that year is a gratuitous assumption. An allusion in Marston's Scourge of Villanie—
I set thy lips abroach, from whence doth flow
Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo—
testifies to the popularity of the play, and possibly by the mention of "Curtain plaudities" points to the Curtain theatre as the place of representation; but the Scourge of Villanie is later in date than the first Quarto of Romeo and Juliet. Some lines in The Wisdom of Doctor Dodipoll which imitate (or seem to imitate) words of Juliet, and some resemblances between Romeo and Juliet and Wily Beguiled, when dates are scrutinised (see Daniel's edition of Romeo and Juliet, New Sh. Soc. p. xxxv), prove equally fallacious in helping us to fix a date.
Turning to the play itself, we find mention of "the first and second cause" (II. iv.), which has been regarded, on no sufficient grounds, as suggested by Vincentio Saviolo his Practise (1594 and 1595). Mr. Fleay has noticed that the reference may be to "The Book of Honor and Arms, wherein is discussed the causes of quarrel," etc. (Stationers' Register, December 13, 1589). There are undoubtedly reminiscences in Romeo and Juliet of Marlowe's plays. The lines
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
seem to echo Marlowe's lines in The Jew of Malta, II. i. 41, 42:
But stay, what star shines yonder in the east?
The loadstar of my life, if Abigail.
