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FLU. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You must take Thisby on you.
FLU. What is Thisby? a wandering knight?
QUIN. It is the lady that Pyramus muft love.
FLU. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman;
have a beard coming.

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QUIN. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as fmall as you will.'

BOT. Anl may hide my face, let me play Thisby too: I'll speak in a monftrous little voice; - Thifne, Thifne, Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear; thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!

QUIN. No, no; you must play Pyramus, and, Flute, you Thilby.

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BOT. Well, proceed.

QUIN. Robin Starveling, the tailor.

---as small, &c.] This paffage fhows 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 chara&er 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 unufual appearance to the fcene: and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone, might play the woman very fuccefsfully. It is obferved in Downes's Rofcius Anglicanus, that Kynafton, one of thefe counterfeit heroines moved the paffions more ftrougly than the women that have since been brought upon the flage. 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. JOHNSON.

Downes

Dr. Johnson here feems to have quoted from memory. does not fpeak of Kynafton's performance in fuch unqualified terms. His words are "it has fince been difputable among the judicious, whether any woman that fucceeded him, (Kynaston,) so sensibly touched the audience as he." REED.

Prynne, in his Hiftriomaftix, exclaims with great vehemence through feveral pages, because a woman a&ted a part in a play at Blackfryars in the year 1628. STEEVENS.

STAR. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

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SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am flow of ftudy." QUIN. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bot. Let me play the lion to: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke fay, Let him roar. again, let him roar again.

QUIN. An you fhould do it too terribly, you would fright the duchefs and the ladies, that they would fhriek; and that were enough to hang us all. ALL. That would hang us every mother's fon. BOT. I grant you, friends, if that you fhould fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more difcretion but to hang us: but I will

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-you must play Thisby's mother,] There feems a double for getfulness 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. THEOBALD.

Theobald is wrong as to this laft particular. The introduction of Wall and Moonshine was an after-thought. See A& III. fc. i. It may be obferved, however, that no part of what is rehearsed is afterwards repeated, when the piece is aded before Thefeus.

STEEVENS.

S -flow of. ftudy.] Study is fill the cant term used in a theatre for getting any nonfenfe by rote. Hamlet afks the player if he can Audy" a speech. STEEVENS.

aggravate my voice fo, that I will roar you as gently as any fucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale."

QUIN. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one fhall fee in a fummer's day; a moft lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you muft needs play Pyramus.

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Bor. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I beft to play it in?

QUIN. Why, what you will.

BOT. I will discharge it in either your ftrawcoloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.

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QUIN. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and defire you, 'to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood,

6 an 'twere any nightingale.] An means as if. So, in Troilus and Creffida: "He will weep you, an 'twere a man born in

April."

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STEEVENS.

・your perfect yellow.] Here Bottom again difcovers a true genius for the ftage by his folicitude for propriety of drefs, and his deliberation which beard to choose among many beards, all unnatural. JOHNSON.

So, in the old comedy of Ram-Alley, 1611:

"What colour'd beard comes next by the window?

A black man's, I think;

"I think, a red: for that is moft in fashion."

This custom of wearing coloured beards, the reader will find more amply explained in Measure for Meafure, A& IV. fc. ii.

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STEEVENS.

French crowns, &c.] That is, a head from which the hair has fallen in one of the laft ftages of the lues venerea, called the corona veneris. To this our poet has too frequent allufions.

STEEVENS.

a mile without the town, by moon-light; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we fhall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time, I will draw a bill of properties, fuch as our play wants. I pray you,

fail me not.

BOT. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obfcenely, and courageoufly. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.

QUIN. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bor. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-strings.

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- properties,] Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their respective parts, dreffes and scenes excepted. The perfon who delivers them out is to this day called the property-man. In The Baffingbourne Roll, 1511, we find " garnements and propyrts." See Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 326.

Again, in Albumazar, 1615:

"Furbo, our beards,

"Black patches for our eyes, and other properties." Again, in Wefward-Hoe, 1607:

"I'll go make ready my ruftical properties." STEEVENS. 2 At the duke's oak we meet.

Hold, or cut bow-ftrings.] This proverbial phrase 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 hold or cut bow-frings i. e. whether the bow-ftrings held or broke. For cut is used as a neuter, like the verb fret. As when we fay, the ftring frets, the filk frets, for the paffive, it is cut or fretted. WARBURTON.

This interpretation is very ingenious, but somewhat disputable. The excufe made by the militia foldiers is a mere fuppofition, without proof; and it is well known that while bows were in use, no archer ever entered the field without a fupply of ftrings in his pocket; whence originated the proverb, to have two firings to one's bow. In The Country Girl, a comedy by T. B. 1647, is the following threat to a fiddler:

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Enter a Fairy at one door, and PUCK at another.

PUCK. How now, fpirit! whither wander you?
FAI. Over hill, over dale, 3

Thorough bufh, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale.

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones fphere;

fiddler, frike;

"I'll ftrike you, elfe, and cut your begging bowflrings.” Again, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639 :

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have you devices to jeer the rest?

"Luc. All the regiment of 'em, or I'll break my bowftrings." The bowftrings in both thefe inftances may only mean the frings which make part of the bow with which musical inftruments of feveral kinds are ftruck. The propriety of the allufion I cannot fatisfactorily explain. STEEVENS.

To meet, whether bow-flrings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events. To cut the bowftring, when bows were in ufe, was probably a common practice of thofe who bore enmity to the archer. "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowftring, (fays Don Pedro in Much ado about nothing.) and the little hangman dare not shoot at him." MALONE.

Hold, or cut cod piece point, is a proverb to be found in Ray's Collection, p. 57. edit. 1737. COLLINS.

3 Over hill, over dale, &c.] So Drayton in his Nymphidia, or Court of Fairy:

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Thorough brake, thorough brier,

Thorough muck, thorough mire,

"Thorough water, thorough fire." JOHNSON.

the moones fphere ;] Unless we fuppofe this to be the Saxon genitive cafe, (as it is here printed,) the metre will be defective.

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