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Queen. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my

bower,

The moon, methinks, looks with a watry eye; And when the weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting fome enforced chastity.

Tie up my love's tongue +, bring him filently.

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[Exeunt.

Ob. I wonder, if Titania be awak'd;
Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
Which the muft doat on in extremity.

Enter Puck..

Here comes my meffenger.- How now, mad fpirit
What night-rule' now about this haunted grove?
Puck. My miftrefs with a monfter is in love.
Near to her clofe and confecrated bower,
While fhe was in her dull and fleeping hour,
A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian ftalls,

my

love's tongue-] The old copies read:
my lover's tongue-

STEEVENS.

Were

-qubat night-rule] Night-rule in this place fhould feem to mean, what frolick of the night, what revelry is going forward ? So, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661:

Again :

"Marry here is good rule!"

"-why how now ftrife! here is pretty rule!" It appears, from the old fong of Robin Goodfellow, in the third volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, that it was the office of this waggish spirit to viewe the night-fports"

STEVEENS.

6 -patches,- -] Patch was in old language ufed as a term of opprobry; perhaps with much the fame import as we ufe raggamuffin, or tatterdemalion. JOHNSON. Puck calls the players, a crew of patches." A common opprobrious term,fwhich probably took its rife from Patch, cardinal Wolfey's

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Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Thefeus' nuptial day.
The fhallowest thick-fkin of that barren fort,
Who Pyramus prefented, in their sport
Forfook his fcene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,
An afs's 'nowl I fixed on his head;
Anon, his Thisby must be answered,

And forth my minnock comes: When they him

fpy,

As wild geefe, that the creeping fowler eye,

Or

Wolfey's fool. In the western counties, cross-patch is ftill ufed for perverfe, ill-natur'd fool. WARTON.

The name was rather taken from the patch'd or pye coats worn by the fools or jefters of thofe times.

So, in the Tempeft:

what a 'py'd Ninny's this?"

Again, in Prefion's Cambyfes :

"Hob and Lob, ah ye country patches!” Again, in the Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"It is fimplicitie, that Patch." STEEVENS.

I fhould fuppofe patch to be merely a corruption of the Italian pazzo, which fignifies properly a fool. So, in the Merchant of Venice, act ii. fc. 5. Shylock fays of Launcelot: The patch is kind enough; -after having just called him, that fool of Hagar's offspring. TYRWHITT.

-nowl-] A head. Saxon. JOHNSON.

So, Chaucer, in The Hiftory of Beryn, 1524:

"No fothly, quoth the fteward, it lieth all in thy noll, "Both wit and wysdom, &c."

Again, in the Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"One thumps me on the neck, and another strikes me on the nole." STEEVENS.

-minnock-] This is the reading of the old quarto, and I believe right. Minnekin, now minx, is a nice trifling girl. Mixnock is apparently a word of contempt. JOHNSON.

The folio reads mimmick; perhaps for mimick, a word more familiar than that exhibited by one of the 4tos, for the other reads, minnick. STEEVENS.

I believe the reading of the folio is right:

And forth my mimick comes.

The line has been explained as if it related to Thisbe, but it does not relate to her, but to Pyramus. Bottom had just been playing

that

Or ruffet-pated choughs, many in fort',
Rifing and cawing at the gun's report
Sever themselves, and madly fweep the sky;
So, at his fight, away his fellows fly:
And, at our ftamp', here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.

Their

that part, and had retired into the brake. "Anon his Thibe muft be answered, And forth my mimick (i. e. my actor) comes." In this there feems no difficulty.

Mimick is ufcd as fynonymous to actor, by Decker, in his Gul's Hornebooke, 1609: "Draw what troope you can from the ftage after you; the mimicks are beholden to you for allowing them elbow-room." Again, in his Satiromaftix; 1602: "Thou [B. Jonfon] haft forgot how thou amblest in a leather pilch by a playwaggon in the highway, and took'st mad Jeronymo's part, to get fervice amongst the mimicks." MALONE.

9 —fort,] Company. So above: that barren fort;"

and in Waller :

"A fort of lufty Shepherds firive." JOHNSON. So, in Chapman's May-day, 1611:

"-though we never lead any other company than a fort of quart-pots. STEEVENS.

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And, at our ftamp,-] This feems to be a vicious reading. Fairies are never reprefented ftamping, or of a fize that should give force to a stamp, nor could they have diftinguished the stamps of Puck from thofe of their own companions. I read:

And at a stump here o'er and o'er one falls.

