There, breathe a vital spirit on thy lips,
    And call thee back, my soul, to life and love!

Juliet continues to whisper:  “Pray put me down; you’ll certainly throw me down if you don’t set me on the ground directly.”  “In the midst of ‘cruel, cursed fate,’ his dagger fell out of his dress.  I, embracing him tenderly, crammed it back again, because I knew I should want 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.”

Yet the ludicrous imperfections of this performance passed unnoticed by the audience.  The applause seems to have been unbounded, and the Jaffier of the night was even honoured by a special call before the curtain!