5 6 By paved fountain, or by rufhy brook, 7 Ruricolafque loves letko dedit: arvaque juffit 8 Sparfa jacet. Primis fegetes moriuntur in herbis. THE middle fummer's Spring.] We should read THAT. For it appears to have been fome years fince the quarrel firft began. WARBURTON. By the middle fummer's Spring, our author feems to mean the beginning of middle or mid fummer. Spring for beginning our ap thor again ufes: 2d. P. Hen. IV. As flaws congealed in the spring of day. which expreffion has its original from fcripture, St. Luke, c. i. v. 78. "whereby the day-ring from on high hath vifited us." Óvid had been tranflated by Golding:-the first four books in 1565, and all the reft, in a few years afterwards. STEEVENS. s Paved Fountain.] A fountain laid round the edge with stone. JOHNSON, -the winds piping] So Milton, While rocking winds are piping loud. JOHNSON. 7-pelting river,] Thus the quarto's: the folio reads petty. Shakespeare has in Lear the fame word, low pelting farms. The meaning is plainly, defpi at le, mean, forry, wretched; but as it is a word without any reafonable etymology, I fhould be glad to difmifs it for petty, yet it is undoubtedly right. We have petty pelting officer in Measure for Measure. JOHNSON. & Överborn their continents.] Born down the banks that contained them. So in Lear, Clofe pent guilts JOHNSON. Hath Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard. No ▾ The nine-mens morris.] This was fome kind of rural game played in a marked ground. But what it was more I have not found. JOHNSON. 2 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 descriptions of the golden age, it was always one circumstance of their happiness that they wanted winter. This is an idle blunder of the editors. Shakespeare without question wrote, The human mortals want their winter HERYED, i. e. praised, celebrated. The word is obfolete; but ufed both by Chaucer and Spencer in this fignification, Tho' wouldeft thou learne to CAROLL of love, The following line confirms the emendation. Spenc. Cal. Feb. No night is now with Hymn or Carol bleft; and the propriety of the fentiment is evident. For the winter is the season of rural rejoicing, as the gloominefs of it and its vacancy from country labours give them the inclination and opportu nity for mirth; and the fruits, now gathered in, the means. Well therefore might fhe fay, when she had defcribed the dearths of the seasons and fruitless toil of the husbandmen, that The human mortals want their winter heryed. But, principally, fince the coming of Chriftianity this feason, in commemoration of the birth of Chrift, has been particularly devoted to feftivity. And to this cuftom, notwithstanding the impropriety, Hymn or Carol bleft certainly alludes. Mr. Theobald fays, be should undoubtedly have advanced this conjecture unto the text, but that Shakespeare feems rather fond of hallow'd. Rather than what? ballowed is not fynonymous to heryed but to bleft. What was he thinking of? The ambiguity of the English word bleft confounded him, which fignifies either prais'd or janctified. WARBURTON. After No night is now with hymn or carol bleft. Pale After all the endeavours of the editors, this paffage ftill remains to me unintelligible. I cannot fee why winter is, in the general confufion of the year now defcribed, more wanted than any other feafon. Dr. Warburton obferves 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 incenfed 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 feafons: that is, the alteration of the feafons produces the alteration of the feafons. I am far from fuppofing that Shakespeare might not fometimes think confufedly, and therefore am not sure that the paffage is 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. Let us carry critical temerity a little further. Scaliger tranfpofed the lines of Virgil's Gallus. Why may not the fame experiment be yentured upon Shakespeare. The human mortals want their wonted year, From our debate, from our diffenfion. I know not what credit the reader will give to this emendation, which I do not much credit myself. JOHNSON. The confufion of feafons here defcribed, is no more than a poetical account of the weather, which happened in England about the Pale in her anger washes all the air; From our debate, from our diffenfion We are their parents and original. Ob. Do you amend it then, it lies in you. Queen. time when this play was first published. For this information I am indebted to chance, which furnished me with a few leaves of an old meteorological hiftory. STEEVENS. 2-Hyems' chin.] Dr. Gray, not inelegantly conjectures, that the poet wrote, "On old Hyems' chill and icy crown." It is not indeed eafy to discover how a chaplet can be placed on the chin. STEEVENS. 3 The childing autumn,] is the pregnant autumn, frugifer autumnus. STEEVENS. 4 By their increafe.] That is, By their produce. JOHNSON. s Henchman.] Page of honour. This office was abolished by queen Elizabeth. GRAY. The office might be abolished at court, but probably remained in the city. Glapthorne, in his comedy called Wit in a Conftable, 1637, has this paffage: So again, "I will teach his bench-boys, "Serjeants, and trumpeters to act, and fave "When she was lady may'refs, and you humble Again Queen. Set your heart at reft, The fairy land buys not the child of me. Το Again, in Ben Jonfon's Christmas Mafque," he said grace as "well as any of the sheriff's bench-boys. STEEVENS. Upon the establishment of the household of Edward IV. were benxman fix enfants, or more, as it pleyfeth the king, eatinge in the kalle, &c. There was also a maister of the henxmen, to fhewe them the fchoole of nurture, and learne them to ride, to wear their harnesse ;. to have all curtefic—to teach them all languages, and other virtues, as barpinge, pypinge, finginge, dauncinge, with boneft behavioure of temperaunce and patyence. MS. Harl. 293. At the funeral of Henry VIII. nine henchmen attended with fir Francis Bryan, mafter of the benchmen. Strype's Eccl. Mem. v. 2. App. n. 1. T.T. • I hich she with pretty and with Swimming gate FOLLOWING (her womb then rich with my young 'Squire) Would imitate ] Following what? fhe did not follow the fhip, whose motion fhe imitated for that failed on the water, the on the land. If by following, we are to understand imitating, it will be a mere pleonafm-imitating would imitate. From the poet's defcription of the actions, it plainly appears we should read, FOLLYING Would imitate; i. e. wantoning in fport and gaiety. Thus the old English write ers and they believen POLYLY and fally-fays fir J. Maundeville, from and in the fenfe of folatrer, to play the wanton. This exactly agrees to the action defcribed full often has fre golfipt by my fide-and-when we have laugh'd to fee. WARBURTON. The foregoing note is very ingenious, but fince follying is a word of which I know not any example, and the Fairy's favour |