MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

1

These yelow consip doeken

Are yote, are
Lovers

, make su
His eyes were prea tu balis

O! sisters thre

Come, come lo es
With basis as silk sa.

Lay them in gure

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

SCENE .
Ay, that left

pap,
Where heart doth hop:-

SCENE II.

Hop as light as bird from brier;
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus!

And this ditty after me

Enter Puck.
Now am I dead,

Sing, and dance it trippingly.
Now am I fled;

Puck. Now the hungry lion roars,

T'ita. First, rehearse your song by rote,
And the wolf behowls the moon;

To each word a warbling note :
My soul is in the sky:

Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,

Hand in hand with fairy grace
Tongue, lose thy light!

All with weary task fordone.

Will we sing, and bless this place.
Moon, take thy fight!
Now the wasted brands do glow,

THE SONG.
Now die, die, die, die, die."

Since you have share

Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
(Dies.-Eril Moorsuine.

Obe. Now, until the break of day,
With shear his thread di

Puts the wretch, that lies in woe,
Dem. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but

Through this house each fairy stray.
Tongue
, not a punt -
In remembrance of a shroud.

To the best bride-bed will we, one.

Come, trusty sterd

Now it is the time of night,
Lys. Less than an ace, man, for he is dead; he

Which by us shall blessed be;
Come, blade, my breast indre
That the graves, all gaping wide,

And the issue there create is nothing,

And foresel, bat-
Every one lets forth his sprite,

Ever shall be fortunate.
The. With the help of a surgeon, he might yet Thus Thisbrends

In the church-way paths to glide :
And we fairies, that do run

So shall all the couples three
Adieu, adien, adieu."

Ever true in loving be; recover, and yet prove an ass.

By the triple Hecate's team,
The. Moonshine and Lisnar poder

And the blots of nature's hand
Hip. How chance moonshine is gone, before

From the presence of the sun,
Dem. Ay, and wall too.

Shall not in their issue stand:
Thiste comes back and finds her lover?

Following darkness like a dream,
Bot. No, I assure you; the mulia

Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
The. She will find him by starlight.--Here she

Now are frolic; not a mouse
parted their fathers
. Well it has not
Shall disturb this hallow'd house :

Nor mark prodigious, such as are
I am sent with broom before,

Despised in nativity,
two of our company!

Shall upon their children be.
To sweep the dust behind the door.

With this field-dew consecrate,
The. No epilogue

, I pray you; Argan
no excuse. Nerer erense, berica Enter Oberon, and Titania, with all their train. Every fairy take his gait,

And each several chamber bless,
Obe. Through the house give glimmering light,

Through this palace with sweet peace;
By the dead and drowsy fire ;

Ever shall in safety rest, Franonore
And the owner of it blest.

hann tires

comes, and her passion ends the play. Enter Tuisge.

epilogue, or to hear a Berpuas Hip. Methinks, she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.

Dem. A mote will turn the balance, which all dead, there need more to be blamel Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, lie that writ it

, had play'd Promise God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us. himself in 'Thishe's garter

, it would be Lys

. She hath spied him already with those tragedy; and so it is truly made and Every elf, and fairy sprite, sweet eyes.

charged. But come, your Bergens Dem. And thus she moans, videlicet

epilogue alone.
This. " Asleep, my love?

The iron tongue of midnight bath the
What, dead, my dove?

Lovers, to bed : 'tis almost fairy tale
O Pyramus! arise :

I fear we shall out-sleep the coming
Speak, speak! Quite dumb? As much as we this might have verri
Dead, dead! A tomb

This palpable gross play hath wel les
Must cover thy sweet eyes.

The heavy gair of night.-Sweet fast
These lily lips,

A fortnight hold we this solemust

, This cherry nose,

In nightly revels

, and new jollty

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

Trip away; make no stay:
Meet me all by break of day.

(Exeunt OBERON, TITANIA, and train. Puck. If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and a l is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here,
While these visions did appear;
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a drcam,
Gentles, do not reprehend:

If you pardan
And, as I'm a bensint
If we have neared it
Now to 'scape the ratio
We will make and comes
Else the Puck a local
So, good night team and
Give me your hans, in
And Robin shell 1089

BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS.
ACT I. Boxx1.--Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword

NOTES ON MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

sense.

ACT I.--Scene 1.

