L. 30. Puck-thou speak'ft aright.] I have filled up the verfe which I fuppofe the author left complete. JOHNS. Ibid.] Thou fpeakeft me aright. CAPELL.* roafted crab.] Crab-apple. It feems that in the fairy mythology Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trufty fervant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia the fame fairies are engaged in the fame bufinefs. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, fends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a fpell. JOHNS. L. 36. HANM.* P. 99. 1. 11. Ard tailor cries.] The custom of crying tailor at a fudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have obferved. He that flips befide his chair falls as a taylor fuats upon his board. The Oxford Editor, Dr. Warburton after him, and Capell, read and rails. or cries, plaufibly, but I believe not rightly. Befides, the trick of the fairy is reprefented as producing rather merriment than anger. JOHNS. L. 13. And waxen.] And encrease, as the moon waxes. JOHNS. L. 15. But room, Fairy.] The word Fairy, or Faery, was fometimes of three fyllables, as often in Spenfer. JOHNSON. P. 100. 1. 8. Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night.] We should read, Diaft thou not lead him glimmering, through the night. The meaning is, fhe conducted him in the appearance of fire through the dark night. WARB. Ibid.] It is not eafy to guefs at the reafon which induced Mr. Warburton to corrupt the text in this place. The common reading, Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night? prefents us with an image universally known, and readily apprehended. But to reprefent the queen of fairies herfelf as fupplying the place of a Jack o' the Lanthorn, makes a moft burlesque contraft with that dignity of character with which the poet hath cloathed her, and is indeed perfectly ridiculous. REVIS. L.9. From Perigenia, whom he ravish'd.] Thus all the editors; but our author, who diligently perufed Plutarch, and gleaned from him, where his fubject would admit, knew, from the life of Thefeus, that her name was Perigyne (or Perigune) by whom Thefeus had his fon Melanippus. She was the daughter of Sinnis, a cruel robber, and tormentor of paffengers in the Ifthmus. Plutarch and Athenæus are both express in the circumstance of Thefeus ravishing her. THEOB. CAPELL.* Ibid.] Periginia. L. 13. And never fince the middle fummer's fpring, &c.] There are not many paffages in Shakespeare which one can be certain he has borrowed from the ancients; but this is one of the few that, I think, will admit of no difpute.— Our author's admirable defcription of the miferies of the country being plainly an imitation of that which Ovid draws, as confequent on the grief of Ceres for the lofs of her daughter. Nefcit adhuc ubi fit: terras tamen increpat omnes : -Ergo illic fæva vertentia glebas JOHNS. The middle fummer's fpring.] We fhould read that. For it appears to have been fome years fince the quarrel first began. WARB. & CAP. Ibid.] We fhould re-establish the ancient and authentic reading, The middle fummer's fpring;" that is, never fince the spring preceding laft Midfummer. Mr. Warburton's correction fuppofes fome certain more distant summer to have been mentioned or referred to before. But no fuch mention or reference is to be found. REVIS.* L. 15. Paved fountain.] A fountain laid round the edge with ftone. JOHNS. L. 19. The winds piping.] So Milton: While rocking winds are piping loud. JOHNSON. L. 22. Pelting river.] Shakespeare has in Lear the fame word, low pelting farm. The meaning is plainly, defpicable, mean, forry, wretched; but as it is a word without any reafonable etymology, I fhould be glad to dismiss it for petty; yet it is undoubtedly right. We have petty pelting officer in Measure for Measure. JOHNS. L. 23. Overborn their continents.] Borne down the banks that contained them. So in Lear, Close pent guilts Rive their concealing continents. JOHNS. L. 29. The nine-mens morris.] This was fome kind of rural chefs. WARB. & JOHNS. Ibid.] Dr. W. and Dr. J. have both ov rlooked a material error of the prefs in this line. We should read nine-men's MORTICE. The mortice is the frame on which the pins or men, are placed, in the game of nine-pins. That this mortice, or frame, which often has cavities for the pins, might be filled with mud, is easily conceived; but that any kind of rural chefs fhould be fo circumstanced is impoffible. ANON.