The feveral chairs of order look you fcour In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; Like other. Queen Elizabeth's worth was not devolvable, as we have feen by the conduct of her foolish fucceffor. The prayer of the fairy is therefore fufficiently reasonable and intelligible, without alteration. STEEVENS. The feveral chairs of order, look you fcour With juice of balm, &c.] It was an article of our ancient luxury, to rub tables, &c. with aromatic herbs. Pliny informs us, that the Romans did the fame, to drive away evil fpirits. STELVENS. • In emerald-tufts, flowers PURPLE, blue, and white; Like faphire, pearl, AND rich embroidery,] Thefe lines are moft miferably corrupted. In the words-Flowers purple, blue, and bite-the purple is left uncompared. To remedy this, the editors, who feem to have been fenfible of the imperfection of the comparison, read, AND rich embroidery; that is, according to them, as the blue and white flowers are compared to faphire and pearl, the purple is compared to rich embroidery. Thus, inftead of mending one falfe ftep, they have made two, by bringing fahire, pearl, and rich embroidery under one predicament. The lines were wrote thus by the poet : In emerald-tufts, flowers PURFLED, blue, and white ;- i. e. let there be blue and white flowers worked on the greenfward, like faphire and pearl in rich embroidery. To purfle, is to over-lay with tinfel, gold thread, &c. fo our ancestors called a certain lace of this kind of work a purfling-lace. "Tis from the French pourfiler. So Spenfer: 66 fhe was yelad, "All in a filken camus, lilly white, PURFLED upon, with many a folded plight.” The change of and into in, in the fecond verfe, is neceffary. For flowers worked, or purfed in the grafs, were not like faphire and pearl fimply, but faphire and pearl in embroidery. How the corrupt reading and was introduced into the text, we have fhewn above. WARBURTON. Whoever Like faphire, pearl, and rich embroidery, } Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order fet: And twenty glow-worms fhall our lanthorns be, 8 Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy! Left he transform me to a piece of cheese! Eva. Vile worm, thou waft o'er-look'd even in thy birth 2. Quic Whoever is convinced by Dr. Warburton's note, will fhew he has very little ftudied the manner of his author, whofe fplendid incorrectnefs in this inftance, as in many others, is furely preferable to the infipid regularity propofed in its room. STLEVENS. 7 1 charactery.] For the matter with which they make let ters. JOHNSON. So, in another of our author's plays: "All the charactery of my fad brows." i. e. all that feems to be written on them. STEEVENS. 8 of middle earth.] Spirits are fuppofed to inhabit the ethereal regions, and fairies to dwell under ground, men therefore are in a middle ftation. JOHNSON. So, in the ancient metrical romance of Syr Guy of Warwick, bl. 1. no date: Again: "Thou mayft them flea with dint of fwearde, "That ever was in middle carde." Again, in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, fol. 26: "Adam, for pride loft his price "In myddell erth." Again, in an ancient alliterative ode, quoted by Mr. Warton, in his Hiftory of English Poetry: "Middel-erd for mon was made." STEEVENS. 9 Vile worm, thou waft o'er-look'd even in thy birth.] The old copy reads-vild. That vild, which fo often occurs in these plays, 1 Quic. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end; If he be chafte, the flame will back descend, And turn him to no pain; but if he start, It is the flesh of a corrupted heart. Eva. A trial, come. [They burn him with their tapers, and pinch him. Come, will this wood take fire? Fal. Oh, oh, oh! Quic. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in defire!— About him, fairies; fing a fcornful rhime : 2 And, as you trip, ftill pinch him to your time. Eva. It is right; indeed, he is full of leacheries and iniquity. The SON G. Fie on finful phantafy! Fie on luft and luxury3 ! Kindled with unchafte defire, Fed plays, was not an error of the prefs, but the pronunciation of the time, appears from thefe lines of Heywood, in his Pleafant Dialogues and Dramas, 1637: EARTH. What goddefs, or how ftyl'd? "AGE. Age, am I call'd. "EARTH. Hence falfe virago vild." MALONE. With trial-fire, &c.] So Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Faithful Shepherdefs: In this flame his finger thruft, "Which will burn him if he luft; "As loth unfpotted flesh to burn." STEEVENS. 