Line 35. -Robin-good-fellow;] Reginald Scot gives an account of this frolicksome spirit, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1588, 4to. p. 66. "Your grandames, maids, were "wont to set a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding of "malt and mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight-this "white bread, and bread and milk, was his standing fee."

STEEVENS.

Line 37. Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,

And bootless make the breathless houswife churn.] The sense of these lines is confused. Are not you he, says the fairy, that fright the country girls, that skim milk, work in the hand-mill, and make the tired dairy-women churn without effect? The mention of the mill seems out of place, for she is not now telling the good but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus :

And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern.

Or by a simple transposition of the lines;

And bootless, make the breathless housewife churn

Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern.

Yet there is no necessity of alteration.

JOHNSON,

Line 39. -no barm;] Barme, a name for yeast, yet used in the midland counties. So in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594 : "It behoveth my wits to work like barme, alias yeast."

STEEV.

Line 41. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work.] To those traditionary opinions

Milton has reference in L'Allegro,

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,-
With stories told of many a feat,

How Fairy Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinch'd and pull'd she said,
And he by Frier's lanthorn led;
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To carn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night ere glimpse of morn
His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn
Which ten day-labourers could not end,
Then lies him down the lubber fiend.

A like account of Puck is given by Drayton,

He meeteth Puck, which most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.-

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of a bed doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us;

And leading us makes us to stray,
Long winter's nights out of the way,

And when we stick in mire and clay,

He doth with laughter leave us.

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 some system of the fairy empire generally received, which they both represented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakspeare wrote first, I cannot discover. JOHNSON.

Line 44. Puck. Thou speak'st aright.] It seems, that in The Fairy Mythology, Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia, the same fairies are engaged in the same business. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, sends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a spell. JOHNSON.

Line 50.

-a roasted crab ;] i.e. A wild apple.

56. And tailor cries,] The custom of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair falls as a tailor squats upon his board. Besides, the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger. JOHNSON. Line 58. And waxen- -] And increase, as the moon waxes.

JOHNSON.

60. But room, Faery,] All the old copies read-But room Fairy. The word Fairy or Faery, was sometimes of three syllables, as often in Spenser.

JOHNSON.

ACT II. SCENE II.

Line 80. Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night.] The glimmering night is the night partially light, or but faintly illuminated by the stars.

Line 81. From Perigenia, whom he ravished?] Our author, who diligently perus'd Plutarch, and glean'd from him, where his subject would admit, knew, from the life of Theseus, that her name was Perigyne, (or Perigenia) by whom Theseus had his son Melanippus. She was the daughter of Sinnis, a cruel robber, and tormentor of passengers in the Isthmus. Plutarch and Athenæus are both express in the circumstance of Theseus ravishing her. THEOBALD.

Line 85. And never, since the middle summer's spring, &c.] By the middle summer's spring, our author seems to mean the beginning of middle or mid summer. Spring, for beginning, our author again,uses, Henry IV. Part 2.

As flaws congealed in the spring of day.

which expression has its original from scripture, St. Luke, c. i. v. 78. "whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us." STEEVENS.

Line 87. Paved fountain,] A fountain laid round the edge

with stone.

Line 91.

the winds piping-] So Milton, While rocking winds are piping loud.

JOHNSON.

JOHNSON.

94. pelting river-] Shakspeare has in Lear the same word, low pelting farms. The meaning is plainly, despicable, mean, sorry, wretched; but as it is a word without any reasonable etymology, I should be glad to dismiss it for petty, yet it is undoubtedly right. We have petty pelting officer in Measure for Measure. JOHNSON.

Line 95. Overborne their continents:] Born down the banks that contain them. So in Lear:

Close pent up guilts

Rive your concealing continents.

JOHNSON.

Line 101. The nine-men's morris is fill'd up with mud,] Is a country game played by the labourers in the fields and farm-yards; it is performed on the turf, from which certain parts are cut out,

and played with nine stones, each man, which are moved like chess-men.

Line 104. The human mortals- -] The confusion of seasons here described, 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 history. STEEVENS.

Line 104. - -their winter here;] Mr. Mason would read, their winter cheer: either reading is intelligible, and not worth the alteration.

Line 112.

-Hyem's chin,] Dr. Grey, not inelegantly con

jectures, that the poet wrote,

-" On old Hyem's chill and icy crown."

STEEVENS.

It is not indeed easy to discover how a chaplet can be placed on the chin. Line 115. The childing autumn,] Is the pregnant autumn, frugifer autumnus.

STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

Line 117. By their increase,] That is, By their produce.

Thus in the 67th Psalm:

"Then shall the earth bring forth her increase.”

Line 124. Henchman.] Page of honour. This office was abo lished by queen Elizabeth.

GREY.

The office might be abolished at court, but probably remained in the city. Thus in Wit in a Constable:

"When she was lady may'ress, and you humble

"As her trim hench-boys."

STEEVENS,

Upon the establishment of the household of Edward IV. were henxman six enfants, or more, as it pleyseth the king, eatinge in the halle, &c. There was also a maister of the henxmen, to shewe them the schoole of nature, and learne them to ride, to wear their harnesse; to have all curtesie-to teach them all languages, and other virtues, as harpinge, pypinge, singinge, dauncinge, with honest behavioure of temperaunce and patyence. MS. Harl. 293. TYRWHITT. Line 165. Cupid all-arm'd:] All-armed, does not signify dressed in panoply, but only enforces the word armed, as we might say all-booted. JOHNSON.

Line 166. At a fair vestal, throned by the west;] Mr. Pope deems this a compliment to queen Elizabeth.

fancy free.] The word fancy is mostly used by

Line 177. And maidens call it love in idleness.] This is as fine a metamorphosis as any in Ovid: With a much better moral, intimating that irregular love has only power when people are idle, or not well employed. WARBURTON.

Line 196. I am invisible.] I thought proper here to observe, that, as Oberon and Puck his attendant, may be frequently observed to speak, when there is no mention of their entering; they are designed by the poet to be supposed on the stage during the greatest part of the remainder of the play; and to mix, as they please, as spirits, with the other actors; and embroil the plot, by their interposition, without being seen, or heard, but when to their own purpose. THEOBALD., Line 202. and wood within this wood,] Wood, or mad, wild, raving. "The name woden," says Verstegan in his Antiquities, "sig"nifies fierce or furious, and in like sense we still retain it, say"ing, when one is in a great rage, that he is wood, or taketh on, "as if he were wood." STEEVENS.

Line 212.

264.

POPE.

for that.] i. e. For quitting the city, &c. Where oxlips-] Cowslips.

265. Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,] In the old editions luscious.

On the margin of one of my folio's an unknown hand has written lush woodbine, which, I think, is right.

This hand I have since discovered to be Theobald's. JOHNSON.

Line 283.

ACT II. SCENE III.

-a roundel, and a fairy song;] A roundel is a

GREY.

dance in a ring. A roundel, rondill, or roundelay, is used to signify a song be ginning or ending with the same sentence, redit in orbem.

Line 286.

-with rear mice- -] i. e. Bats.

STEEVENS.