romeo is of course anxious to avoid fighting with Juliet's cousin, and meets his angry taunts with calm replies. His hot-blooded friend Mercutio, however, will not let Tybalt's words pass by, but draws the quarrel upon himself, and in the combat that ensues is stabbed by Tybalt under the arm of Romeo who is endeavouring to part the combatants. Mercutio dies, and Tybalt, who had left the scene, returning, Romeo's just wrath at his friend's death puts aside all considerations of prudence, and rushing fiercely upon Tybalt he lays him dead at his feet. The Prince now appears, inquires into the origin of the fray, and concludes by passing sentence on Romeo of banishment

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to Mantua, sparing his life only because the quarrel had in a measure been forced upon him. Meanwhile Juliet is counting the moments for her next meeting with Romeo, when the Nurse enters with the news of Tybalt's death. So incoherent, however, are her words that Juliet at first believes it to be Romeo who has fallen. When at length she perceives the truth she bursts forth into execrations upon Romeo whose deeds have proved so far at variance with his looks. The Nurse in parasitic agreement echoes her words. This quickly produces a revulsion in Juliet's mind. She becomes conscious that Romeo has after all acted only in self-defence, reproaches herself bitterly for her doubts, and, the course of her griefs thus turned, is sensible of all that his banishment means to her—the ruin of her life. The Nurse comforts her with the promise of quickly bringing Romeo, and she nerves herself for what she knows must be a long farewell. Romeo is even more broken with grief at the sentence that has fallen upon him. The sudden strength of purpose which his love had inspired now deserts him. Seeking the Friar's cell, he abandons himself to a paroxysm of despair, threatens to take his own life, and rejects all consolation that the Friar would administer. While thus prostrated, he is aroused by the coming of the Nurse to bid him visit his bride. This summons gives the Friar the opportunity of further urging reason. With stern directness he chides the cowardly refuge to which Romeo would fly, adding to the crime of slaying Tybalt the further crime of self-slaughter, and in that the probable death of her whom he is bound to cherish, not destroy; points out that his fury is rather that of a beast than of a man, his utter self-abandonment the

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weakness of a woman, his meditated desertion a perjury of the soul; then taking a gentler tone he shows how fortunate Romeo should think himself in that his sentence is exile, not death, how that Juliet is still alive and his own, how that life at Mantua may be borne with courage and patience till happier hours shall enable him to return and claim his bride, and how in the meantime tidings shall be sent to him of everything happening at Verona that may smooth the path to such good fortune. The impressionable Romeo, to whom life has hitherto been all sunshine, real grief a thing unknown, and therefore terrible to encounter, is soothed like a frightened child, and now thinks only of the near approach of joy in once more holding Juliet in his arms. The meeting alternates between rapture and despair; between happy auguries of joyous re-union and all too prescient forebodings of death's divorcing hand, and ends in

"those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died."

Romeo now enters upon his banishment, and if the lot is one hard to endure, his trial is as nothing to that which awaits Juliet. For some time past a kinsman of the Prince, Paris by name, has been a suitor for her hand, and his suit is one welcomed by her parents, though she herself has scarcely contemplated as serious the hints that have been given her. Now "to put her from her heaviness," which at first they suppose to be on account of Tybalt's death, they determine to force the marriage upon her. Juliet receives their decision with terror.

To her mother she flatly refuses to accept Paris. With her father, who in furious anger insists on compliance, she pleads to be heard in objection to such an union. The only answer is more anger, fresh vituperation. Alone with the Nurse, she seeks comfort from one who has so often been the sharer of her hopes and her secrets, and has helped her in her marriage with Romeo. For all consolation, she gets from the treacherous old woman the advice to accept Paris :

O, he 's a lovely gentleman!

Romeo's a dishclout to him,"

says this time-serving harridan, who, finding how the wind blows, is now in terror at her own share in what she looks upon as an escapade to be blotted out as best may be. Aghast at such treachery, which at first she cannot believe to be real, Juliet for ever casts her off:

"Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I'll to the friar, to know his remedy:

If all else fail, myself have power to die."

In the scene which follows, all the purity of a pure heart, all the heroism of ancient heritage and individual nobility, shine forth in steady light. Separation from Romeo, bitter as the experience comes to her new-born bliss, is bearable, and she bears it. But to shame, to a violation of her soul, anything is preferable, death but a paltry shock.

She will dare all, and she accepts with alacrity the one resource the Friar can offer, a resource in its uncertainty and its gruesome concomitants many times more terrible than death. For the Friar's proposal is that the night before the threatened marriage day she

shall drink a potion which for the space of forty-two hours will throw her into a death-like trance, during which she is to be interred in the family vault, the Friar being ready with Romeo, to whom instructions are to be sent, to set her free from the tomb as soon as the effects of the potion wear off, when the pair are to make their escape to Mantua. Possessed of the phial Juliet returns home and pretends compliance with her parents' wishes. The preparations for the wedding on the day next but one are hurried forward, and on its eve Juliet retires to her chamber knowing that no respite is now possible, that the Friar's remedy is the only loophole of hope. As she prepares to follow his directions she is tortured by horrible forebodings, with doubts whether the mixture will have its promised effects, whether it may not be a poison given her by the Friar in order to shield himself from the dishonour that would fall upon him if performing a second marriage while her husband is still alive. Her over-wrought fancies then picture to her the terrors of awaking from her trance before Romeo comes to set her free, the stifling vault, the neighbourhood of her newly-buried cousin, the apparition of the spirits of the dead,-terrors sufficient she feels to drive her into madness and self-destruction. "Suddenly in her disordered vision the figure of the murdered Tybalt rises, and is manifestly in pursuit of some one. Of whom? Not of Juliet, but of her lover who has slain him. A moment before Juliet had shrunk with horror from the thought of confronting Tybalt in the vault of the Capulets. But now Romeo is in danger. All fear deserts her. To stand by Romeo's side is her one necessity. With a confused sense that this draught