ACT 1.-SCENE 1.

"NEW bent in heaven"-The old copies, quarto and folio, are uniform in reading "new" now, which all the editors, except Collier, have agreed with Rowe in considering as an early error of the press. The old reading of now, preferred by Collier, gives indeed an intelligible sense, but far less probable and less poetical, and more harshly expressed, than that preferred in all other editions.

"Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword"-"The ingenious writer of A Letter on Shakespeare's Authorship of the Two Noble Kinsmen' remarks, that the characters in a MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM are classical, but the costume is strictly Gothic, and shows that it was through the medium of romance that he drew the knowledge of them.' It was in Chaucer's Knight's Tale' that our Poet found the Duke of Athens, and Hip polyta, and Philostrate; in the same way that the author of the Two Noble Kinsmen,' and subsequently Dryden, found there the story of Palamon and Arcite.' Hercules and Theseus have been called, by Godwin, the knight-errants of antiquity;" and truly the mode

in which the fabulous histories of the ancient world blended themselves with the literature of the chivalrous ages fully justifies this seemingly anomalous designation. It is not difficult to trace Shakespeare in passages of the 'Knight's Tale.' The opening lines of that beautiful poem offer an example:

Whilom, as olde stories tellen us,
Ther was a duk that highte Theseus.
Of Athenes he was lord and governour,
And in his time swiche a conquerour,
That greter was ther non under the sonne
Full many a riche contree had he wonne.
What with his wisdom and his chevalrie,
He conquerd all the regne of Feminie,
That whilom was yeleped Scythia;
And wedded the fresshe quene Ipolita,
And brought hire home with him to his contree
With mochel glorie and gret solempnitee.
And eke hire yonge suster Emilie.
And thus with victorie and with melodie
Let I this worthy duk to Athenes ride,
And all his host, in armes him beside.

And certes, if it n'ere to long to here,
I wolde have tolde you fully the manere,
How wonnen was the regne of Feminie.
By Theseus, and by his chevalrie:
And of the grete bataille for the nones
Betwix Athenes and the Amasones:
And how asseged was Ipolita
The faire hardy quene of Scythia;

And of the feste, that was at hire wedding,
And of the temple at hire home coming.
But all this thing I most as now forbere;
I have, God wot, a large field to ere."

KNIGHT.

"our renowned DUKE"-Gibbon, ("Decline and Fall," chap. xvii.,) speaking of the title of Duke, as applied to the military commander of princes in the reign of Constantine, says that "it is only a corruption of the Latin word Dux, which was indiscriminately applied to any chief." In this sense it was early adopted in Old-English, and used in the first translations of the Bible, including that of King James. Thus, in the fifteenth chapter of "Genesis," the word in Greek and in Hebrew, answering to leader, is thus rendered. Again, in the first chapter of the first book of "Chronicles," we find a list of the "dukes of Edom." Chaucer has Duke Theseus-Gower, Duke Spartacus-Stonyhurst, Duke Eneas.

"according to our law"-By a law of Solon, parents had an absolute power of life and death over their children. It suited the Poet's purpose to suppose that the Athenians had it before.

-EARTHLY happier"-More happy in an earthly sense. The reading of all the old copies is "earthlier happy," and this is retained in the majority of editions, although Pope and Johnson proposed earlier happy, and Stevens earthly happy. We agree, with Knight and Collier, that Capell's reading, which we have adopted, is the true one; and that the old reading arose out of a common typographical error. The orthography of the folio is earthlier happie-if the comparative had not been used, it would have been earthlie happie; and it is easy to see that the r has been transposed.

"Unto his lordship, whose UNWISHED yoke"-Collier follows the second folio-" to whose unwish'd yoke;" but to give any thing sovereignty is still good English, without inserting to. The metre is more impressive as it stood in the three earlier editions, without this insertion. "Lordship" is used as it was anciently, where we should now use dominion-an instance, among many, where the word of later derivation, of the same primitive sense, had displaced the former Anglo-Saxon one, or confined it to a more limited sense. In Wickliffe's "New Testament," "lordship" is used where the translators of King James's "Bible" have preferred dominion.

"BETEEM them"-To "beteem," in its common acceptation, is to bestow, as often used by Spenser and others, and which gives a clear sense; but Stevens suggests that it here means pour out, as he says it is used in the North of England.

