That I fleeping here was found,

With thefe mortals on the ground.

[Sleepers lie ftill. [Exeunt.

[Wind borns within.

Enter Thefeus, Egeus, Hippolita, and all his Train.

The. Go one of you, find out the forester,

For now our observation is perform'd,
And fince we have the vaward of the day,
My love fhall hear the mufick of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley, go,
Difpatch, I fay, and find the forefter.
We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the mufical confufion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once,
When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear
Such gallant chiding. For befides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, ev'ry region near, (27)

(27) The kies, the fountains, ev'ry region near,

Seem'd all one mutual cry.] It has been propos'd to me, that the Author probably wrote mountains, from whence an echo rather proceeds than from fountains: but as we have the authority of the ancients for lakes, rivers, and fountains returning a found, I have been diffident to disturb the text. To give a few instances that occur at prefent.

Ovid. Metam. 1. 3. ver. 500.

Ultima vox folitam fuit bæc fpectantis in undam,

"Heu fruftra dilecte puer !" totidemque remifit
Verba lacus.

For fo Burmann has corrected it: the common editions have locus.
Virgil Æneid: 12. verf. 886,

Tam vero exoritur clamor, ripæque lacufque

Refponfant circà, & cælum tonat omne tumultu.

Aufon. in Mofellâ. verf. 167.

adftrepit ollis

Et rupes, & fylva tremens, & concavus amnis.

And again, verf. 296.

Refonantia utrimque
Verba refert, mediis concurrit fluctibus Echo.

Propert. lib. 1. Eleg. 20. verf. 49.

Cui procul Alcides iterat refponfa; fed illi
Nomen ab extremis fontibus aura refert.

Seem

Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
So mufical a discord, such sweet thunder.

Thef. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind.
So flew'd, fo fanded, and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd, like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never hallo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly:

Judge when you hear. But foft, what nymphs are these?
Ege. My Lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
And this Lyfander, this Demetrius is,

This Helenä, old Nedar's Helena;

I wonder at their being here together.

Thef. No doubt, they rofe up early to obferv

The rite of May; and hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our folemnity.
But fpeak, Egeus, is not this the day,

That Hermia fhould give answer of her choice?
Ege. It is, my Lord.

Thef. Go bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns and fhout within; Demetrius, Lyfander, Hermia and Helena, wake and start up.

Thef. Good morrow, friends; Saint Valentine is past. Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

Ly. Pardon, my Lord.

Thef. I pray you all, ftand up:

I know, you two are rival enemies.

How comes this gentle concord in the world.
That hatred is fo far from jealoufy,

To fleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
Lyf. My Lord, I fhall reply amazedly,

Half fleep, half waking. But as yet, I fwear,
I cannot truly fay how I came here:
But as I think, (for truly would I speak,)
And now I do bethink me, fo it is;

I came with Hermia hither. Our intent

Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be
Without the peril of th' Athenian law.

Ege. Enough, enough; my Lord, you have enough; I beg the law, the law upon his head:

'They would have ftol'n away, they would, Demetrius,
Thereby to have defeated you and me;

You, of your wife; and me, of my confent;
Of my confent, that the fhould be your wife.

Dem. My Lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow'd them;
Fair Helena in fancy following me:

But, my good Lord, I wot not by what power,
But by fome power it is, my love to Hermia
Is melted as the fnow; feems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaude,
Which in my childhood I did doat upon :
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my Lord,
Was I betrothed ere I Hermia faw;
But like a fickness did I loath this food;
But, as in health come to my natural tafte,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it;
And will for evermore be true to it.

Thef. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met
Of this difcourfe we fhall hear more anon.
Egeus, I will over-bear your will;
For in the temple, by and by with us,
Thefe couples fhall eternally be knit;
And for the morning now is fomething worn,
Our purpos'd hunting fhall be fet afide.
Away with us to Athens; three and three,
We'll hold a feaft in great folemnity.

Come, Hippolita.

