Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
And now they never meet in grove, or green,
By fountain clear, or spangled ftar-light fheen,
But they do fquare[1]; that all their elves, for fear,
Creep into acorn cups, and hide them there.

Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or elfe you are that fhrewd and knavish sprite,
Call'd Robin-good-fellow [2] Are you not he,
That fright the maidens of the villag❜ry;

Skim milk; and fometimes labour in the quern,
And bootlefs make the breathlefs hufwife churn;
And fometime make the drink to bear no barm ;[3]
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Thofe that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,[4]
You do their work, and they shall have good luck :
Are not you he?

Puck. Thou fpeak'ft aright ;[5]

I am that merry wanderer of the night
I jeft to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,

[1] 'Sheen' fhining, bright, gay. "To square' here is to quarrel. JOHN. [2] This account of Robin-good-fellow correfponds, in every article, with that given of him in Harfenet's Declaration, ch. xx. p. 135: “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 the pottage was burnt next day in the pot, or the cheefes would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the fat never would have got head. But if a pater-nofter, or an houfle-egge were beturned, or a patch of tythe unpaid-then beware of bull-beggars, fpirits," &c. He is mentioned by Cartwright as a spirit particularly fond of disconcerting and disturbing domeftic peace and econoiny. "Saint Francis and Saint Benedight Bleffe this houfe from wicked wight; From the night-mare and the goblin That is hight good-fellow Robin, Keep it," &c..

Cartwright's Ordinary.

WARTON.

Reginald Scot gives the fame account of this frolickfome fpirit, in his Difcovery of Witchcraft, Lond. 1588. 4to. p. 66: "Your grandames, maids, were wont to fet a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding of malt and mustard, and fweeping the houfe at midnight-this white bread and bread and milk, was his ftanding fee." STEEV.

[3] Barme, a name for Yeaft, yet ufed in the midland counties. STEEV. [4] It will be apparent to him that shall 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 Shakespeare wrote firft, I cannot difcover. JOHNS.

[5] It feems that in the fairy mythology Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trufty fervant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia, the fame fairies are engaged in the fame bufinefs. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, fends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a spell. JOHNS

Neighing in likenefs of a filly foal :
And fometimes lurk I in a goffip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roafted crab ;

And when the drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wifeft aunt, telling the faddeft tale,
Sometime for three-foot ftool mistaketh me;
Then flip I from her bum, down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough :[6]
And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and fwear
A merrier hour was never wafted there.

-But room, Faery,[7] here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my miftrefs :-Would that we were gone!

SCENE II.

Enter OBERON, King of Fairies, at one door, with his train, and the Queen at another with her's.

Ob. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
Queen. What, jealous Oberon ?-Fairies, fkip hence;
I have forfworn his bed and company.

Ob. Tarry, rash wanton: Am not I thy lord?
Queen. Then I must be thy lady: But I know
When thou haft ftol'n away from fairy land,.
And in the fhape of Corin fate all day
Playing on pipes of corn, and verfing love
To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
Come from the further steep of India?
But that, forfooth, the bouncing Amazon,
Your bufkin'd miftrefs, and your warrior love,
To Thefeus must be wedded; and you come
To give their bed joy and profperity.

Ob. How canft thou thus, for fhame, Titania,
Glance at my credit with Hippolita ;

Knowing I know thy love to Thefeus?

Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night[8]

[6] The cuftom of crying 'tailor' at a fudden fall backwards, I think 1 remember to have obferved. He that flips befide his chair falls as a tailor fquats upon his board. JOHNS.

[7] The word Fairy, or Faery, was fometimes of three fyllables, as often in Spenfer. JOHNS.

[8] The meaning is, She conducted him in the appearance of fire through the dark night. WARB.

From Periguné, whom he ravished ;[9]

And make him with fair Egle break his faith,
With Ariadne, and Antiopa?

Queen. Thefe are the forgeries of jealoufy;
And never, fince the middle fummer's spring,[1]
Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead,
By paved fountain,[2] or by rufhy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the fea,
To dance our ringlets to the whiftling wind,
But with thy brawls thou haft difturb'd our fport.
Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
As in revenge, have fuck'd up from the fea
Contagious fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made fo proud,
That they have over-borne their continents.[3]
The ox hath therefore ftretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman loft his sweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard;
The fold ftands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock:

[9] From Perigenia, whom he ravifhed.] Thus all the editors; but our author, who diligently perufed Plutarch, and gleaned from him, where his fubject would admit, knew, from the life of Thefeus, that her name was Perigyne, (or Perigune) by whom Thefeus had his fon Melanippus. She was the daughter of Sinnis, a cruel robber, and tormentor of paffengers in the Ifthmus. Plutarch and Athenæus are both exprefs in the circumstance of Thefeus ravishing her. THEO.

Egle, Ariadne, and Antiopa were all at different times miftreffes to Thefeus. See Plutarch. STEEV.

(1) There are not many paffages in Shakespeare which one can be certain he has borrowed from the ancients; but this is one of the few that, I think, will admit of no difpute. Our author's admirable defcription of the miferies of the country being plainly an imitation of that which Ovid draws, as confequent on the grief of Ceres, for the lofs of her daughter.

