At a fair veftal, throned by the weft; &

And loos'd his love-fhaft fmartly from his bow,
As it fhould pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might fee young Cupid's fiery fhaft
Quench'd in the chafte beams of the wat'ry moon;
And the imperial vot'refs paffed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free. 9

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,-

Before, milk-white; now purple with love's wound,-
And maidens call it, love-in-idlenefs.2

Fetch me that flower; the herb I fhow'd thee once;
The juice of it, on fleeping eye-lids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it fees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again,

Ere

Shakspeare's compliment to queen Elizabeth has no fmall degree of propriety and elegance to boast of, The fame can hardly be faid of the following, with which the tragedy of Soliman and Perfeda, 1599, concludes. Death is the fpeaker, and vows he will spare

--none but facred Cynthia's friend,

"Whom Death did fear before her life began;
For holy fates have grav'n it in their tables,
"That Death fhall die, if he attempt her end

"Whofe life is heav'n's delight, and Cynthia's friend."

If incenfe was thrown in cart-loads on the altar, this propitious deity. was not difgufted by the fmoke of it. STEEVENS..

A compliment to queen Elizabeth. POPE.

It was no uncommon thing to introduce a compliment to her majesty in the body of a play. STEEVENS..

9 i. e. exempt from the power of love. STEEVENS.

2 This is as fine ametamorphofis as any in Ovid : With a much better moral, intimating that irregular love has only power when people are idle, er not well employed. WARBURTON.

I believe the fingular beauty of this metamorphofis to have been quite accidental, as the poetis of another opinion, in The Taming of a Shrew, A&t. 1. fc. iv: And Lucentio's was furely a regular and honeft paffion. It is STEEVENS. fcarce neceflary to mention that love-in-idleness is a flower..

The flower or violet, commonly called panties, or heart's ease, is named. love-in-idleness in Warwickshire, and in Lyte's Herbal. There is a reafon why Shakspeare fays it is now purple with love's wound," because one. or two of its petals are of a purple colour. ToLLET.

It is called in other counties the Three coloured violet, the Herb of Trinity, Three faces in a bood, Cuddle me to you, &c,

STEEVENS..

Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

Puck. I'll put a girdle round about the earth In forty minutes.

Obe.

Having once this juice,

I'll watch Titania when she is afleep,

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes:

The next thing then the waking looks upon,
(Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey, or on bufy ape,)
She fhall purfue it with the foul of love.
And ere I take this charm off from her fight,
(As I can take it with another herb,)
I'll make her render her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invifible; 3
And I will over-hear their conference.

up

[Exit Puck.

Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. Dem. I love thee not, therefore purfue me not. Where is Lyfander, and fair Hermía?

The one I'll flay, the other flayeth me.

Thou told'ft me, they were ftol'n into this wood,
And here am I, and wood within this wood,+
Because I cannot meet with Hermia.

Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more,
Hel. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as fteel: Leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.

Dem

3 I thought proper here to obferve, that, as Oberon and Puck his attendant, may be frequently obferved to fpeak, when there is no mention of their entering, they are defigned by the poet to be fuppofed on the ftage during the greatest part of the remainder of the play; and to mix, as they pleafe, as fpirits, with the other actors; and embroil the plot, by their interpofition, without being seen, or heard, but when to their own purpose. THEOBALD.

+ Wood, or mad, wild, raving, POPE.

5 I learn from Edward Fenton's Certaine Secrete Wonders of Nature, bl. 1. 1569, that" there is now a dayes a kind of adamant which draweth unto it fleshe, and the same so strongly, that it hath power to knit and tie together, two mouthes of contrary perfons, and drawe the heart of a man out of his bodie without offendyng any parte of him. STEEVENS..

Den. Do I entice you? Do I fpeak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth

Tell you-I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Hel. And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your fpaniel; and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you :.
Ufe' me but as your fpaniel, fpurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lofe me: only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worfer place can I beg in your love,
(And yet a place of high refpect with me,)
Than to be used as you use your dog?

Dem. Tempt not too much the hatred of my fpirit;

For I am fick, when I do look on thee.

Hel. And I am fick, when I look not on you.

6

Dem. You do impeach your modesty " too much,

To leave the city, and commit yourself

Into the hands of one that loves you not;
To trust the opportunity of night,
And the ill counfel of a defert place,
With the rich worth of your virginity.