"Ah me! for aught that I could ever read"-The curious observer of Shakespearian rhythm will note here a variation from most of the editions, affecting only the melody of the passage. This is the reading of the

two editions printed in the Poet's life. The folio, followed by Stevens, Knight, and others, has-" that ever I could read."

"The passage in 'Paradise Lost,' in which Milton has imitated this famous passage of Shakespeare, is conceived in a very different spirit. Lysander and Hermia lament over the evils by which

true lovers have been ever cross'd

as 'an edict in destiny,' to which they must both submit with patience and mutual forbearance. The Adam of Milton reproaches Eve with the

He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd
By a far worse, or if she love, withheld

By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame:

Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound."
("Paradise Lost," book x. ver. 895.)

Adam had certainly cause to be angry when he uttered these reproaches; and, therefore, Milton has dramatically forgotten that man is not the only sufferer in such disturbances on earth.'"-KNIGHT.

"-too high to be enthrall'd to Low"-The quartos and folios read

O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to love. Theobald altered love to "low;" and the antithesis, which is kept up through the subsequent lines, justifies the change-high, low: old, young.

"the choice of FRIENDS"-For "friends" the first folio reads me rit. It is difficult to account for the variation, which certainly gives a sense less clear, and less suited to the next line.

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"MOMENTANY as a sound"-The folio changes 'momentany" into momentary, which the Pictorial" and other late editions follow. I have preferred retaining the Old-English variation of the word, as it stood in the two first editions; it being the older word, and used by Bacon, Hooker, and Crashaw, and still in use in Dryden's time.

"the COLLIED night”—i. e. Black, smutted. This is a word still in use in the Staffordshire collieries. Shakespeare found it there, and transplanted it into the region of poetry.

"—in a SPLEEN"-i. e. In a sudden fit of passion, or caprice. Shakespeare repeatedly uses it, in the sense of violent hasty motion: as in KING JOHN

With swifter spleen than powder can enforce. "FANCY's followers"-i. e. The "followers" of love. Fancy" is here used in the same sense as in the MERCHANT OF VENICE

"YOURS WOULD I catch"-The reading of all the old editions is, "Your words I catch," which, though Collier retains, I cannot comprehend, and, with all the other editors presume it to be a misprint; and have adopted the correction of Hanmer.

"what graces in my love do dwell,

That he hath turn'd a heaven into a hell!" "Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She, therefore, bids her not to consider the power of pleasing as an advantage, to be much envied or much desired; since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the su preme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness."—JOHNSON.

STRANGE COMPANIES"-In the original editions we have the following reading:

And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms, of their counsel swell'd, There my Lysander and myself shall meet, And thence from Athens turn away our eyes To seek new friends and strange companions. The scene is in rhyme; and the introduction of four lines of blank verse has a harsh effect. Swell'd, too, is a harsh and obscure epithet. The emendations were made by Theobald; and they are certainly ingenious and unforced. 66 'Companies," for companions, has an example in HENRY V.:

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow. "-base and VIL'D"-i. e. Vile. The word occurs repeatedly in SHAKESPEARE, as in Spenser; and when it does occur, we are scarcely justified in substituting the modern vile.

SCENE II.

"Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING"-The old stage-direction gives their dif ferent trades-"Enter Quince, the carpenter; and Snug, the joiner; and Bottom, the weaver; and Flute, the bellows-mender; and Starveling, the tailor."

"In this scene, Shakespeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man wants to perform, when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a 'tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is, therefore, desirous to play Pyramus, Thisby, and the Lion, at the same time."-JOHNSON.

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according to the SCRIP"-i. e. Script-a written paper. Bills of exchange are called, by Locke, "scrips of paper;" and the term is still known upon the Stock Exchange.

"most LAMENTABLE COMEDY"-Probably a bur lesque upon the titles of some of the old dramas; thus:A lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of pleasant mirth, containing the Life of Cambises, king of Percia," etc.; by Thomas Preston, (no date.) So, Skelton's "Magnificence" is called "a goodly interlude and a mery."

"A very good PIECE OF WORK"-Bottom and Sly both speak of a theatrical representation as they would of a piece of cloth, or a pair of shoes. Sly says of the play, "'Tis a very excellent piece of work."

"ERCLES' vein"-i. e. Hercules. He was one of the roaring heroes of the rude drama which preceded

Shakespeare. In Greene's "Groat's-worth of Wit," (1592,) a player says, The twelve labours of Hercules have I terribly thundered on the stage."

