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And foar with them above a common Bound.
Rom. I am too fore enpearced with his Shaft,
To foar with his light Feathers; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull Woe.
Under Love's heavy burthen do I fink.

Mer. And to fink in it, fhould you burden Love,
Too great Oppreffion for a tender Thing!

Rom. Is Love a tender Thing! It is too rough, Too rude, too boift'rous; and it pricks like Thorn. Mer. If Love be rough with you, be rough with

Love;

Prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down.
Give me a cafe to put my vifage in?

[Putting on bis Mafk.
A Vifor for a Vifor!what care I,
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows fhall blush for me.
Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no fooner in,
But ev'ry man betake him to his legs.

Rom. A torch for me. Let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the fenfelefs rufhes with their heels; For I am proverb'd with a granfire-phrafe; I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

The game was ne'er fo fair, and I am done.

Mer. (7) Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable's own

word;

If

(7) Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable's own word;] This poor obfcure stuff should have an explanation in mere charity. It is an anfwer to thefe two lines of Romeo,

and

For I am proverb'd with a grandfire's phrafe, The game was ne'er fo fair, and I am done. Mercutio, in his reply, anfwers the last line first. The thought of which, and of the preceeding, is taken from gaming, I'll be a candle-kalder (lays Romeo) and look on. It is true, if I could play myself, I could never expect a fairer chance than in the company we are going to: but, alas! I am done. I have nothing to play with; I have loft my heart already. Mercutio catches at the word done, and quibbles with it, as if Romeo had faid, The ladies indeed are fair, but I am dun, i. e. of a dark complexion. And fo replies, Tut! dun's the moufe; a proverbial expreffion of the fame import with the French, La nuit tous les chats font gris. As much as to fay, You need not fear, night will make all your complexions alike. And because Romeo had introduced his obfervation with, I am proverb'd with a grandfire's phrase,

Mercutio adds to his reply, the conftable's caun word. As much as

to

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire (8) Or, fave your reverence, Love, wherein thou ftick

eft

Up to thine ears; come, we burn day-light, ho.
Rom. Nay, that's not fo.

Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay

We wafte our lights in vain, like lights by day,
Take our good meaning, for our judgment fits
Five times in that, ere once in our fine wits.
Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask.
But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one ask?

Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.
Mer. And fo did T.

Rom. Well what was yours?

Mer. That dreamers often.lye.

Rom. In bed afleep; while they do dream things

true.

Mer. (9), then I fee, Queen Mab hath been with

you.

She

to fay, if you are for old proverbs, I'll fit you with ones 'tis the conftable's own word: whofe caftom was, when he fummoned his watch, and affigned them their feveral ftations, to give them what the foldiers call, the word. But this night guard being diftinguished for their pacific character, the conftable, as an emblem of their harmless difpofition, chofe that. domeftic, animal for his word: which, in time, might become proverbial.

WARBURTON.

Merc. If thou art Dun, we'll draw thee from the mire;] A proverbial faying used by Mr. Thomas Heywood, in his play, intitled, The Dutchefs of Suffolk, act iii.

A rope for Bishop Bonner, Clunce, run, $6 Call help, a rope, or we are all undone. Draw Dun out of the ditch."

Dr. GRAY.

18) Or, fave your reverence, Love,] The word or obfcures the fentence; we should read, O! for or Love. Mercutio having called the affection with which Romeo was entangled by fo difrefpectful a word as mire, cries out,

O! fave your reverence, Love.

(9) 0, then I fee, Queen Mab both been with you.

She is the FAIRIES' midwife,] Thus begins that admirable fpeech upon the effects of the imagination in dreams. But, Queen Mab the fairies' midwife? What is the then Queen of? Why, the fairies. What and their midwife too? But this is not the greateft of the abfurdities. Let us fee upon what occafion he is intro

duced

She is the Fancy's mid-wife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agat-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies, Athwart men's nofes as they lie afleep: Her waggon spokes made of long fpinners' legs; The cover of the wings of grafhoppers; The traces of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watry beams. Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half fo big as a round little worm, Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner fquirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies coach-makers. And in this State the gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'fies ftrait; O'er lawyers fingers, who ftrait dream on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who ftrait on kiffes dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blifters plagues, Because their breaths with fweatmeats tainted are. (1) Sometimes fhe gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And

duced, and under what quality. It is as a Being that has great power over human imaginations. But then the title given her, must have reference to the employment fhe is put upon: First then, he is called Queen: which is very pertinent; for that defigns her power: Then the is call'd the fairies' midwife; but what has that to do with the point in hand? If we would think that Shakespear wrote fenfe, we muft fay, he wrote- -the FANCY's midwife and this is a proper title, as it introduces all that is faid afterwards of her vagaries. Befides, it exactly quadrates with thefe lines:

I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasie.