Hel. Your virtue is my privilege for that. 7
It is not night, when I do fee your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night:
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company;
For you, in my refpect, are all the world:
Then how can it be faid, I am alone,

When all the world is here to look on me?

Dem. I'll run from thee, and hide me in the brakes,

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Hel. The wildeft hath not fuch a heart as you.

6 i. e. bring it into question. STEEVENS.
?ie. For leaving the city, &c. TYRWHITT.

Run

8 This paffage is paraphrafed from two lines. of an ancient poet [Tibullus] :

66 -Tu nocte vel atra

« Lumen, et infolis tu mìbi turba locis.” JOHNSON.

As the works of King David might be more familiar to Shakspeare than Roman poetry, perhaps on the prefent occafion, the eleventh verfe of the 139th Pfalm, was in his thoughts. Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day," STREVENS.

Run when you will, the ftory fhall be chang'd:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chafe;
The dove purfues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes fpeed to catch the tiger: Bootlefs fpeed!
When cowardice purfues, and valour flies.

Dem. I will not stay thy queftions; 9 let me go:
Or, if thou follow me, do not believe

But I fhall do thee mifchief in the wood.

Hel. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mifchief. Fie, Demetrius! do fet a fcandal on my fex:

Your wrongs

We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,

To die upon the hand I love fo well.*

[Exeunt DEM. and HEL. Obe. Fare thee well, nymph : ere he do leave this grove, Thou shalt fly him, and he fhall feek thy love.

Re-enter PUCK.

Haft thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
Puck. Ay, there it is.

Obe.
I pray thee, give it me.
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet 4 grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,s

With

9 Though Helena certainly puts a few infignificant questions to Deme. trius, I cannot but think our author wrote-question, i. e. difcourfe, con verfation. So, in As you like it: "I met the duke yesterday, and had much question with him." STEEVENS.

2 To die upon, &c. in our author's language, I believe, meanɛ—” to die by the hand." STEEVENS.

3 The oxlip is the greater cowflip. STEEVENS.

i. e. that declines its head, like a drowsy person. STEEVENS.

5 All the old editions read fufcicus woodbine. On the margin of one of my folios an unknown hand has written lub woodbine, which, I think, is right. This hand I have fince difcovered to be Theobald's.

JOHNSON.

Lush is clearly preferable in point of fenfe, and abfolutely neceflary in point of metre. Oberon is (peaking in rhime; but voodbine, as hitherto accented upon the first syllable, cannot poflibly correspond with eglantine.

The

With fweet mufk-rofes, and with eglantine:
There fleeps Titania, fome time of the right,
Lull'd in thefe flowers with dances and delight;
And there the fnake throws her enamel'd fkin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:

And with the juice of this I'll ftreak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantafies.

Take thou fome of it, and seek through this grove ¦
A fweet Athenian lady is in love

With a difdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it, when the next thing he efpies,
May be the lady: Thou fhalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on."
Effect it with fome care; that he may prove
More fond on her, than fhe upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
Puck. Fear not my lord, your fervant fhall do fo.

SCENE III.

Another part of the Wood.

Enter TITANIA with her train.

Tita. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy fong;"

[Exeunt

Then,

The fubftitution of luf will reftore the paffage to its original harmony, and the author's idea. RITSON.

I have inferted luf in the text, as it is a word already used by Shakfpeare in The Tempest, A&t II:

"How lub and lufty the grafs looks? how green?" Both lub and luscious (fays Mr. Henley) are words of the fame origin. Dr. Farmer, however, would omit the word quite, as a useless expletive, and read

"O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine." STEEVENS. 6 I defire no furer evidence to prove that the broad Scotch pronunciation once prevailed in England, that fuch a rhyme as the first of these words affords to the fecond. STEEVENS.

REED

7 Rounds, or roundels, were like the prefent country dances. A roundel, rondill, or roundelay, is fometimes ufed to fignify a fong beginning or ending with the fame fentence; redit in orbem.

Puttenham, in his Art of Poetry, 1589, has a chapter On the roundel, or Sphere, and produces what he calls A general refemblance of the roundel to God, the world, and the queen. STEEVENS.