* L. 32. want their winter here.] The concluding word is, certainly, a very dragging expletive: and though I have not ventured to difplace it, I fcarce believe it genuine. I once fufpected it should be, want their winter chear; i. e. their jollity, ufual merry-makings at that season. Mr, Warburton has ingeniou fly advanced a more refined emendation, which is fubjoined, and which I should undoubtedly have advanced into the text, could I have ever traced the word in any of Shakespeare's writings: but I think he rather feems fond of ballow'd. Chaucer and Spencer, I know, both use berie very frequently. From the latter I'll produce a paffage, where in one couplet it is joined with bymn and carol, as here in our author: Tho' wouldeft thou learn to carol of love, Vid. Shepherd's Kalendar for February. THEOB.* Ibid.] The human mortals want their winter HERE.] But fure it was not one of the circumftances of mifery, here recapitulated, that the fufferers wanted their winter. On the contrary, in the poetical defcriptions of the golden age, it was always one circumftance of their happiness that they wanted winter. This is an idle blunder of the editor's. Shakespeare without queftion wrote, The human mortals want their winter heryed, i. e. celebrated. The word is obfolete; but used both by Chaucer and Spencer in this fignification, and the following line commends the emendation. No night is now with hymn or carol bleft; and the propriety of the fentiment is evident. For the wine ter is the feafon of rural rejoicing, as the gloominess of it and its vacancy from country labours give them the inclination and opportunity for mirth; and the fruits, now gathered in, the means. Well the efore might the fay, when she had defcribed the dearths of the feasons and fruitlefs toil of the hufbandmen that The human mortals want their winter beryed. But principally, fince the coming of chriftianity this season, in commemoration of the birth of Chrift, has been particularly devoted to feftivity. And to this cuftom, notwithftanding the impropriety, hymn or carol bleft certainly alludes. Mr. Theobald fays, "that Shakespeare feems rather fond of hallowed." Rather than what? ballowed is not fynonymous to heryed but to bleft. The ambiguity of the English word bleft confounded him, which fignifies either praifed or fanétified. WARB. Ibid.] After all the endeavours of the editors this paffage ftill remains to me unintelligile. I cannot fee why winter is, in the general confufion of the year now defcribed, more wanted than any other feason. Dr. Warburton observes that he alludes to our practice of finging carols in December; but though Shakespeare is no great chronologer in his dramas, I think he has never fo mingled true and falfe religion, as to give us reafon for believing that he would make the moon incensed for the omiffion of our carols. I therefore imagine him to have meant heathen rites of adoration. This is not all the difficulty. Titania's account of this calamity is not fufficiently confequential. Men find no winter, therefore they fing no hymns, the moon provoked by this omiffion alters the seasons: That is, the alteration of the seasons produces the alteration of the seasons. I am far from fuppofing that Shakespeare might not sometimes think confusedly, and therefore am not sure that the paffage is not corrupted. If we should read, And human mortals want their wonted year, Yet will not this licence of alteration much mend the narrative; the cause and the effect are ftill confounded. us carry critical temerity a little further. Let Scaliger traní pofed the lines of Virgil's Gallus. Why may not the fame experiment be ventured upon Shakespeare, The human mortals want their wonted year, And thorough this diftemperature, we see And this fame progeny of evil comes I know not what credit the reader will give to this emendation, which I do not much credit myself. Ibid.] The fpring, the fummer, The childing autumn, angry winter change JOHNSON. Their wonted liveries; and th' amazed world By their increafe now knows not which is which ;—} Whofe increase? or what increase? Let us attend to the fentiment-Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter change their liveries, i. e. Spring and fummer are unseasonably cold; and autumn and winter unnaturally warm. This temperature he calls the liveries or the covering of the seasons. Which, he says, confounds the amazed world, that, now |