"Among these harsh and inferior spirits is Juliet placed; her haughty parents, and her plebeian nurse, not only throw into beautiful relief her own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern mother and her violent father, but, like a petted child, alternately cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old foster-mother who is the confidante of her love. It is the woman who cherished her infancy who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character would have been lowered, if Shakespeare had placed her in connection with any commonplace dramatic waiting-woman?--even with Portia's adroit Nerissa, or Desdemona's Emilia? By giving her the Nurse for her confidante, the sweetness and dignity of Juliet's character are preserved inviolate to the fancy, even in the midst of all the romance and wilfulness of passion."
Cf. Coleridge: "The character of the Nurse is the nearest of anything in Shakspeare to a direct borrowing from mere observation; and the reason is, that as in infancy and childhood the individual in nature is a representative of a class--just as in describing one larch-tree, you generalize a grove of them--so it is nearly as much so in old age. The generalization is done to the poet's hand. Here you have the garrulity of age strengthened by the feelings of a long-trusted servant, whose sympathy with the mother's affections gives her privileges and rank in the household; and observe the mode of connection by accidents of time and place, and the childlike fondness of repetition in a second childhood, and also that happy, humble ducking under, yet constant resurgence against, the check of her superiors!"
2. _Maidenhead._ Etymologically the same word as _maidenhood_. So _lustihead_ = lustihood, _livelihead_ = livelihood (as in Spenser, _F.Q._ ii. 2. 2: "for porcion of thy livelyhed"), etc. Cf. _Godhead_, etc.
4. _God forbid!_ Staunton suggests that the Nurse uses _lady-bird_ as a term of endearment; but, recollecting its application to a woman of loose life, checks herself--_God forbid_ her darling should prove such a one! Dyce explains it: "God forbid that any accident should keep her away!" This seems to me more probable.