PUCK. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round, Through bog, through bufh, through brake. through brier; * 2 Sometime a horfe I'll be, fometime a hound, A hog, a headless bear, fometime a fire; And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn, Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. [Exit. BOT. Why do they run away? this is a knavery of them, to make me afeard. Re-enter SNOUT. SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I fee on thee? 4 BOT. What do you fee? you see an ass' head of your own; Do you? Re-enter QUINCE. QUIN. Blefs thee, Bottom! blefs thee! thou art tranflated. [Exit. • Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier; ] Here are two fyllables wanting. Perhaps, it was written: "Through bog, through mire, " So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. VI. c. viii. JOHNSON. "Through hills, through dales, through bushes and through The alliteration evidently requires fome word beginning with a b. We may therefore read: Through bog, through burn, through bufh, through brake, through brier.' RITSON. to make me afeard.] Afear is from to fear, by the old form. of the language, as an hungered, from to hunger. So adry, for thirty. JOHNSON. 40 Bottom, thou art chang'd! what do I fee on thee?] It is plain by Bottom's anfwer, that Snout mentioned an afs's head. Therefore we should read: Snout. BOT. I fee their knavery: this is to make an afs of me; to fright me, if they could. But I will not ftir from this place, do what they can: I will walk up and down here, and I will fing, that they shall hear I am not afraid. [Sings. The oufel-cock, fo black of hue, The throfile with his note fo true, TITA. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? 7 [Waking. • The oufel-cock,] The ouzel cock is generally understood to be the cock blackbird. Ajs: Ben Jonfon ufes the word in The Devil is an ftay till cold weather come, "I'll help thee to an ouzel and a field-fare." P. Holland, however, in his tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. B. X. c. xxiv. represents the ouzle and the blackbird, as different birds. In The Arbour of Amorous Devifes, 4to. bl. 1. are the following lines : "The chattering pie, the jay, and eke the quaile, The former leaf and the title-page being torn out of the copy Ì confulted, I am unable either to give the two preceding lines of the ftanza, or to afcertain the date of the book. STEEVENS. The Oufel differs from the Black-bird by having a white crefcent upon the breaft, and is befides rather larger. See Lewin's English Birds. DOUCE. The throftle-1, So, in the old metrical romance of The Squyr of Low Degree, bl. Í. no date: "The pee and the popinjave, The thrustele, fayinge both nyght and daye. " Again, in the first book of Gower De Confeffione Amantis, 15541 "The throfiel with the nightingale. It appears from the following paffage in Thomas Newton's Herball to the Bible, 8vo. 1587, that the throfile is a diftin&t bird from the thrush. 551 There is alfo another fort of myrte or myrtle which is wild, whofe berries the mavifes, throffels, owfells, and thrushes delite much to cate. STEEVENS. 7 What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?] Perhaps a parody VOL. VII. G Bor. The finch, the Sparrow, and the lark, 3 Whofe note full many a man doth mark, for, indeed, who would fet his wit to fo foolish a bird? who would give a bird the lie, though he cry, cuckoo, never so? TITA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, fing again: Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note, So is mine eye enthralled to thy fhape; And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, On the first view, to fay, to fwear, I love thee.' on a line in The Spanish Tragedy, often ridiculed by the poets of our author's time: "What outcry calls me from my naked bed?" The Spanish Tragedy - -was entered on the Stationers' books in 1592. 8 MALONE. plain-fong cuckoo, &c.] That is, the cuckoo, who, having no variety of trains, lings in plain fong, or in plano cantu; by which expreffion the uniform modulation or fimplicity of the chaunt was anciently diftinguilhed, in oppofition to prick-fong, or variegated mufick fung by note. Skelton introduces the birds finging the different parts of the fervice of the funeral of his favourite fparrow: among the reft is the cuckoo. P. 227. edit. Lond. 1736: "But with a large and a long "To kepe juft playne fonge "Our chanters fhall be your cuckoue," &c. T. WARTON. Again, in The Return from Parnafus: "Our life is a plain fong with cunning pean'd." Again, in Hans Beer-pot's Invifible Comedy, &c. "The cuckoo fings not worth a groat, "Because he never changeth note. 9 Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note, So is mine eye enthralled to thy fhape; STEEVENS. And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me, On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.] These lines are in one quarto of 1600, the first folio of 1623, the fecond of 1632, and the third of 1664, &c. ranged in the following order: BOT. Methinks, miftrefs, you should have little reason for that: And yet, to fay the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days: The more the pity, that fome honeft neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek, * upon occafion. TITA. Thou art as wife as thou art beautiful. Bor. Not fo, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to ferve mine own turn. TITA. Out of this wood do not defire to go; Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no. I am a fpirit, of no common rate; The fummer ftill doth tend upon my ftate, Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note, On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee: So is mine eye enthralled to thy fhape, And thy fair virtue's force (perforce) doth move me. This reading I have inferted, not that it can fuggeft any thing better than the order to which the lines have been reftored by Mr. Theobald from another quarto, [Fisher's,] but to fhow that some liberty of conjecture must be allowed in the revifal of works fo inaccurately printed, and fo long neglected. Gleek was originally a game at cards. The word is often ufed by other ancient comic writers, in the fame fenfe as by our author. So, in Mother Bombie, 1594: "There's gleek for you, let me have my gird." Again, in Tom Tyler and his Wife: "The more that I get her, the more the doth gleek me. Again, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617: "Meffieur Benedetto galled Peratio with this gleek. Mr. Lambe obferves in his notes on the ancient metrical hiflory of The Battle of Flodden, that in the North to gleek is to deceive, or beguile; and that the reply made by the queen of the fairies, proves this to be the meaning of it. STEEVENS. And they fhall fetch thee jewels from the deep, * Peas-bloffom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustard-feed! Enter four Fairies. 1. FAI. Ready. 2. FAI. 3. FAI. 4. FAI. And I. And I. Where fhall we go?' TITA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries," With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags fteal from the humble-bees, And, for night tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes," 2 66 jewels from the deep,] So, in King Richard III. refleding gems "That woo'd the flimy bottom of the deep.' STEEVENS. 3 4. Fai.. Where shall we go?] In the ancient copies, this, and the three preceding fpeeches, are given to the Fairies collectively. By the advice of Dr. Farmer I have omitted a useless repetition of" and I," which overloaded the measure. STEEVENS. dewberries, Dewberries flrictly and properly are the fruit of one of the fpecies of wild bramble called the creeping or the leffer bramble: but as they fland here among the more delicate fruits, they must be understood to mean raspberries, which are alfo of the bramble kind. T. HAWKINS.. Dewberries are gooseberries, which are fill fo called in feveral parts of the kingdom. HENLEY. the fiery glow-worm's eyes,] I know not how Shakspeare, who commonly derived his knowledge of nature from his own ob fervation, happened to place the glow-worm's light in his eyes, which is only in his tail. JOHNSON. |