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- play it in a mask”— This passage shows how the want of women, on the old stage, was supplied. If they had not a young man who could perform the part with a face that might pass for feminine, the character was acted in a mask; which was at that time a part of a lady's dress so much in use, that it did not give any unusual appearance to the scene; and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone might play the woman very successfully. Some of the catastrophes of the old comedies, which make lovers marry the wrong women, are, by recollection of the common use of masks, brought nearer to probability. Prynne, in his Histriomatix," exclaims with great vehemence through several pages, because a woman acted a part in a play at Blackfriars, in the year 1628."—Illust. Shak.

"-a bill of PROPERTIES"-The technicalities of the theatre are very unchanging. The person who has charge of the wooden swords, and pasteboard shields. and other trumpery required for the business of the stage, is still called the property-man. In the "Antipodes," by R. Brome, 1640, (quoted by Mr. Collier,) we have the following ludicrous account of the “ properties," which form as curious an assemblage as in Hogarth's "Strollers:"

He has got into our tiring-house amongst us,
And ta'en a strict survey of all our properties;
Our statues and our images of gods,

Our planets and our constellations,

Our giants, monsters, furies, beasts, and bugbears, Our helmets, shields and vizors, hairs and beards, Our pasteboard marchpanes, and our wooden pies. "Hold, or cut bow-strings"-Capell says this is a proverbial expression, derived from archery :-" When a party was made at butts, assurance of meeting was given in the words of that phrase." It means, "at all events," or, as we now say, "rain or shine."

ACT II.-SCENE I.

"-from opposite sides"-In the old stage-direction, and in the prefixes to the speeches, Puck is called Robin Good-fellow, until after the entrance of Oberon. Robin Good-fellow was his popular name.

"THOROUGH bush"-" Thorough" is the older form of through, and both were used indiscriminately in Shakespeare's day, though the first began to be a little antiquated. He uses either, as suits his metrical effect. Some editors have shortened the lines by reading through, which is not in the measure the Poet chooses for his fairy rhythm. So Drayton, in his “ Nymphidia, or Court of Fairy"—

Thorough brake, thorough briar, Thorough muck, thorough mire, Thorough water, thorough fire.

"Swifter than the moon's sphere"-We learn from Mr. Collier, that Coleridge, in his lectures, in 1818, was very emphatic in his praises of the beauty of these lines: "the measure (he said) had been invented and employed by Shakespeare, for the sake of its appropriateness to the rapid and airy motion of the Fairy by whom the passage is delivered." In his "Literary Remains," he dwells upon the subject with more particularity, and dissects the lines according to the Greek measures, observing upon "the delightful effect on the ear in the sweet transition," from the eight amphimacers of the first four lines to the trochees of the concluding verses. Stevens and Collier print "moon's" mone's, as being the Old-Saxon genitive; and Mr. Guest (“History of English Rhythm") is right in saying that this line accords with the peculiar rhythm the Poet has devoted to his fairies," which he well describes as abrupt verses of two, three, or four accents."

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"her ORBS upon the green"-"The 'orbs' here mentioned are those circles in the herbage commonly

called fairy-rings, the cause of which is not yet certainly known. Thus, also, Drayton

They in courses make that round.
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called fairy ground.

Olaus Magnus says that these dancers parched up the grass; and, therefore, it is properly made the office of the fairy to refresh it."-JOHNSON and STEVENS.

"The cowslips tall her PENSIONERS be"-i. e. Her guards. The golden-coated cowslips are selected as pensioners to the fairy queen, the dress of Queen Elizabeth's band of gentlemen-pensioners being very splendid, and the tallest and handsomest men being generally chosen for the office. These glittering attendants on royalty are alluded to by Dame Quickly, in the MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

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- starlight SHEEN"-i. e. Bright, shining. "they do SQUARE”—i. e. Quarrel. "It is difficult to understand how to square, which, in the ordinary sense, is to agree, should mean to disagree. And yet there is no doubt that the word was used in this sense. Hollingshed has-' Falling at square with her husband.' In MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, Beatrice says-'Is there no young squarer now, that will make a voyage with him to the devil?' Mr. Richardson, after explaining the usual meaning of this verb, adds To square is also, consequently, to broaden; to set out broadly, in a position or attitude of offence or defence-(se quarrer.)' The word is thus used in the language of pugilism. There is more of our old dialect in flash terms than is generally supposed."-KNIGHT.

"that shrewd and knavish sprite, Called Robin Good-fellow."

