· No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd :- From our debate, from our dissension ; OBE. Do you amend it then: it lies in you: TITA. Set your heart at rest, The fairy land buys not the child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order: The ingenious author of a pamphlet, 'Explanations and Emendations,' &c. (Edinburgh, 1814), would read "The human mortals want; their winter here, No night is now with hymn or carol bless'd." The writer does not support his emendation by any argument; but we believe that he is right. The swollen rivers have rotted the corn, the folds stand empty, the flocks are murrain, the sports of summer are at an end, the human mortals want. This is the climax. Their winter is here— is come-although the season is the latter summer, or autumn; and in consequence the hymns and carols which gladdened the nights of a seasonable winter are wanting to this premature one. The "therefore," which follows, introduces another clause in the catalogue of evils produced by the "brawls" of Oberon and Titania; as in the case of the preceding use of the same emphatic word in two instances: and Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain," &c., "The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain," &c. • Hyems' thin and icy crown. The old copies read chin. Tyrwhitt proposed the change of a single letter to produce thin. Gifford sanctions this reading. "When Ovid paints winter," says Mr. Dyce, "with icicles hanging from his heard and crown, we have such pictures presented to us as the imagination not unwillingly receives; but Hyems with a chaplet of summer buds on his chin is a grotesque which must surely startle even the dullest reader." • Increase-produce. แ The childing autumn" is "the teeming autumn" of our poet's 97th Henchman—a page-originally a horseman. In Chaucer we find— "And every knight had after him riding Three henshmen on him a waiting." It has been conjectured that henchman is haunchman-one that follows a chief or lord at his haunch. The derivation from the Anglo-Saxon hengest, a horse, seems more probable. And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. [Exeunt TITANIA and her train. OBE. Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove, Till I torment thee for this injury. My gentle Puck, come hither: Thou remember'st 13 Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, I remember. PUCK. And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts : Fairy. This epithet is not found in modern editions, being rejected by Steevens-" By the advice of Dr. Farmer I have omitted the useless adjective fairy, as it spoils the metre." All arm'd. One of the commentators turned this epithet into "alarm'd." The original requires no explanation, beyond the recollection of the Cupid of the poets: "He doth bear a golden bow, And a quiver hanging low, But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon; In maiden meditation, fancy-free. Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower,— Before, milk-white, now purple with love's wound,— Fetch me that flower: the herb I show'd thee once; Will make or man or woman madly dote PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth ОВЕ. Having once this juice, And drop the liquor of it in her eyes: And ere I take this charm off from her sight, And I will overhear their conference. Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him. DEM. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not. The one I'll stay, the other stayeth me". [Exit PUCK. This is the reading of Fisher's quarto. That of Roberts, and the folio, omit round, printing the passage as one line: "I'll put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes." This is the invariable reading of the old copies. Theobald, upon the suggestion of Dr. Thirlby, changed it to "The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.” But it is surely unnecessary to assign to Demetrius any such murderous intents. Helena has betrayed her friend "I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: Then to the wood will he, to-morrow night, He is pursuing her, when he exclaims "The one I'll stay, the other stayeth me." He will stay-stop-Hermia; Lysander stayeth-hindereth-him. Thou told'st me, they were stol'n into this wood. And here am I, and wood within this wood, Hermia. Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more. Is true as steel: Leave you your power to draw, Tell you-I do not, nor I cannot love you? The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: What worser place can I beg in your love, DEM. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; HEL. And I am sick when I look not on you. It is not night, when I do see your face, When all the world is here to look on me? HEL. The wildest hath not such a heart as you. • Wood-wild-mad. My Hermia. This has been enfeebled by some editor, who has been followed without apology by others, into "Because I cannot meet with Hermia." The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind But I shall do thee mischief in the wood. HEL. Ay, in the temple, in the town, and field, We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. To die upon the hand I love so well. [Exeunt DEM. and HEL. OBE. Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove, I know a bank where the wild thyme blows a, With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes; grove : So all the old copies. Steevens, who hated variety in rhythm, as he gloated on a double-entendre, gives us "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows." For the same love of counting syllables upon the fingers, the luscious woodbine of the old copies is changed into lush woodbine: Farmer, who knew as little about the melody of verse as Steevens, would read "O'er-canopied with luscious woodbine." Their profane hands would not leave the passage as Milton had read it, when he wrote "I sat me down to watch upon a bank With ivy canopied, and interwoven |