2 Eva. It is right, indeed,—] This fhort fpeech, which is very much in character for fir Hugh, I have inferted from the old quarto, 1619. THEOBALD. 3 and luxury!] Luxury is here used for incontinence. So, in King Lear: "To't luxury, pell-mell, for I lack foldiers." STEEVENS. Luft is but a bloody fire,] So the old copies. I once thought it fhould be read: Luft is but a cloudy fire, but Fed in heart; whofe flames afpire, As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. Pinch him for his villainy ; Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about, 5 During this fong, they pinch him. Doctor Caius comes one way, and fleals away a fairy in green; Slender another way, and he takes away a fairy in white; and Fenton comes, and feals away Mrs. Anne Page. A noife of hunting is made within. All the fairies run away. FalStaff pulls off his buck's head, and rifes. Enter Page, Ford, &c. They lay hold on him. Page. Nay, do not fly: I think, we have watch'd you now; Will none but Herne the hunter, ferve your turn? Mrs. Page. I pray you, come; hold up the jest no higher Now, good fir John, how like you Windfor wives? See you thefe, hufband? do not these fair yoaks Become the foreft better than the town? but fir T. Hanmer reads with lefs violence: Luft is but i' the blood a fire. JOHNSON. Ford. Either emendation is unneceffary. A bloody fire, means a fire in the blood. In The Second Part of Hen. IV. act iv. the fame expreffion occurs: "Led on by bloody youth," &c. i. e. fanguine youth. STEEVENS. 5 During this fong,-] This direction I thought proper to infert from the old quartos. THEOBALD. 6 -they pinch him.] So, in Lylly's Endymion, 1591: "The fairies dance, and, with a fong pinch him." And, in his Maid's Metamorphofis, 1600, they threaten the fame punishment. STEEVENS. 1 7 See you thefe, husband? do not these fair oaks Become the foreft better than the town?] What oaks, in the name of nonfenfe, do our fagacious editors make Mrs. Page talk of? The oaks in the park? But there was no intention of tranfplanting them into the town. Talis infeitia me quidem pudet, pigetque. The first folio reads, as the poet intended, yoaks and Mrs. Ford. Now, fir, who's a cuckold now ?-Mafter Brook, Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns, mafter Brook: And, mafter Brook, he bath enjoyed nothing of Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money; which muft be paid to mafter Brook; his horses are arrested for it, mafter Brook. Mrs. Ford. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never meet. I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer. Fal. I do begin to perceive, that I am made an afs. Ford. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant. Fal. And these are not fairies? I was three or four times in the thought, they were not fairies: and yet the guiltinefs of my mind, the fudden furprize of my powers, drove the groffnefs of the foppery into a receiv'd belief, in defpight of the teeth of all rhime and reafon, that they were fairies. See now, how wit may be made a Jack-a-lent, when 'tis upon ill employment! Eva. Mrs. Page's meaning is this. She fpeaks to her own, and Mrs. Ford's husband, and asks them, if they fee the horns in Falstaff's hand; and then, alluding to them as the types of cuckoldom, puts the queftion, whether thofe yeaks are not more proper in the foreft than in the town, i. e. than in their families, as a reproach to them? THEOBALD. Shakespeare may use oaks for branches. Branching is an epithet as commonly bestowed on horns as on trees. STEEVENS. -how awit may be made a Jack-a-lent,] A Jack o' Lent appears to have been fome puppet which was thrown at in Lent, like Shrove-tide cocks. So, in the old comedy of Lady Alimony, 1659: -throwing cudgels "At Jack-a-lents, or Shrove-cocks," Again, in The Wild Goofe Chace of Beaumont and Fletcher : "I would be married fooner to a monkey, "Or to a Jack of Straw." Again, in B. and Fletcher's Tamer Tamed: 66 if I forfeit, "Make me a Jack o' Lent, and break my shing |