"The account given of this 'knavish sprite' in these lines, corresponds with what is said of him in Harsenet's 'Declaration,' (1603:)—“ And if that the bowl of curds and cream were not duly set out for Robin Good-fellow, the friar, and Sisse, the dairy maid, why then either the pottage was burnt next day in the pot, or the cheeses would not curdle, or the butter would not come, or the ale in the vat never would have good head.' Scott also speaks of him, in his Discovery of Witchcraft:'Your grandams' 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.'"—T. WARTON.

In his " Nymphidia," (1619,) Drayton thus speaks of Puck," the merry wanderer of the night:"—

This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt;
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of a bush doth bolt,

Of purpose to deceive us;

And leading us, makes us to stray
Long winter nights, out of the way,
And when we stick in mire and clay.
He doth with laughter leave us.

"—in the QUERN"-i. e. Handmill; from the AngloSaxon, cwyrn.

to bear no BARM"-i. e. Not to work: "barm" is yeast.

"sweet PUCK"-"The epithet is by no means superfluous; as 'Puck' alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It signified nothing better than fiend, or devil. So, the author of 'Pierce Ploughman' puts the pouk for the devil-none helle powke.' It seems to have been an old Gothic word. Puke, puken; Satha Gudm. And, Lexicon Island."-TYRWHITT.

nas,

We have a New-York Americanism, which comes through the Dutch, from the same root-spook; meaning, any fearful and supernatural visitor, though generally a ghost. Ben Jonson calls his Robin Goodfellow, whose occupations are described as resembling Puck's, Pug, in the play of which Pug is the hero, (“The Devil is an Ass.") Burton ("Anatomy of Melancholy") soon after speaks of a Puck as a peculiar sort of demon, like a "Will of the Wisp." It would appear, therefore, to have been already long a familiar name, and not of the Poet's invention. Yet there is a curious coincidence between the name and a similar sounding one familiar to the language of our North American Indians, and connected with a similar playful superstition:

An ingenious attempt has been made by our countrywoman, Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, to identify the Puck of Shakespeare with a noted personage, of similar name, who figures in our aboriginal mythology. Her theory is based upon the curious Indian researches of H. R. Schoolcraft, Esq., published some years since in New York. Puck-pa-wis, it seems, is the name of a mythological character who figures in the fictitious lodgelegends of the Algonquins; whose language, now the principal tongue among the lake-tribes of the northwest, formerly prevailed, with some variations of dialect, from the St. Lawrence to the Roanoke, at the time when those regions were visited by Raleigh, and other contemporaries of Shakespeare. Puck-pa-wis (according to Schoolcraft) is always represented as "a roving, jumping, dancing, adventure-hunting character-a kind of harum-scarum merry-Andrew, who performs all sorts of feats and pranks.' He figures sometimes alone, but frequently has an attendant company of sprites called Puck-wudj-inninees"— -an epithet commonly translated "the little vanishers," or, to render it more clearly, (inninee being the diminutive form of the term for man,) "the little wild vanishing men of the woods." They are described as inhabiting rocky ledges and crevices, or frequenting rural and romantic points of land on lakes, bays, and rivers, particularly if they be crowned with pine-trees. They are depicted, in the oral language of the Algonquins, as flitting among thickets, or running with a whoop up the sides of mountains, and over plains. Puck-pa-wis, the chief of the troop, is sometimes described as carrying a magic shell; sometimes he is tossing a tiny ball before him. He is always represented as very small, and frequently being invisible-vanishing and re-appearing to those whom he visits with his pranks. (See SCHOOLCRAFT'S "Algic Researches.")

"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."-JOHNSON.

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- WAXEN in their mirth"-Dr. Farmer's conjecture, that "waxen" is a misprint for yexen, (i. e. hiccup,) makes a broader picture. However, "waxen," as the old plural of wax, is also comic enough. They increase their mirth, without new cause, till they sneeze. "Neeze" is the antiquated spelling of sneeze, and retained as late as our common version of the Bible.

"PERIGENIA, whom he ravished"-Her true name seems to have been Perigone. North, in his "Translation of Plutarch," (1579,) calls her Perigouna. This last would have suited Shakespeare's verse as well as 'Perigenia," and perhaps he did not procure the name from North's "Plutarch."

"the MIDDLE SUMMER'S SPRING"-The "spring" is the beginning; as the spring of the day-a common

expression in our early writers. The "middle summer" is the midsummer.