" - our renowned DUKE”–Gibbon, (“Decline and

Fall," chap. xvii.,) speaking of the title of Duke, as apNew bent in heaven"— The old copies, quarto and plied to the military commander of princes in the reigu klo

, are uniform in reading "new" now, which all the of Constantine, says that “it is only a corruption of the niken

, except Collier, have agreed with Rowe in con- Latin word Dux, which was indiscriminately applied Blering as an early error of the press. The old reading to any chief.” In this sense it was early adopted in Wero, preferred by Collier , gives indeed an intelligible Old-English, and

used in the first translations of the want

, but far less probable and less poetical, and more Bible, including that of King James. Thus, in the fifundly expressed, than that preferred in all other edi. teenth 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," "Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword"-" The in

we find a list of the "dukes of Edom." Chaucer has fraious writer of 'A Letter on Shakespeare's Author

Duke Theseus-Gower, Duke Spartacus-Stonyhurst, bip of the Two Noble Kinsmen' remarks, that the

Duke Æneas.
duracters in a MIDSUMMER-Nigut's DREAM are classi.
al

, but the costume is strictly Gothic, and shows that “ - according to our laro"-By a law of Solon, pa-
wu through the medium of romance that he drew the rents had an absolute power of life and death over their
tuowledge of them.' It was in Chaucer's Knight's children. It suited the Poet's purpose to suppose that
Take that our Poet found the Duke of Athens, and Hip the Athenians had it before,
plyte
, and Philostrate : in the same way that the author

" — EARTHLY happier”—More happy in an earthly the Two Noble Kinsmen,' and subsequently Dry:

The reading of all the old copies is "earthlier des

, found there the story of Palamon and Arcite.'
Bomule and Thesens have been called, by Godwin, happy," and

this is retained in the majority of editions, ter knight-errants of antiquity;"

and truly the mode although Pope and Johnson proposed earlier happy, which the fabulous histories of the ancient world

and Stevens earthly happy. We agree, with Knight Wended themselves with the literature of the chivalrous

and Collier, that Capell's reading, which we have

adopted, is the true one ; and that the old reading arose a fally justifies this seemingly anomalous designation. i por dificult to trace Shakespeare in passages of the

out of a common typographical error. The orthography Loight's Tale.' The opening lines of that beautiful

of the folio is earthlier happie--if the comparative had poem offer an example:

not been used, it would have been earthlie kappie ;

and it is easy to see that the r has been transposed. Whilom, an olde stories tellen is, Ther was a duk that highte Theseus.

“Unto his lordship, whose UNWISHED yoke"-Collier Of Athenes he was lord and governour, And in his time swiche a conquerour,

follows the second folio—" to whose unwish'd yoke;" This freter was ther non under the sonne

but to give any thing sovereignty, is still good English, Yol many a riche contree had he wonne.

without inserting to. The metre is more impressive as What with his wisdom and his chevalrie, He conquerd all the regue of Feminie,

it stood in the three earlier editions, without this inserThat whilom wng yeleped Scythia:

tion. "Lordship” is used as it was anciently, where we Atal wedded the fresche quene Ipolita,

should now use dominion—an instance, among many, And brought hire home with him to his contree

where the word of later derivation, of the same primiWith mochel gloric and gret solempnitce. od eke hire yonge suster Emilie,

tive sense, had displaced the former Anglo-Saxon one, kad thus with victorie and with melodie

or confined it to a more limited sense. In Wickliffe's Lut I this worthy duk to Athenes ride,

" New Testament," " lordship" is used where the transAad 24 his host

, in armes him beside. And cere, it is n'ere to long to here,

lators of King James's “ Bible" have preferred dominion. Iwolde bave tolde you fully the manere, How wonnen was the regne of Feminie.

“Beteem them"—TO “beteem," in its common acEy Theseus, and by his chevalrie:

ceptation, is to bestow, as often used by Spenser and And of the grote bataille for the nones

others, and which gives a clear sense; but Stevens sagBeswix Atberies and the Amatones: led how aseged was Ipolita

gests that it here means pour out, as he says it is used The faire hardy quenc of Scythia;

in the North of England.
Aad of the foste, that was at hire wedding,
Abel of the temple at hire home coming.