Thefe dreams are begot upon fantafie, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth. And fancy's midwife is a phrase altogether in the manner of our author. WARBURTON.

(1) Sometimes fhe gallops o'er a LAWYER's nofe, And then dreams be of fmelling out a fuit;] The old editions have it, COURTIER's nofe; and this undoubtedly is the true reading and for these reafons. Firft, In the prefent reading their is

a vicious

And then dreams he of fmelling out a fuit;
And fometimes comes the with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lies afleep;
Then dreams he of another Benefice.
Sometimes the driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,

Of

a vicious repétition in this fine fpeech; the fame thought having been given in the foregoing line,

O'er lawyers' fingers, tibo ftrait dream on Fées :

Nor can it be objected that there will be the fame fault if we read courtier's, it having been faid before,

On courtiers' knees, that dream un curtfies strait:

because they re fhewn in two places under different views: in the first, their fippery; in the fecond, their rapacity is ridiculed, Secondly, In our author's time, a court-folicitation was called fimply, a fuit: and a procefs, a fuit at law, to diftinguish it from the other. The King (fays an anonymous contemporary writer of the life of Sir William Cecil) called bin [Sir William Cecil] and after long talk with bm, being much delighted with bis anføders, willed bis Father to FIND . . to fell out] A SUIT for bim. Wbèreupon be became SUITER for the reverfion of the Cuftos brevium office in the Common Peas. Which the King willingly granted, it being the first SUIT be had in his life. Indeed our Poet has very rarely turned his fatire against Tärvyers and law proceedings; the common topic of later writers. For, to obferve it to the honour of the English judicatures, they preferved the purity and fimplicity of their firft inftitution, long had over-run all the other laws

of Europe. Philip de C Chicane is a very frank defcription of

'nes

the horrid abuses that had infected the courts of justice in France, fo early as the time of Lewis XI. Auffi defiroit fort qu'en če Royaume on ufaft d'une couftume, d'un poix, d'une mesure: et que toutes ces cauftumes fuffent mifes en françoys, en un beau Livre, pour eviter la cautelle & la pillerie des advocat's: qui eft fi grande en ce Royaume, que nulle autre n'eft femblable.& les nobles d'ice-luy la doivent bien congnoiftre. At this time the administration of the law in En gland was conducted with great purity and integrity. The reafon of this difference I take to be, that, 'till of late, there were few gloffers or commentators on our laws, and thofe very able, honeft, and concife. While it was the fortune of the other municipal laws of Europe, where the Roman civil law had a fupplemental authority, to be, in imitation of that law, overloaded with gloffes and commentators. And what corruption this practice occafioned in the adminiftration of the Roman law itfelf, and fo what a miferable condition it reduced public juftice, we may fee in a long and fine digreffion of the hiftorian Ammianus Marcellinus; who has painted, in very lively colours, the different kinds of vermine, which infected their tribunals and courts of law: whereby the ftate of public juftice became in a fhort time fo defperately corrupt, that Ju

VOL. X.

B

ftinian

2

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, (2) Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, fwears a prayer or two,
And fleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
(3) And cakes the elf-locks in foul fluttish hairs,
Which, once entangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That preffes them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is fhe-

Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace;
Thou talk'ft of nothing.

Mer. True, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing, but vain phantafy,
Which is as thin of fubftance as the air,
And more unconftant than the wind; who wooes
Ev'n now the frozen bofom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our-
felves;

Supper is done, and we fhall come too late.

Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind mifgives,

Some confequence, yet hanging in the Stars,

Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire the term

Of a despised life clos'd in my breast,

finian was obliged to new-model and digeft the enormous body of their laws.

WARBURTON.

(2) Spanish blades,] A fword is called a Toledo, from the excellence of the Toletan ftecl. So Grotius,

Enfis Toletanus

Unda Tagi non est uno celebranda metallo,
Utilis in cives eft ibi lamna fuos.

(3) And cakes the elf.locks, &c.] This was a common fuperftition; and feems to have had its rife from the horrid difeafe called the Plica Polonica.

WARBURTON.

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