"PAVED fountain"-A" fountain," or clear stream. rushing over pebbles-certainly not an artificially "paved fountain," as Johnson has supposed. The paved foun tain is contrasted with the rushy brook. The epithet "paved" is used in the same sense as in the "pearlpaved ford" of Drayton, the "pebble-paved channel" of Marlowe, and the "coral-paven bed" of Milton.

-the winds, piping to us in vain"-In Churchyard's "Charitie," a poem published in 1595, the "distemperature" of that year is thus described :

A colder time in world was never seen:

The skies do lower, the sun and moon wax dim;
Summer scarce known but that the leaves are green.
The winter's waste drives water o'er the brim;
Upon the land great floats of wood may swim.
Nature thinks scorn to do her duty right,

Because we have displeased the Lord of Light.

This "progeny of evils" has been recorded by the theologians as well as the poets. In Strype's "Annals," we have an extract from a lecture preached by Dr. J. King, in which are enumerated the signs of divine wrath with which England was visited in 1593 and 1594. The lecturer says:-"Remember that the spring (that year when the plague broke out) was very unkind, by means of the abundance of rains that fell. Our July hath been like to a February; our June even as an April: so that the air must needs be infected." Then, having spoken of three successive years of scarcity, he adds " And see, whether the Lord doth not threaten us much more, by sending such unseasonable weather, and storms of rain among us: which if we will observe, and compare it with that which is past, we may say that the course of nature is very much inverted. Our years are turned upside down. Our summers are no summers: our harvests are no harvests: our seed-times are no

seed-times. For a great space of time, scant any day hath been seen that it hath not rained upon us."

"Contagious fogs; which falling in the land"—The manuscript diary of the theatrical astrologist, Dr. Forman, which has recently thrown so much light on Shakespearian chronology, as our readers will find in various parts of this edition, (see CYMBELINE, "Introductory Remarks,") gives an account of the weather in 1594, which translates into homely prose the fairy poetry of the dramatist :

"Ther was moch sicknes but lyttle death, moch fruit, and many plombs of all sorts this yeare and small nuts, but fewe walnuts. This monethes of June and July were very wet and wonderfull cold like winter, that the 10 dae of Julii many did syt by the fyer, yt was so cold; and soe was yt in Maye and June; and scarce too fair dais together all that tyme, but yt rayned every day more or lesse. Yf yt did not raine, then was yt cold and cloudye. Mani murders were done this quarter. There were many gret fludes this sommer, and about Michelmas, thorowe the abundaunce of raine that fell sodeinly, the brige of Ware was broken downe, and at Stratford Bowe, the water was never seen so byg as yt was and in the lattere end of October, the waters burst down the bridg at Cambridge. In Barkshire were many gret waters, wherewith was moch harm done sodenly."

"every PELTING river"-i. e. Petty, or rather paltry; for the original word H. Tooke shows to have been palting-whence our paltry. We have, in this sense, 'pelting farm," in RICHARD II., (act ii. scene 1.) "their CONTINENTS"-i. e. Banks. A"continent" is that which contains.

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"The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud”—“ In that part of Warwickshire (says James) where Shakespeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives, to represent a sort of imper fect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot in diameter; sometimes three or four yards.

Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they are called; and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. The figures are, by the country-people, called 'Nine Men's Morris,' or Merrils: and are so called because each party has nine men."

"HUMAN MORTALS"-This expression has been supposed to indicate the difference between mankind and fairy-kind, in the following manner-that they were each mortal, but that the less spiritual beings were distinguished as human. Upon this assertion of Stevens, Ritson and Reed enter into fierce controversy. Chapman, in his "Homer," has an inversion of the phrase, "mortal humans;" and we suppose that, in the same way, whether Titania were, or were not, subject to death, she employed the language of poetry in speaking of "human mortals," without reference to the conditions of fairy existence.

