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epilogue, or to hear a Bergomafk dance, between two of our company? '

THE. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excufe. Never excufe; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it, had play'd Pyramus, and hang'd himself in Thifbe's garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and fo it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone. [Here a dance of Clowns. The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve :Lovers, to bed; 'tis almoft fairy time.

I fear, we fhall out-fleep the coming morn,
As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
This palpable-grofs play hath well beguil'd
The heavy gait of night.-Sweet friends, to bed.-
A fortnight hold we this folemnity.
In nightly revels, and new jollity.

[Exeunt.

4 — a Bergomafk dance, ] Sir Thomas Hanmer observes in his Cloffary, that this is a dance after the manner of the peasants of Bergomafco, a country in Italy, belonging to the Venetians. All the buffoons in Italy affect to imitate the ridiculous jargon of that people; and from thence it became alfo a cuftom to imitate their manner of dancing. STEEVENS.

S our company?] At the conclufion of Beaumont and Fletcher's Beggar's Bush, there feems to be a fneer at this chara&er of Bottom; but I do not very clearly perceive its drift. The beggars have refolved to embark for England, and exercise their profeffion One of them adds:

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"The spirit of Bottom, is grown bottomlefs."

This may mean, that either the publick grew indifferent to bad actors, to plays in general, or to characters, the humour of which confifted in blunders. STEEVENS.

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heavy gait i. e. flow passage, progrefs. So, in Love's Labour's Loft: You must fend the afs upon the horfe, for he is low-gaited. In another play we have -heavy gaited toads.'

STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

Enter PUCK.

PUCK. Now the hungry lion roars,"
And the wolf behowls the moon;$
Whilft the heavy ploughman fnores,
All with weary task fordone."

7 Now the hungry lion roars, &c.] It has been juftly observed by an anonymous writer, that among this affemblage of familiar cicumstances attending midnight, either in England or its neigh. bouring kingdoms, Shakspeare would never have thought of intermixing the exotick idea of the hungry lion roaring, which can be heard no nearer than in the defarts of Africa, if he had not read in the 164th Pfalm: "Thou makeft darkness that it may be night, wherein all the beafts of the foreft do move; the lions roaring after their prey, do feek their meat from God." MALONE.

Shakspeare might have found the midnight roar of the Lion affociated with the howl of the Wolf, in Phaer's tranflation of the following lines in the feventh Eneid:

Hinc exaudiri gemitus iræque leonum

Vincla recufantum, & fera fub node rudentum;'

-ac formæ magnorum ululare luporum.

I do not, however, perceive the juftnefs of the foregoing anonymous writer's obfervation. Puck, who could encircle the earth in forty minutes," like his fairy mistress, might have fnuffed the fpiced Indian air;" and confequently an image, foreign to Europeans, might have been obvious to him. He therefore, was at liberty to

Talk as familiarly of roaring lions,

"As maids of fifteen do of puppy-dogs."

Our poet, however, inattentive to little proprieties, has fometimes introduced his wild beats in regions where they are never found. Thus in Arden, a forest in French Flanders, we hear of a lionefs, and a bear deftroys Antigonus in Bohemia. STEEVENS.

8 And the wolf bebowls the moon; ] In the old copies: “ And the wolf beholds the moon." As 'tis the design of these lines to characterize the animals, as they prefent themselves at the hour of midnight; and as the wolf is not justly chara&erized by saying he beholds the moon, which other beafts of prey, then awake, do: and as the founds these animals make at that feafon, feém also intended to be reprefented, I make no queftion but the poet wrote: "And the wolf behowls the moon.".

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Now the wafted brands do glow,.
Whilft the fcritch-owl, fcritching loud,
Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,

In remembrance of a fhroud.

chara&erized, it being his peculiar (Behowl, as bemoan, befeèm, and an

For fo the wolf is exactly property to howl at the moon. hundred others.) WARBURTON.

So, in Marfton's Antonio and Mellida, where the whole paffage feems to be copied from this of our author:

"Now barks the wolfe against the full-cheek'd moon,
"Now lyons half-clam'd entrals roar for food,

"Now croaks the toad, and night-crows fcreech aloud,
Flutt'ring 'bout cafements of departing fouls;

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"Now gape the graves, and thro' their yawns let loose "Imprifon'd fpirits to revifit earth." THEOBALD.

