Page:Romeo and Juliet (Dowden).djvu/19

Rh before she breaks forth with the words, "Ancient damnation, O most cursed fiend"; the mourners for Juliet all crying out at once, and wringing their hands; Countie Paris and his Page bearing flowers and sweet water to Juliet's tomb; Friar Laurence, at the entrance to the tomb, stooping and looking on the blood and weapons.

The date at which Romeo and Juliet was written cannot be certainly determined. The title-page of Q 1 describes the tragedy as having been often played publicly by the Lord of Hunsdon's servants. Malone ascertained that two Lords Hunsdon, Henry, the father, and George, his son, filled the office of Lord Chamberlain of the Household to Queen Elizabeth. Henry, the father, died July 22, 1596; on his death, Shakespeare's company came under the protection of his son, who was appointed Lord Chamberlain on April 17, 1597. Before July 22, 1596, and after April 1597 the actors would be styled the Lord Chamberlain's servants (as they are on the title-page of Q 2); in the interval they were the Lord Hunsdon's servants; and hence we may infer that it was during this interval that the presentations spoken of on the title-page of Q 1 took place.

An allusion to the play by John Weever has been supposed to carry back the date to 1595 Weever's Epigrammes was published in 1599, when the author was twenty-three years old; he tells us that most of the epigrams were written when he was only twenty; he attained that age in 1596, and to suppose that his reference to Romeo and Juliet is of a date earlier than