"Nefcit adhuc ubi fit: terras tamen increpat omnes :
Ingratafque vocat, nec frugum munere dignas.

------Ergo illic fæva vertenfia glebas

Fregit aratra manu parilique frata colonos

Ruricolafque boves letho dedit: arvaque juffit

Fallere depofitum vitiataque femina fecit.
Fertilitas terræ latum vulgata per orbem

Sparfa jacet. Primis fegetes moriuntur in herbis.
Et modo fol nimius, nimius modo corripit imbir :
Sideraque ventique nocent."

"Spring' for 'beginning' our author again uses : 2d Part Hen. IV.

"As flaws congealed in the spring of day."

WARB.

which expreffion has its original from fcripture, St. Luke, ch. i. v. 78 "whereby the day-fpring from on high hath vifited us."

(2) A fountain laid round the edge with ftone. JOHNS. (3) Borne down the banks that contained them.

STEEV.

JOHNS

The nine-men's morris is fill'd up with mud ;[4]
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
For lack of tread are undiftinguishable.

The human mortals want their winter here,[5]
No night is now with hymn or carol blest:
Therefore the moon, the governefs of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound:
And, thorough this diftemperature, we fee
The feafons alter; hoary-headed frofts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rofe;
And on old Hyems' chin, and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of fweet fummer-buds
Is, as in mockery, fet: The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn,[6] angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the 'mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which:
And this fame progeny of evils, comes

From our debate, from our diffenfion;

We are their parents and original.

Ob. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: Why fhould Titania crofs her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy

To be my henchman.[7]

Queen. Set your heart at reft,

The fairy land buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votrefs of my order;
And, in the fpiced Indian air, by night,
Full often the hath goffip'd by my fide;
And fat with me on Neptune's yellow fands,
Marking the embarked traders on the flood;
When we have laugh'd to fee the fails conceive,
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
Which the, with pretty and with fwimming gait
(Following her womb then rich with my young 'fquire,)
Would imitate e; and fail upon the land

(4) This was fome kind of rural game played in a marked ground. But what it was more I have not found, JOHNS.

(5) The confufion of feafons here defcribed, is no more than a poetical account of the weather, which happened in England about the time when this play was first published. For this information I am indebted to chance, which furnished me with a few leaves of an old meteorological hiftory.

STEEV.

(6) The 'childing autumn' is the pregnant autumn, frugifer autumnus,

STEEV.

(7) Page of honour. This office was abolished by queen Elizabeth, GRAY,

To fetch me trifles, and return again,
As from a voyage, rich with merchandize.
But fhe, being mortal, of that boy did die;
And, for her fake, I do rear up her boy;
And, for her fake, I will not part with him.
Ob. How long within this wood intend you stay ?`
Queen. Perchance, till after Thefeus' wedding-day..
If you will patiently dance in our round,
And fee our moon-light revels, go with us;
If not, fhun me, and I will fpare your haunts.
Ob. Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.
Queen. Not for thy fairy kingdom.-Fairies, away ::
We fhall chide down-right, if I longer stay.
[Exe. Queen and her train.
Ob. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.

-My gentle Puck, come hither; thou remember'st
Since once I fat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering fuch dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude fea grew civil at her fong;
And certain ftars fhot madly from their spheres,
To hear the fea-maid's mufic.[8]

Puck. I remember.

(8)

---thou remember'ft

Since once I fat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back,
Uttering fuch duleet and harmonious breath,
That the rude fea grew civil at her fong;

And certain ftars fhot madly from their spheres
To hear the fea-maid's mufic.]

The first thing obfervable on these words is, that this action of the mermaid?
is laid in the fame time and place with Cupid's attack upon the veftal. By
the 'veftal' every one knows is meant queen Elizabeth. It is very natural
and reasonable then to think that the mermaid" ftands for fomé eminent
perfonage of her time. And if fo, the allegorical covering, in which there
is a mixture of fatire and panegyric, will lead us to conclude, that this
perfon was one of whom it had been inconvenient for the author to speak
openly, either in praise or difpraife. All this agrees with Mary queen of
Scots, and with no other. Queen Elizabeth could not bear to hear her
commended; and her fucceffor would not forgive her fatyrift. But the
poet has fo well marked out every diftinguished circumftance of her life
and character in this beautiful allegory, as will leave no room to doubt
about his fecret meaning. She is called a Mermaid, 1. to denote her reign
over a kingdom fituate in the fea, and 2. her beauty and intemperate luft,、
66 ------------- Ut turpiter atrum

Definat in pifcem mulier formosa superne.”

for as Elizabeth for her chastity is called a veftal, this unfortunate lady on a contrary account is called a mermaid. 3. An ancient ftory may be fuppofed to be here alluded to. The emperor Julian tells us, Epiftle 41. that the Sirens (which, with all the modern poets, are mermaids) contended for: precedency with the Muses, who overcoming them took away their wings.