The alteration is better than the original reading; but perhaps the author meant only to fay, that the wolf gazes at the moon. JOHNSON.

I think, "Now the wolf behowls the moon," was the original text. The allufion is frequently met with in the works of our author and his contemporaries. 'Tis like the howling of Irifh wolves against the moon," fays he, in his As You Like It; and Mallinger, in his New Way to pay old Debts, makes an ufurer feel only

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as the moon is mov'd

"When wolves with hunger pin'd, howl at her brightness."

FARMER.

which pro

The word beholds was in the time of Shakspeare frequently written behoulds (as, I fuppofe, it was then pronounced,) bably occafioned the mistake.

It is obfervable, that in the paffage in Lodge's Rofalynde, 1592, which Shakspeare feems to have had in his thoughts, when he wrote, in As You Like It 'Tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon:' the expreffion is found, that Marton has ufed inftead of behowls. "In courting Phebe, thou barkeft with the wolves of Syria against the moon."

Thefe lines alfo in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. I. c. v. ft. 30. which Shakspeare might have remembered, add support to the emendation now made:

"And all the while fhe [Night] ftood upon the ground,
"The wakeful dogs did never ceafe to bay;
“The messenger of death, the ghaftly owle,
"With drery fhrieks did alfo her bewray;
"And hungry wolves continually did howle

"At her abhorred face, fo filthy and fo fowle." MALONE,

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Now it is the time of night,

That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his fprite,
In the church-way paths to glide:
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecat's team,
From the prefence of the fun,
Following darknefs like a dream,
Now are frolick; not a moufe
Shall difturb this hallow'd houfe:
I am fent, with broom, before,
To fweep the duft behind the door.3

c. x. ft. 33:

fordone. i. e. overcome. So Spenser, Faery Queen, B. I.

"And many fouls in dolour had foredone."

Again, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia. 1607:

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fore-wearied with ftriving, and fore-done with the tyrannous rage of her enemy.

Again, in the ancient metrical Romance of Sir Bevis of Hampton, bl. 1. no date:

But by the other day at none,

"Thefe two dragons were foredone.

STEEVENS.

Now is the time of night, &c.] So, in Hamlet:

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

"When churchyards yawn.”

3 I am fent, with broom, before,

STEEVENS.

To Sweep the duft behind the door. ] Cleanlinefs is always neceffary to invite the refidence and the favour of fairies :

Thefe make our girls their flutt'ry rue,

By pinching them both black and blue,

And put a penny in their hoe

The houfe for cleanly fwerping. Drayton.

JOHNSON.

To sweep the duft behind the door, is a common expreffion, and a common practice in large old houfes; where the doors of halls and galleries are thrown backward, and feldom or ever fhut.

FARMER.

Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with their Train.

OBE. Through this houfe give glimmering

light,

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By the dead and drowsy fire:
Every elf, and fairy sprite,

Hop as light as bird from brier;

And this ditty, after me,

Sing, and dance it trippingly.

TITA. First, rehearse this song by rote:
To each word a warbling note,
Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we fing, and blefs this place.

SONG, AND DAN CE.

OBE. Now, until the break of day,'
Through this house each fairy stray.

Through this houfe give glimmering light,] Milton perhaps had this picture in his thought:

And glowing embers through the room

Teach light to counterfeit a gloom. Il Penferofo.

So Drayton:

Hence fhadows, Seeming idle fhapes

Of little frifking elves and apes,

To earth do make their wanton Scapes,

As hope of paftime haftes them.

I think it fhould be read:

Through this horfe in glimmering light. JOHNSON.

Now, until, &c.] This fpeech, which both the old quartos give to Oberon, is in the edition of 1623, and in all the following, printed as the fong. I have restored it to Oberon, as it apparently contains not the bleffing which he intends to beftow on the bed, but his declaration that he will blefs it, and his orders to the fairies how to perform the neceffary rites. But where then is the fong?I am afraid it is gone after many other things of greater value. The truth is that two fongs are loft. The feries of the fcene is this; after the speech of Puck, Oberon enters, and calls his fairies to a fong, which song is apparently wanting in all the copies. Next

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