married; if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.

Flute. O fweet bully Bottom! thus hath he loft fixpence a-day during his life, he could not have 'fcap'd fix-pence a-day; an the Duke had not given him fixpence a-day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd: he would have deferv'd it. Six-pence a-day, in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter Bottom.

Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom!-O moft courageous day! O most happy hour!

Bot. Mafters, I am to difcourfe wonders, but ask me not what; for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing as it fell out.

Quin. Let us hear, fweet Bottom.

Bot. Not a word of me; all I will tell you, is, that the Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet prefently at the palace, every man look o'er his part; for the fhort and the long is, (30) our play is preferred: in any cafe, let Thisby have clean linnen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they fhall hang out for the lions claws; and, moft dear actors! eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt to hear them fay, it is a fweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away.` [Exeunt.

(30) Our play is preferr'd:] This Word is not to be taken in its moft common Acceptation here, as if their Play was chofen in Prefe rence to the others; (for that appears afterwards not to be the Fact;) but means, that it was given in, among others, for the Duke's Option: And, in this Senfe, we fay, preferr a Petition; i. e. give it in, lodge it, for the Judge's Anfwer. So, in Julius Cæfar, Decius fays; Where is Metellus Cimber? let him go, And prefently prefer his Suit to Cæfar.

ACT

Enter Thefeus, Hippolita, Egeus, and bis Lords.

T

HIPPOLITA.

KIS ftrange, my Thefeus, what thefe lovers speak

of.

Thef. More strange than true. I never may
believe

These antick fables, nor thefe Fairy toys;
Lovers and madmen have fuch feething brains,
Such fhaping fantafies, that apprehend
More than cool reafon ever comprehends.
The lunatick, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:

One fees more devils than vaft hell can hold;

The madman. While the lover, all as frantick,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rowling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heav'n;
And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to aiery nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath ftrong imagination,

That if he would but apprehend fome joy,
It comprehends fome bringer of that joy;
Or in the night imagining fome fear,
How cafie is a bufh fuppos'd a bear?

Hip. But all the ftory of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur'd fo together,
More witneffeth than fancy's images,
And grows to fomething of great conftancy;
But, howsoever, ftrange and admirable.

K 4

Enter

Enter Lyfander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena. Thef. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth. Joy, gentle friends; joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts.

Lyf. More than to us,

Wait on your royal walks, your board, your bed.
Thef. Come now, what masks, what dances fhall we
have,

To wear away this long age of three hours,
Between our after-fupper and bed-time?
Where is our ufual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? is there no play,
To cafe the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philoftrate.

Enter Philoftrate.

Philoft. Here, mighty Thefeus.

Thef. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?

What mafque? what mufick? how shall we beguile The lazy time, if not with fome delight?

Philoft. There is a brief, how many sports are ripe: (31) Make choice of which your Highness will fee_first. [Giving a Paper.

Thef. reads] The battel with the Centaurs, to be fung (32) By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.

(31) how many Sports are rife:] I have chofen to restore from one of the old Quarto's printed in 1600, ripe, as the most proper Word here: ripe, fignifying any thing ready for Use; rife, only the great Increase of any thing.

(32) Lyf. The battel with the Centaurs-] Here the fixteen Lines, that follow, from the Time of the firft Folio Edition put out by the Players, have impertinently been divided, by two Verfes alternately, betwixt Thefeus and Lyfander. But what has Lyfander to do in the Affair? He is no Courtier of Thefeus's, but only an occafional Guest; and just come out of the Woods, fo not likely to know what Sports were in Preparation. I have taken the old Quarto's for my Guides, in regulating this Paffage. Thefeus asks after Entertainment. Philoftrate, who is his Mafter of the Revels, gives him in a Lift of what Sports are ready: upon which, Thefeus reads the Titles of them out of the Lift, and then alternately makes his Remarks upon them. And this, I dare fay, was the Poet's own Defign and Distribution.

We'll

We'll none of that. That I have told my love,
In glory of my kinfman Hercules.
The riot of the tipfie Bacchanals,

Tearing the Thracian finger in their rage.
That is an old device; and it was plaid,
When I from Thebes came laft a conqueror.
The thrice three Mufes mourning for the death
Of learning, late deceas'd in beggary.
That is fome fatyr, keen and critical;
Not forting with a nuptial ceremony.
A tedious brief fcene of young Pyramus,
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.
Merry and tragical? tedious and brief?
That is hot Ice, and wondrous ftrange Snow.
How fhall we find the concord of this difcord?
Philoft. A play there is, my lord, fome ten words

long;

Which is as brief, as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long;
Which makes it tedious: for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is:
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I faw rehears'd, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The paffion of loud laughter never shed.
Thef. What are they, that do play it?

Philoft. Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here,
Which never labour'd in their minds 'till now;
And now have toil'd their unbreath'd memories
With this fame play against your nuptials.
Thef. And we will hear it.

Philoft. No, my noble lord,

It is not for you. I have heard it over,
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
Unless you can find fport in their intents,
Extremely ftretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do you fervice.

Thef. I will hear that play:

For never any thing can be amifs,

When

When fimpleness and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in, and take your places, ladies.

[Exit. Phil. Hip. I love not to fee wretchedness o'ercharg'd, And duty in his fervice perithing.

Thef. Why, gentle fweet, you shall fee no fuch thing.
Hip. He fays, they can do nothing in this kind.
Thef. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
Our sport shall be, to take what they mistake;
And what poor [willing] duty cannot do, (33)
Noble respect takes it in might, not merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them fhiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
And, in conclufion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, fweet,
Out of this filence yet I pick'd a welcome:
And in the modefty of fearful duty

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of fawcy and audacious eloquence.
Love therefore, and tongue-ty'd fimplicity,
In leaft, fpeak moft, to my capacity.

Enter Philoftrate.

Phil. So please your Grace, the prologue is addrest. Thef. Let him approach.

Enter Quince, for the prologue.

[Flor. Trum.

Pro. If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To fhew our fimple skill, That is the true beginning of our end.

(33) And what poor duty cannot do, noble Respect

Takes it in Might, not Merit.] What Ears have thefe poetical Editors, to palm this firft Line upon us as a Verfe of Shakespeare? 'Tis certain, an Epithet had flipt out, and I have ventur'd to restore such a one as the Senfe may difpenfe with; and which makes the two Verses flowing and perfect.

Confider