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. BOT. 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 firawcoloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour. beard, your perfect yellow. 7 QUIN. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. But mafters, 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. STEEVENS. 7 - your perfect yellow.] Here Bottom again difcovers a true genius for the flage by his folicitude for propriety of drefs, and his deliberation which beard to choofe 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 cuftom of wearing coloured beards, the reader will find more amply explained in Measure for Meafure, A& IV. ft. ii. 8 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 rehearfe; 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, 9 fail me not. BOT. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obfcenely, and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. QUIN. At the duke's oak we meet. Bor. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-ftrings. * [Exeunt. properties,] Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their respective parts, dresses and fcenes 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 Weftward-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-ftrings i. e. whether the bow-ftrings held or broke. For cut is used as a neuter, like the verb fret. As when we say, the fring frets, the filk frets, for the paffive, it is cut or fretted. WARBURTON. - This interpretation is very ingenious, but fomewhat difputable. 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 frings 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: Enter a Fairy at one door, and PUCK at another. PUCK. How now, fpirit! whither wander you? Thorough bufh, thorough briar, Thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where, 4 Swifter than the moones fphere; * "I'll ftrike you, elfe, and cut your begging bowfirings." Again, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639: have you devices to jeer the reft? "Luc. All the regiment of 'em, or I'll break my bowflrings." The bowftrings in both thefe inftances may only mean the frings which make part of the bow with which mufical inftruments of feveral kinds are ftruck. The propriety of the allufion I cannot fatisfactorily explain. STEEVENS. To meet, whether bow-ftrings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events. To cut the bowftring, when bows were in ufe, was pro. bably 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: 4 66 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. And I ferve the fairy queen, So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. i. ft. 15: "And eke through feare as white as whales bone." Again, in a letter from Gabriel Harvey to Spenfer, 1580: «Have we not God hys wrath, for Goddes wrath, and a thoufand of the fame flampe, wherein the corrupte orthography in the mofte, hath been the fole or principal caufe of corrupte profodye in over-many?" STEEVENS. To dew her orbs upon the green] The orbs here mentioned are the circles fuppofed to be made by the fairies on the ground, whofe verdure proceeds from the fairies' care to water them. Thus Drayton : Of them fo called the fairy ground." JOHNSON. Thus in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus "— fimiles illis fpe&ris, quæ in multis locis, præfertim no&urno tempore, fuum faltatorium orbem cum omnium mufarum concentu verfare folent." It appears from the fame author, that thefe dancers always parched up the grafs, and therefore it is properly made the office of Puck to refresh it. STEEVENS. 6 The cowlips tall her penfioners be;] The cowflip was a favourite among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning: 66 For the queen a fitting tower, Quoth he, is that fair cowflip flower. "In all your train there's not a fay "That ever went to gather May, But he hath made it in her way, "The tallest there that groweth." JOHNSON. This was faid in confequence of Queen Elizabeth's fashionable eftablishment of a band of military courtiers, by the name of penoners. They were fome of the handfomeft and talleft young men of the beft families and fortune, that could be found. Hence, fays Mrs. Quickly, in The Merry Wives, A& II. fc. ii:" and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, Penfioners." They gave the mode in drefs and diverfions. They accompanied the queen in her progrefs to Cambridge, where they held ftalf-torches at a play on a Sunday evening in King's College Chapel. T. WARTON, Those be rubies, fairy favours, 9 In thofe freckles live their favours: Because that fle, as her attendant, hath 7 In their gold coats pots you fee ;] Shakspeare, in Cymbeline, refers to the fame red fpots: "A mole cinque-Spotted, like the crimson drops "I th' bottom of a cowflip." PERCY. Perhaps there is likewise some allufion to the habit of a penfioner. See a note on the second act of The Merry Wives of Windfor, fc. ii. STEEVENS. And hang a pearl in every cowflip's ear.] The fame thought occurs in an old comedy call'd The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600; i. e. the fame year in which the first printed copies of this play made their appearance. An enchanter lays : 9 "'Twas I that led you through the painted meads lob of fpirits,] Lob, lubber, looby, lobcock, all denote both inactivity of body and dulnefs of mind. JOHNSON. Both lob and lobcock are ufed as terms of contempt in The Rival Friends, 1632. Again, in the interlude of Jacob and Efau, 1568: "Should find Efau fuch a lout or a lob." Again, in The Knight of the Burning Peftle, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "There is a pretty tale of a witch that had the devil's mark about her, that had a giant to her fon, that was called Lob-lyeby-the-fire.' This being feems to be of kin to the lubbar-fiend of Milton, as Mr. Warton has remarked in his Obfervations on the Faery Queen. SIEEVENS. 2 changeling:] Changeling is commonly used for the child |