[Exe. Duke, Hippol. and Train. Dem. Thefe things feem fmall and undiftinguishable, Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.

Her. Methinks, I fee these things with parted eye; When every thing feems double.

Hel. So, methinks;

And

And I have found Demetrius like a gemell, (28)
Mine own and not mine own.

Dem. It feems to me,

That yet we fleep, we dream. Do not you think,
The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?

Her. Yea, and my father.

Hel. And Hippolita.

(28) And I bave found Demetrius like a jewel,

Ac

Mine own, and not mine own.] Hermia had faid, things appeared double to her. Helena fays, So, methinks; and then fubjoins, Demetrius was like a jewel, her own and not her own. cording to common fenfe and conftruction, Demetrius is here compared to fomething that has the property of appearing the fame, and yet not being the fame: and this was a thought natural enough, upon her declaring her approbation of what Hermia had faid, that every thing feems double. But now, how has a jewel, or any precious thing, the property, rather than a more worthlefs one, of appearing to be the fame and yet not the fame? This I believe, won't be eafily found out. I make no doubt therefore, but the true reading is ;. And I have found Demetrius like a gemell, Mine own, and not mine own.

from gemellus, a twin. For Demetrius acted that night two such different parts, that fhe could hardly think him one and the fame Demetrius; but that there were two Twin Demetriufes to the acting this farce, like the two Socia's. This makes good and pertinent sense of the whole; and the corruption from gemell to jewel was so easy from the fimilar trace of the letters, and the difficulty of the tranfcribers understanding the true word, that, I think, it is not to be queftion'd. Mr. Warburton.

If fome over-nice fpirits fhould object to gemell wanting its authorities as an English word, I think fit to obferve, in aid of my friend's fine conjecture, that it is no new thing with Shakespeare to coin and enfranchize words fairly derived; and fome fuch as have by the grammarians been called ära A32óusva, or words ufed but once. Again, though gemell be not adopted either by Chaucer or Spenfer; nor acknowledged by the dictionaries; yet both Blount in his Gloffography, and Philips, in his World of Words, have geminels, which they interpret twins. And lastly, in two or three other paffages, Shakespeare uses the fame manner of thought. In the Comedy of Errors, where Adriana fees her husband and his twin-brother, the fays;

I fee two busbands, or my eyes deceive me.

One of them, therefore, feem'd to be her own, but was not. And in his twelfth-night, when Viola and Sebaftian, who were twins, appear together, they bear fo ftrict a resemblance, that the Duke cries: One face, one voice, one habit, and two perfons; A nat'ral perspective, that is, and is not.

Lyf

Lyf. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
Dem. Why then, we are awake; let's follow him ;
And, by the way, let us recount our dreams.

As they go out, Bottom wakes.

[Exeunt,

Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will anfwer. My next is, moft fair Pyramus- hey, ho, Peter Quince, Flute the bellows-mender! Snowt the tinker! Star-veling! god's my life! ftolen hence, and left me afleep? I have had a moft rare vifion. 1 had a dream, paft the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an afs, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was, there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had,But man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart

to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince

to write a ballad of this dream; it shall be call'd Bot tom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will fing it in the latter end of a play before the duke; (29) peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I fhall fing it after death. [Exit.

(29) Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I fall fing it at her death. At her death? At whose? In all Bottom's speech there is not the least mention of any the-creature, to whom this relative can be coupled. I make not the leaft fcrupie, but Bottom, for the fake of ajcft, and to render his voluntary, as we may call it, the more gracious and extraordinary, faid;-I fall fing it after death. He, as Pyramus, is killed upon the feene; and fo might promise to rise again at the conclufion of the Interlude, and give the Duke his dream by way of fong. -The fource of the corruption of the text is very obvious. The fin after being funk by the vulgar pronounciation, the copyift might write it from the found, -a'ter: which the wife editors not understanding, concluded, two words were erroneously got together; fo splitting them, and clapping in an b, produced the prefent reading at ber.

SCENS