A And jealous Oberon would have the child fuppofed to be left by the fairies, but here for a child taken away. JOHNSON. So Spenfer, B. I. c. X: "And her base elin brood there for thee left, STEEVENS. It is here properly used, and in its common acceptation; that is for a child got in exchange. A fairy is now fpeaking. RITSON. 3 trace the forefts wild :] This verb is ufed in the fame fenfe in Browne's Britannia's Paftoralls, B. II. Song II. 1613: "In fhepherd's habit feene "To trace our Woods." Again, in Milton's Comus, v. 423: 4 "May trace huge forefts, and unharbour'd heaths." Sheen,] Shining, bright, gay. JOHNSON. So, in Tancred and Guifmund, 1592: 66 but why HOLT WHITE. "Doth Phoebus' fister Sheen defpife thy power?" Again, in the ancient romance of Syr Tiyamoure, bl. 1. no date : "He kyffed and toke his leve of the quene, "And of other ladies bright and hene." STEEVENS. But they do fquare;] To Square here is to quarrel. The French word contrecarrer has the fame import. JOHNSON. So, in Jack Drum's Entertainment, 1601 : 66 let me not feem rude, That thus I feem to Square with modefty." - pray let me go, for he'll begin to fquare," &c. Again, in Promos and Caffandra, 1578: "Marry, fhe knew you and I were at Square, STEEVENS. It is fomewhat whimsical, that the glafiers use the words fquare and quarrel as fynonymous terms, for a pane of glass. BLACKSTONE. FAI. Either I miftake your fhape and making quite, Or else you are that fhrewd and knavish sprite, 6 Robin Good-fellow; ] This account of Robin Good-fellow correfponds, in every article, with that given of him in Harfenet's Declaration, ch. xx. p. 134: "And if that the bowle of curds and creame were not duly fet out for Robin Good-fellow, the frier, and Siffe the dairy-maid, why then either the pottage was burnt to next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter. would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have good head. But if a Peeter-penny, or an houfle-egge were behind, or a patch of tythe unpaid, then 'ware of bull-beggars, fpirits," &c. is mentioned by Cartwright [ Ordinary, A& III. fc. i.] as a spirit particularly fond of difconcerting and disturbing domeftic peace and œconomy. T. WARTON. He "Your Reginald Scot gives the fame account of this frolick fome spirit, in his Difcoverie of Witchcraft, Lond. 1584, 4to. p. 66 : grandames maids were wont to fet a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding malt and mustard, and fweeping the house at midnight this white bread and bread and milk, was his ftanding fee." STEEVENS. 7 That fright] The old copies read - frights and in grammatical propriety, I believe, this verb, as well as thofe that follow, fhould agree with the perfonal pronoun he, rather than with you, If fo, our author ought to have written frights, Jkims, labours, makes, and misleads. The other, however, being the more common ufage, and that which he has preferred, I have corrected the former word. MALONE. 8 Skim milk; and fometimes labour in the quern, And bootless make the breathless housewife churn; ] The sense of thefe lines is confufed. Are not you he, fays the fairy, that fright the country girls, that fkim milk, work in the hand mill, and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect? The mention of the mill feems out of place, for she is not now telling the good, but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus: And fometimes make the breathless housewife churn "Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern." VOL. VII. D And fometime make the drink to bear no barm;" Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm? Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck, You do their work, and they fhall have good luck: Or, by a fimple tranfpofition of the lines: "And bootless make the breathless housewife churn "Skim milk, and fometimes labour in the quern." Yet there is no neceffity of alteration. JOHNSON. Dr. Johnson thinks the mention of the mill out of place, as the Fairy is not now telling the good but the evil he does. The obfervation will apply, with equal force, to his skimming the milk, which, if it were done at a proper time, and the cream preferved, would be a piece of fervice. But we muft underftand both to be mischievous pranks. He fkims the milk, when