it
at the end." The performance thus went on:

ROMEO. Tear not my heart-strings thus!
They break! they crack! Juliet! Juliet!
[_Dies._

JULIET (_to corpse_). Am I smothering you?

CORPSE. Not at all. But could you, do you think, be so kind as to put
my wig on again for me? It has fallen off.

JULIET (_to corpse_). I'm afraid I can't, but I'll throw my muslin
veil over it. You've broken the phial, haven't you? (_Corpse
nodded_).

JULIET (_to corpse_). Where's your dagger?

CORPSE (_to Juliet_). 'Pon my soul I don't know.

The same vivacious writer supplies a corresponding account of the
representation of "Venice Preserved," in which, of course, she
appeared as Belvidera. "When I went on, I was near tumbling down at
the sight of my Jaffier, who looked like the apothecary in 'Romeo and
Juliet,' with the addition of some devilish red slashes along his
thighs and arms. The first scene passed off well, but, oh! the next,
and the next to that! Whenever he was not glued to my side (and that
was seldom), he stood three yards behind me; he did nothing but seize
my hand and grapple it so hard that, unless I had knocked him down
(which I felt much inclined to try), I could not disengage myself. In
the senate scene, when I was entreating for mercy, and struggling, as
Otway has it, for my life, he was prancing round the stage in every
direction, flourishing his dagger in the air. I wish to heaven I had
got up and run away: it would have been natural, and have served him
extremely right. In the parting scene--oh, what a scene it
was!--instead of going away from me when he said, 'Farewell for ever!'
he stuck to my skirts, though in the same breath that I adjured him,
in the words of my part, not to leave me, I added, aside, 'Get away
from me, oh do!' When I exclaimed, 'Not one kiss at parting!' he kept
embracing and kissing me like mad, and when I ought to have been
pursuing him, and calling after him, 'Leave thy dagger with me!' he
hung himself up against the wing, and remained dangling there for five
minutes. I was half crazy. I prompted him constantly, and once, after
struggling in vain to free myself from him, was obliged, in the middle
of my part, to exclaim, 'You hurt me dreadfully, Mr. ----.' He clung to
me, cramped me, crumpled me--dreadful! I never experienced anything
like this before, and made up my mind that I never would again."