"Ah me! for aught that I could ever read" -The But all this thing I most is now forbere;

curious observer of Shakespearian rhythm will noto I bare, Grd wo, a large feld to ere."

here a variation from most of the editions, affecting only KNIGHT. the melody of the passage. This is the reading of the

39

all appear

preme de

two editions printed in the Poet's life. The folio, fol. The mag lowed by Stevens, Knight, and others, bas" that ever either by I could read,"

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

true lovers have been ever cross'd48'an edict in destiny,' to which they must both sub

* Your mit with patience and mutual forbearance. The Adam

editions of Milton reproaches Eve with the

lier retaid

editors P

innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares

the correl as a trial of which lordly man has alone a right to complain :

TA for either

* Herne
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom guin

bids her Through her perverseness, but shall see her gain'd

vantage, By A far worse, or if she love, withheld

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

loss of ha
Which intinite calamity shall cause
To human life, and household peace confound."

("Paradise Losi," book x. ver. 895.) we have Adam had certainly cause to be angry when he uttered These reproaches; and, therefore, Milton has dramati. ally forgotten that man is not the only sufferer in such disturbances on earth.'"-KNIGHT.

* – too high to be enthralld 10 Low”—The quartos The scene and folios read

lines of bl O cross ! too high to be enthrall'd to lore.

a harsh an Theobald altered love to "low;" and the antithesis, made by which is kept up through the subsequent lines, justifies and unfor the change-high, low : old, young.

example i

1 " the choice of FRIENDS"-For "friends” the first folio reads me rit. It is ditficult to account for the vari. " -- bas ation, which certainly gives a sense less clear, and less repeatedly suited to the next line.

it does oro “ — MOMENTANY as a sound”—The folio changes

the moder "momentany" into momentary, which the Pictorial" and other laie editions follow. I have preferred retaining the Old-English variation of the word, as it stood in

* Enter the two first editions ; it being the older word, and used STARVEL hy Bacon, Hooker, and Crashaw, and still in use in

ferent tract Dryden's time.

the joiner

bellows.m " — the collied night"-j. e. Black, smutted. This

** In this 18 a word still in use in the Staffordshire collieries.

knowledg Shakespeare found it there, and transplanted it into the

competitie region of poetry.

acknowler "- in a spleen”-i. e. In a sudden fit of passion,

tion to be or caprice. Shakespeare repeatedly uses it, in the sense noise, such of violent hasty motion : as in King JOHN

he first ste With swifter spleen than powder can enforce.

seems bre

passion. " — FANCY's followers"-i. e. The followers" of love. exclude h

Fancy” is here used in the same sense as in the MER- He is, the CHANT OF VENICE

the Lion, Tell me where is fancy bred. The word is repeated, with the same meaning, in this play, (act iii. scene 2:)

of paper; In maiden meditation. fancyfree,

Exchange Also, in act iii. scene 2All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer.

lesque upo the false TROJAN”-Shakespeare forgot that • A lamen Theseus performed his exploits before the Trojan war, containing and consequently long before the death of Dido.

by Thom

nificence' " — your fair"— Used as a substantive for beauty. As in the COMEDY OF ERRORS

My decayed sair
A sunny look of his would soon repair.

of a piece "Your eyes are LODE-STARS”–** This was a compli- play, “ 'T ment not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode.

ER tar' is the leading, or guiding star-i. e. the pole-star. the roarin

paper. B

both speal

seems bred in a 'tiring-nuna

, bis

passion. He it för engraving over
"Panoy" is here used in the same senge us in the Mere He is, therefore, desirous b ple
CHAST OY Venice
Tell me where is fancy tired.

the Lion, at the same time. -
The word is repeated, with the same meaning, in this

according to the scher"
play, (uct ii. scene 2:)

paper. Bills of exchange we colabor
Lu zuiden meditation, fang free
Also, in act iii
. soene -

Exchange.
All fancy sick slette and pale of cheer
me te false T'rosax "- Shakespeare forgot that A lamentable Tragedie, mied side

lesque upon the titles of sease of the old on wed consequently long before the death of Dido

by Thomas Preston, (no data) www your pair "Used as a substantive for beauty, is in the Commor or Eurons

"A very good piece of wasta My deared for

both speak of a theatrical repro A samoy Sands of his would sun repair.

of a piece of cloth, or a pair oila Pour eyes are LODE-STARS","This was a compli- play, " 'Tis a very excellent pas de ment not onlrequent among the old poets. The lode.

- Ercies' pelo & Himals 40

r is the leading, or guiding star-.e, the pole-star. the roaring heroes of the real lawn