it ought not to be skimmed : (So, in Grim the Collier of Croydon : "But woe betide the filly dairy-maids, "For I fhall fleet their cream-bowls night by night.") and grinds the corn, when it is not wanted; at the fame time perhaps throwing the flour about the houfe. A Quern is a hand-mill, kuerna, mola. RITSON. Ilandic. So, in Stanyhurft's tranflation of the firft book of Virgil, 1582, quern-ftones are mill-flones: Theyre corne in quern-floans they do grind," &c. Again, in The More the Merrier, a collection of epigrams, 1608: "Which like a querne can grind more in an hour." Again, in the old Song of Robin Goodfellow, printed in the 3d volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: 9 "I grind at mill, "Their malt up ftill," &c. STEEVENS. no barm;] Barme is a name for yeast, yet used in our midland counties, and univerfally in Ireland. So, in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594: "It behoveth my wits to work like barme, alias yeaft." Again, in The Humorous Lieutenant of Beaumont and Fletcher : "I think my brains will work yet without barm.” 2 Thofe that Hobgoblin call you, and fweet Puck, STEEVENS. You do their work, ] To those traditionary opinions Milton has reference in L'Allegro · "Then to the fpicy nut-brown ale, "How fairy Mab the junkets eat'; Are not you he? "She was pinch'd and pull'd, she said, A like account of Puck is given by Drayton, in his Nymphidias It will be apparent to him that fhall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then fome fyftem of the fairy empire generally received, which they both reprefented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakspeare wrote first, I cannot discover. JOHNSON. The editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1775, fuppofes Drayton to have been the follower of Shakspeare: for, fays he, "Don Quixote (which was not publifhed till 1605,} is cited in The Nymphidia, whereas we have an edition of A MidJummer Night's Dream in 1600.” In this century fome of our poets have been as little fcrupulous in adopting the ideas of their predeceffors. In Gay's ballad, inferted in The What d'ye call It, is the following stanza : "How can they fay that nature "Why then beneath the water Should hideous rocks remain?" &c. &c. Compare this with a paffage in Chaucer's Frankelines Tale Tyrwhitts edit. v. i. 11179, &c. "In idel, as men fain, ye nothing make, "But, lord, thife grifly fendly rockes blake," &c. &c. And Mr. Pope is more indebted to the fame author for beau s inferted in his Eloifa to Abelard, than he has been willing ‹Q acknowledge. STEEVENS. PUCK. Thou speak'ft aright; ' I am that merry wanderer of the night. If Drayton wrote The Nymphidia after ▲ Midsummer-Night's Dream had been aded, he could with very little propriety fay, "Then fince no mufe hath been fo bold, Or of the later or the ould, Jove profper my proceeding." HOLT WHITE. Don Quixote, though publifhed in Spain in 1605, was probably little known in England till Skelton's tranflation appeared in 1612. Drayton's poem was, I have no doubt, fubfequent to that year. The earliest edition of it that I have feen, was printed in 1619. MALONE. Sweet Puck:] The epither is by no means fuperfluous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It fignified nothing better than fiend, or devil. So, the author of Pierce Ploughman puts the pouk for the devil, fol. lxxxx. B. V. penult. See alfo, fol. lxvii. v. 15: none helle powke." It feems to have been an old Gothic word. Puke, puken; Sathanas. Gudm. And, Lexicon Iland. TYRWHITT. In The Bugbears, an ancient MS. comedy in the poffeffion of the Marquis of Lansdowne, I likewife met with this appellation of a fiend: "Puckes, puckerels, hob howlard, by gorn and Robin Goodfelow." Again, in The Scourge of Venus, or the Wanton Lady, with the rare Birth of Adonis, 1615: Their bed doth fhake and quaver as they lie, Again, in Spenser's Epithalamion, 1595: "Ne let houfe-fyres, nor lightning's helpeleffe harms, Ne let the pouke, nor other evil fpright, "Ne let mifchievous witches with their charmes "Ne let hobgoblins," &c. Again, in the ninth Book of Golding's Tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis, edit. 1587, p. 126: 66 and the countrie where Chymæra, that fame pooke, Hath goatish bodie," &c. STEEVENS. |