So, Drayton :

"A pain he in his bead-piece feels,

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Against a ftubbed tree he reels,
"And up event poor bobgoblin's heels;
"Alas, his brain is dizzy.
"At length upon his feet he gets,
"Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets,
"And as again he forward fets,

"And through the bufbes ferambles,
"A ftump doth trip him in his pace,
"Down fell poor Hob upon his face,
"And lamentably tore his cafe,

"Among the briers and brambles." JOHNSON.

I adhere to the old reading. The flamp of a fairy might be efficacious though not loud; neither is it neceffary to fuppofe, when fupernatural beings are spoken of, that the fize of the agent

deter

Their fenfe, thus weak, loft with their fears, thus

ftrong,

Made fenfelefs things begin to do them wrong:
For briers and thorns at their apparel fnatch;
*Some, fleeves; fome, hats: from yielders all things
catch.

I led them on in this distracted fear,
And left fweet Pyramus tranflated there :
When in that moment (fo it came to pafs)
Titania wak'd, and ftraightway lov'd an afs.

Ob. This falls out better than I could devife.
But haft thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do ?

Puck. I took him fleeping,-that is finifh'd too.

determines the force of the action. That fairies did lamp to fome purpose, may be known from the following paffage in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. "Vero faltem adeo profundé interram imprefferant, ut locus infigni ardore orbiculariter perefus, non parit arenti redivivum cefpite gramen." Shakspeare's own authority, however, is moft decifive. See the conclufion of the first scene of the fourth act :

"Come, my queen, take hand with me,

"And rock the ground whereon these fleepers be."

STEEVENS.

Honest Reginald Scott, fays, "Our grandams maides were wont to fet a boll of milke before Incubus and his coufine Robin Good-fellow, for grinding of malt or mustard, and sweeping the houfe at midnight: and-that he would chafe exceedingly, if the maid or good wife of the house, having compaffion of his nakedness, laid afide clothes for him, befides his meffe of white bread and milk, which was his standing fee. For in that cafe he faith; What have we here? Hemton, hamten, here will I never more tread nor ftampen." Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584. p. 85.

REMARKS.

2 Some, fleeves; fome bats:] There is the like image in Drayton of queen Mab and her fairies flying from Hobgoblin: "Some tore a ruff, and fome a gorun, "'Gainft one another juftling;

3

"They few about like chaff i' th' wind,
For hafte fome left their majks behind,

"Some could not ftay their gloves to find,

"There never was fuch bufiling. JOHNSON.

·latch'd] or letch'd, lick'd over, lecher, to lick, French.

In the North, it fignifies to infect. STEEVENS.

HANMER.

And the Athenian woman by his fide;

That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd. Enter Demetrius and Hermia.

Ob. Stand clofe; this is the fame Athenian. Puck. This is the woman, but not this the man. Dem. O, why, rebuke you him that loves you fo? Lay breath fo bitter on your bitter foe.

Herm. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worfe;

For thou, I fear, haft given me cause to curse.
If thou haft flain Lyfander in his fleep,

Being o'er fhoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
And kill me too.

The fun was not fo true unto the day,

As he to me: Would he have ftol'n away
From fleeping Hermia? I'll believe as foon,

This whole earth may be bor'd; and that the moon
May through the center creep, and so displease
Her brother's noon-tide with the Antipodes'.
It cannot be, but thou haft murder'd him ;
So fhould a murderer look, fo' dead, fo grim.

4 Being o'er fboes in blood,] An allufion to the proverb, Over fboes, over boots. JOHNSON.

5 Noon-tide with the Antipodes."] Dr. Warburton would read, ¿' th' antipodes, which Mr. Edwards ridicules without mercy. The alteration is certainly not neceffary, but it is not fo unlucky, as he imagined. Shirley has the fame expreffion in his Andromana: "To be a whore is more unknown to her, "Then what is done in the antipodes."

In for anong is frequent in old language. FARMER.
In The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601:

"And dwell one month with the Antipodes." Again, in K. Rich. II:

"While we were wandring with the Antipodes." STEEVENS. 6-fo dead,-] All the old copies read fo dead; in my copy of it, fome reader has altered dead to dread JOHNSON.

Dead feems to be the right word, and our author again uses it zd Part Hen. IV. act i. fc. 3:

Even fuch a man, fo faint, fo fpiritlefs,

"So dull, so dead, in look, fo woe-begone." STEEVENS.

Dem

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