fore bids her not to confider the power of pleafing, as an advantage to be much envied or much defired, fince Hermia, whom the confiders as poffeffing it in fome fupreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the lofs of happiness. JOHNSON. L. 22. Emptying our bofoms of their counfels fwell'd; There my Lyjander and myself fhall meet ; And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, To feek new friends and ftrange companions. This whole scene is strictly in rhyme; and that it deviates in thefe two couplets, I am perfuaded, is owing to the ignorance of the first, and the inaccuracy of the later editors: I have therefore ventured to refore the rhymes, as I make no doubt but the poet first gave them. Sweet was easily corrupted into favelled, because that made an antithefis to emptying and frange companions our editors thought was plain English; but franger companies, a little quaint and unintelligible. Our author very often uses the substantive stranger adjectively; and companies, to fignify companions: As Rich. II. Act. I. : To tread the franger paths of banishment. And Hen. V. His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow. THEOB. & CAPELL. P. 93. 1. 15. In game.] Game here fignifies not contentious play, but fport, jest. So Spenfer, Twixt earnest and twixt game. JOHNS. P. 94.] In this fcene Shakespeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants toper form when he first steps upon the ftage. The fame Bottom, who feems bred in a tiringroom, has another hiftrionical paffion. He is for engroffing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all poffibility of diftinction: he is therefore defirous to play Pyramus, Thibe, and the Lion at the fame time. JOHNS. L. 9. Grow on to a point.] Read go on, &c. WARB.* L. 25. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in.] We should read, A part to tear a cap in. For as a ranting whore was called a tear-fheet, (2d Part of Hen. IV.) fo a ranting bully was called a tear-cap. For this reafon it is, the poet makes bully Bottom, as he is called afterwards, wish for a part to tear a cap in. And in the an tieut plays, the bombaft and the rant held the place of the fublime and pathetic, and indeed conftituted the very effence of their tragical farces. Thus Bale, in his acts of English votaries, Part II. fays," Grennyng like termagauntes in a play.' WARB.* Ibid.] Nic Bottom's being called bullyBottom, feems to have given rife to this judicious conjecture; but it is much more likely that Shakespeare wrote, as all the editions give it, "a part to tear a cat in ;" which is a burlefque upon Hercules's killing a lion. CAN. OF CRIT.* P. 95. 1. 8. The raging rocks And fhivering fhocks, &c.] I prefume this to be either a quotation from fome fuftian old play, which I have not been able to trace; or if not a direct quotation, a ridicule on fome bombaft rants, very nearly refembling it. THEOB.* L. 20. - fpeak as fmall as you will.] This paffage fhews how the want of women on the old ftage was fupplied. If they had not a young man who could perform the part with a face that might pafs for feminine, the character was acted in a mask, which was at that time a part of a lady's drefs fo much in ufe, that it did not give any unusual appearance to the scene: and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone, might play the woman very fuccessfully. It is obferved in Downes's Memoirs of the Play-house, that one of these counterfeit heroines moved the paffions more ftrongly than the women that have fince been brought upon the stage. Some of the catastrophes of the old comedies, which make lovers marry the wrong women, are, by recollection of the common ufe of masks, brought nearer to probability. JOHNS. L. 29. -you must play Thifty's mother. There feems a double forgetfulness of our poet, in relation to the characters of this interlude. The father and mother of Thisby, and the father of Pyramus, are here mentioned, who do not appear at all in the interlude; but Wall and Moonshine are both employed in it, of whom there is not the leaft notice taken here. THEOB. P. 96. 1. 28. Purple-in-grain beard.] Here Bottom again difcovers a true genius for the ftage, by his folicitude for propriety of dress, and his deliberation which beard to chufe among many beards, all unnatural, JOHNS. P. 97. 1. 10. At the duke's oak we meet -hold, or cut bowitrings.] This proverbial faying came originally from the camp. When a rendezvous was appointed, the militia foldiers would frequently make excufe for not keeping word that their bowftrings were broke, i. e. their arms unferviceable. Hence when one would give another abfolute affurance of meeting him, he would fay proverbially—bold or cut bosfirings, i. e. whether the bowftring held or broke: for cut is ufed as a neuter, like the verb frets. As when we fay, the firing frets-the filk frets, for the paffive, it is cut or fretied. JOHNS. L. 12.] So Drayton, in his Court of Fairy, Thorough brake, thorough briar, Thorough muck, thorough mire, Thorough water, thorough fire, JOHNS. Ibid.] For through bush, &c. read in all the places thorough. HOLT.* L. 19. To dew her orbs upon the green.] For orbs Dr. Gray is inclined to fubftitute herbs. The orbs here mentioned are the circles fuppofed to be made by the fairies on the ground, whofe verdure proceeds from the fairy's care to water them. They in their courses make that round, In meadows and in marshes found, Of them fo call'd the fairy ground. Drayton. JOHNS. L. 20.] The cowflip was a favourite among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning. For the queen a fitting tow'r, Quoth he, is that fair cowflip flow'r- JOHNS.. P. 98. 1. 3. Lob of spirits.] Lob, lubber, looby, lobcock, all denote both inactivity of body and dullness of mind. L. 10. JOHNS. changeling.] Changeling is commonly used for the child fuppofed to be left by the fairies, but here for the child taken away. L. 16. fheen.] Shining, bright, gay. JOHNS. GRAY. L. 17. But they do fquare.] To fquare here is to quarrel. And are you now fuck fools to fquare for this? The French word contrecarrer hath the fame import. L. 21.that shrewd, and knavish Sprite, JOHNS. Call'd Robin Goodfellore: are you not be, Mislead night-wand rers, laughing at their barm?] This account of Robin Goodfellow correfponds, in every article, with that given of him in Harfenet's Declaration, ch. 20. p. 135. "And if that the bowle of creame were not duly fett out for Robin Goodfellow, the frier, and Silfe the dairy-maid-why then either the pottage was burnt to next day in the pot, or the cheefes would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have got head. But if a pater-nofter, or an houfle-egge were beturned, or a patch of tythe unpaid-then beware of bullbeggars, fpirits, &c." He is mentioned by Cartwright, as a fpirit particularly fond of disconcerting and disturbing domeftick peace and economy. Saint Francis and Saint Benedight, Bleffe this house from wicked wight : Keep it, &c. Cartwright's Ordinary, act III. fe. i. 8. WARTON. L. 23. Skim milk, and fometimes labour in the quern, The sense of these lines is confused. Are not you he, (fays the fairy) that fright the country girls, that skim milk, work in the hand-mill, and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect?" The mention of the mill is here ufelefs. I would regulate the lines thus: And fometimes make the breathlefs housewife chern Or by a fimple tranfpofition of the lines, And bootlefs, make the breathless churn Skim-milk, and fometimes labour in the quern. JOHNS. To these traditionary opinions Milton has reference in L'Allegro : Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,- He doth with laughter leave us. It will be apparent to him that fall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets, copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then fome fyftem of the fairy empire generally received, which they both represented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakespeare wrote firit, I cannot discover. JOHNS. |