the patient, reduced to ashes is a
cure for St. Anthony's fire. I have seen it applied with success, but
suppose its efficacy is due to some astringent principle in the ashes.

E. G. R.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE.

_On Two Passages in Shakspeare._--Taking up a day or two since a Number of
"N. & Q.," my attention was drawn to a new attempt to give a solution of
the difficulty which has been the torment of commentators in the following
passage from the Third Act of _Romeo and Juliet_:

"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the West,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.--
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night,
That _runaways'_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

"Runaways'" being a manifest absurdity, the recent editors have substituted
"unawares," an uncouth alteration, which, though it has a glimmering of
sense, appears to me almost as absurd as the word it supplies. In this
dilemma your correspondent MR. SINGER ingeniously suggests the true reading
to be,--

"That _rumourers'_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

No doubt this is a felicitous emendation, though I think it may be fairly
objected that a rumourer, being one who deals in what he hears, as opposed
to an observer, who reports what he sees, there is a certain
inappropriateness in speaking of a rumourer's eyes. Be this as it may, I
beg to suggest another reading, which has the merit of having spontaneously
occurred to me on seeing the word "runaways'" in your correspondent's
paper, as if obviously suggested by the combination of letters in that
word. I propose that the passage should be read thus:

"Spread thy close curtain, love-performing Night,
That _rude day's_ eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen."

A subsequent reference to Juliet's speech has left no doubt in my mind that
this is the true reading, and so obviously so, as to make it a wonder that
it should have been overlooked. She first asks the "fiery-footed steeds" to
bring in "cloudy night," then night to close her curtain (that day's eyes
may wink), that darkness may come, under cover of which Romeo may hasten to
her. In the next two lines she shows why this darkness is propitious, and
then, using an unwonted epithet, invokes night to give he