ere serpents are--chain me with roaring bears,
Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house
O'ercovered quite with dead men's rattling bones;
Or bid me go into a new made grave;
Or hide me with a dead man in his shroud;--
Things that to hear them told have made me tremble

But she immediately adds,--

And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstained wife to my sweet love!

In the scene where she drinks the sleeping potion, although her spirit
does not quail, nor her determination falter for an instant, her vivid
fancy conjures up one terrible apprehension after another, till
gradually, and most naturally in such a mind once thrown off its poise,
the horror rises to frenzy--her imagination realizes its own hideous
creations, and she _sees_ her cousin Tybalt's ghost.[26]

In particular passages this luxuriance of fancy may seem to wander into
excess. For instance,--

O serpent heart, hid with a flowery face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!
Dove-feather'd raven! wolfish ravening lamb, &c.

Yet this highly figurative and antithetical exuberance of language is
defended by Schlegel on strong and just grounds; and to me also it
appears natural, however critics may argue against its taste or
propriety.[27] The warmth and vivacity of Juliet's fancy, which plays
like a light over every part of her character--which animates every line
she utters--which kindles every thought into a picture, and clothes her
emotions in visible images, would naturally, under strong and unusual
excitement, and in the conflict of opposing sentiments, run into some
extravagance of diction.[28]

With regard to the termination of the play, which has been a subject of
much critical argument, it is well known that Shakspeare, following the
old English versions, has departed from the original story of Da
Porta;[29] and I am inclined to believe that Da Porta, in making Juliet
waken from her trance while Romeo yet lives, and in his terrible final
scene between the lovers, has himself departed from the old tradition,
and, as a romance, has certainly improved it; but that which is
effective in a narrative, is not always calculated for the drama, and I
cannot but agree with Schlegel, that Shakspeare has done well and wisely
in adhering to the old story. Can we doubt for a moment that he who has
given us the catastrophe of Othello, and the tempest scene in Lear,
mig