"their winter HERE"'—"The emendation proposed by Theobald, their winter cheer,' is plausible. The original reading is

The humane mortals want their winter heere. Johnson says 'here' means in this country, and their 'winter' signifies their winter evening sports. The ingenious author of a pamphlet, Explanations and Emendations,' etc., (Edinburgh, 1814,) would read—

The human mortals want; their winter here, No night is now with hymn or carol blest. The writer does not support his emendation by any argument; but we believe that he is right. The swollen rivers have rotted the corn, the fold stands empty, the flocks are murrain, the sports of summer are at an end, the human mortals want. This is the climax. Their winter is here-is come-although the season is the latter summer, or autumn; and in consequence the hymns and carols which gladdened the nights of a seasonable winter are wanting to this premature one. The therefore which follows introduces another clause in the catalogue of evils produced by the brawls of Oberon and Titania; as in the case of the preceding use of the same emphatic word in two instances:

And on old Hyem's chin, and icy crownwhich does not show any necessity of conjectural emendation. The image of the snowy beard of Winter, as well as his "icy crown," being wreathed with "sweet summer buds," is sufficiently clear, as well as poetical, and suits the personification of Hyem. Thus, in Golding's "Ovid," a great storehouse of the mythology and poetical imagery of the Elizabethan poets, we haveWinter forlorne,

Forladen with the icicles that dangled up and downe, Upon his gray and hoarie beard, and snowy frozen crowne. This has, with much probability, been thought to have suggested the present image-chin being used, with little stretch of poetical license, for beard. Yet there is some ground for the emendation insisted upon by Gifford and Dyce-"Hyems, with a chaplet of summer buds upon his chin, (says Dyce,) is a grotesque figure, which must startle the dullest reader." "What child (says Gifford) does not see that the line should be

And on old Hyems' thin and icy crown!" Certainly thinne, the old spelling, may have been misprinted chinne; and we have in RICHARD II. a similar phraseology:

White beards have armed their thin and hairless scalps.

Still I do not think this sufficient to disturb the authority of three original editions, concurring in an image which has, I believe, been used by ancient poets, and certainly by modern painters.

"The CHILDING autumn"-i. e. Productive, teeming. or pregnant; as the Poet has in his "Sonnets:"The teeming autumn big with rich increase.

"a fair VESTAL"-It is well known that a compliment to Queen Elizabeth was intended in this very beautiful passage. Warburton has attempted to show, that by the mermaid, in the preceding lines, Mary. Queen of Scots, was intended. It is argued with his usual fanciful ingenuity, but will not bear the test of examination, and has been refuted by Ritson. Whiter, in his ingenious attempt to trace the association of ideas, which prompted many of Shakespeare's allusions and images, maintains that these images were derived from the masques and pageants which abounded in that age; and that the Poet even may have alluded to some actual exhibition of splendid court-flattery.

"LOVE-IN-IDLENESS"-The tri-coloured violet, commonly called pansies, or heart's-ease, is here meant. One or two of its petals are of a purple colour. It has other fanciful and expressive names, such as-" Cuddle me to you," "Three faces under a hood," "Herb trinity," etc.

"The one I'll STAY"-This is the invariable reading of the old copies. Theobald, followed by most of the editors, changed it to

The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.

But the old reading does not need this violent change of sense, though the verbal change may be small. He will not allow Helena to "stay" him, but he will "stay" (stop) Hermia: Lysander "stayeth" (hindereth) him.

"LUSCIOUS woodbine"-In the editions of Stevens. and those who follow his text, for the sake of closer regularity of metre, with little regard to its melody, the "luscious woodbine" of the old copies is changed into lush woodbine.

By the Athenian garments he hath ox." "I desire no surer evidence to prove that the broad Scotch pronunciation once prevailed in England, than such a rhyme as the first of these words affords to the second."-STEVENS.

There is an ultraism of the long slender sound of a, which has of late become an affectation among some speakers; and this, it is clear, could not rhyme with on. But man, with the a sounded as in tan, hat, is among the purest English sounds, as can be shown from numerous rhymes which would not allow the sound of mon. The latitude of an occasional rhyme like this is a common poetical license-like that in Puck's speech, (act iii. scene 2,) where one rhymes with alone.

SCENE II.

now a ROUNDEL"-The "roundel," or round, as its name implies, was a dance of a circular kind. Ben Jonson, in the Tale of a Tub," seems to call the rings. which such fairy dances are supposed to make in the grass, rondels

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I'll have no rondels, I, in the queen's paths.
REAR-MICE"-A rere-mouse is a bat.

"Love takes the meaning in love's conference"-i. e. "In the conversation of those who are assured of each other's kindness, not suspicion, but love takes the meaning. No malevolent interpretation is to be made, but all is to be received in the sense which love can find, and which love can dictate."-JOHNSON.

"-wilt thou DARKLING leave me"-i. e. In the dark, a word found also in LEAR, and in Milton. It is now antiquated to the general reader, though Johnson, in his