It appears from a passage in one of the small collections of Poetry, entitled Drolleries, of which I have lost the title, that “Our sport is at the best," or at the fairest, meant, we have had enough of it. Hence it is that Romeo says, "I am done."

Dun is the mouse, I know not why, seems to have meant, Peace; he still! and hence it is said to be "the constable's own word;" who may be supposed to be employed in apprehending an offeuder, and afraid of alarming him by any noise.

MALONE.

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.] An allusion to an old proverbial saying, which advises to give over when the game is at the fairest. RITSON.

This is equivalent to phrases in common use I am done for, it is over with me. Done is often used in a kindred sense by our author. STEEVENS. Mer. Tut!dun's the mouse, the constable's & own word:]*This poor obscure stuff should have an explanation in mere -charity. It is an answer to these two lines of Romeo:

"For I am proverb'd with a grandsire

phrase;

and

"The game was ne'er so fair, and I am

done.'

* Mercutio, in his reply, answers the last line first. The thought of which, and of the preceding, is taken from gaming. I'll be a candle-holder (says Romeo) and look on. It is true, If I could play myself, I could never expect a fairer chance than in the company we are going to: but, alas: I am done. I have nothing to play with; I have lost my heart already. Mercutio catches at the word done,

and quibbles with it, as if Romeo had said, The ladies indeed are fair, but I am dun, ie. of a dark complexion. And so replies, Tut! dun's the mouse; a proverbial expression of the same import with the French, La nuit tous les chats sont gris as much as to say, You need not fear, night will make all your complexions alike. And because Romeo had introduced his observations with, a rich

I am proverb'd with a grandsire phrase, Mercutio adds to his reply, the constable's own word as much as to say, If you are for old proverbs, I'll fit you with one; 'tis the constable's own word; whose custom was, when he sammoned his watch, and assigned them their several stations, to give them what the soldiers callouthe word. But this night-guard being distinguished for th their pacifick character, the constable, as an emblem of their harmless disposition, chose that domestic animal for his word, which, in time, might become proverbial. WARBURTON. No If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire &c.] A proverbial saying, used by Mr. Thomas Heywood, in his play, intitled The Dutchess of Suffolk, Act III.

Dr. GREY. Draw dau (a common name, as Mr. Douce observes, for a cart-horse) out of the mire, seeins have been a game. In an old collection of Sȧtyres, Epigrams, &c. I find it enumerated among other pastimes.

Dun's the mouse is a proverbial phrase, which I have slikewise met comedies; but of the with frequently in the old cant expression I cannot determine the precise meaning. STEEVENS. Dun out of the mire was the name of a tune,

J

and to this sense Mercutio may allude when Romeo declines dancing. Taylor in a Navy of Land ships says, “Nimble-heel'd mariners (like so many dancers) capring in the pumpes and vanities of this sinfull world, sometimes a Morisca or Trenchmore of forty miles long, to the tune of duste my deare, dirty come thon to me, Dun out of the mire, or I wayle in woe and plunge in paine all these dances have no other musicke." HOLT WHITE.

These passages serve to prove that Dr. Warburton's explanation is ill founded; without tending to explain the real sense of the phrase, or showing why it should be the constable's own word

MED NA AOEM. MASON.

"The cat is grey, a cant phrase, somewhat simiTar to "Dan's the mouse, occurs in

King Lear. But the present application of Mercutio's words will, I fear, remain in hopeless obscurity.

lio

STEEVENS. Of this (save reverence) love &c.] The fothis reverence)

obscures the sentence; we should read O! for or love. Mercutio having called the affection with which Romeo was entangled by so disrespectful a word as mire, cries out,

O! save your reverence, love. JOHNSON. This passage is uot worth a contest, and yet if the conjunction or were retained, the meaning ap"We'll draw thee from the mire pears to be: (says he) or rather from this love wherein thou stickst. Kw

Dr. Johnson has imputed a greater share of politeness to Mercutio than he is found to be possessed of in the quarto, 1597. Mercutio, as he passes through different editions,

"Works himself clear, and as he runs refines." STEEVENS. ~ I have followed the first quarto, 1597, except that it has sur-reverence, instead of save-reverence. It was only a different mode of spelling the same word; which was derived from the Latin, salva reverentia. See Blount's Glossograph. 8vo. 1681, in v. sa-reverence. MALONE.

· P. 110, L. 23. — we burn day-light,] To burn daylight is a proverbial expression, used when candles, &c. are lighted in the day time. STEEVENS. b. P. 111, l. 5. She is the fairies' midwife;} The fairies midwife does not mean the midwife Itos the fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies, whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, children of an idle brain. When we say the King's judges, we do not inean persons who are to judge the King, but persons appointed by him to judge his subjects. STEEVENS.

those

I apprehend, and with no violence of interpretation, that by "the fairies' midwife, the po means, the midwife among the fairies, because it was her peculiar employment to steal the newborn babe in the night, and to leave another în its place. The poet here uses her general appelslation, and character, which yet has so far a pro[per reference to the present train of fiction, as that her illusions were practised on persons in bed or asleep for she not only haunted women in childbed, but was likewise the incubus or nightmare: Shakspeare, by employing her here, alludes at lårge to her midnight pranks performed on sleepers; but denominates her from the most notorious one, of eher personating the drowsy midwife, who was insensibly carried away into some distant water, and

A

substituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read the fairy midwife. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province, by giving her this nocturnal agency. T. WARTON,

1

P. 1,61. 6. 7. In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,] The quarto, 1597, reads, of a burgo-master, The alteration was probably made by the poet himself, as we find it in the succeeding copy, 1599: but in order to familiarize the idea, he has diminished its propriety. In the pictures of burgo-masters, the ring is generally placed on the fore-finger; and from a passage in The First Part of Henry IV. we may suppose the citizens in Shakspeare's time to have worn this ornament on the thumb. So again, Glapthorne, in his comedy of Wit in a Constable, 1639: and an alderman, as I may say to you, he has no more wit than the rest o' the bench; and that lies in his thumb ring." STEEVENS. 1. 8. Drawn with a team of little atomies] Atomy is no

1.

-

111, more than an obsolete substitute for atom.

STEEVENS.

P. 1-11 1. 28. Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.] i. e. kissing comfits. These artificial aids to per fume the breath, are mentioned by Falstaff in the last act of The Merry Wives of Windsor. MALONÉ. P. 111, 16:29. Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, rod of And then dreams he of smelling out a wwwsuit:] Mr. Pope reads lawyer's nose. STEEVENS, VAWER 2160 vidíags@