Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead, all the side boughs, and especially at midsummer, if you spy them breaking out." And again, "Where the rows and brush lie longer than midsummer, unbound, or made up, you endanger the loss of the second spring." Henley. 4 Paved fountain,] A fountain laid round the edge with stone. ...1 Johnson. Perhaps paved at the bottom. So, Lord Bacon in his Essay on Gardens: "As for the other kind of fountaine, which we may call a bathing-poole, it may admit much curiosity and beauty. As that the bottom be finely paved. . . . the sides likewise," &c. Steevens. The epithet seems here intended to mean no more than that. the beds of these fountains were covered with pebbles, in opposition to those of the rushy brooks, which are oozy. The same expression is used by Sylvester in a similar sense; 'By some cleare river's lillie-paved side." 5 the winds, piping -] So, Milton: Henley. "While rocking winds are piping loud." Johnson. And Gawin Douglas, in his translation of the Æneid, p. 69, 1710, fol. Edinb. "The soft piping wynd calling to se." The Glossographer observes, "we say a piping wind, when an ordinary gule blows, and the wind is neither too loud, nor too calm.” Holt White. 6 pelting river -] Thus the quartos: the folio readspetty. Shakspeare has in Lear the same word, low pelting farms. The meaning is plainly, despicable, mean, sorry, wretched; but as it is a word, without any reasonable etymology, I should be glad to dismiss it for petty: yet it is undoubtedly right. We have petty pelting officer" in Measure for Measure. Johnson. 66 So, in Gascoigne's Glass of Government, 1575: "Doway is a pelting town pack'd full of poor scholars." This word is always used as a word of contempt. So, again, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "-attire never used but of old women, and pelting priests." Steevens. 7 overborne their continents:] Borne down the banks, tha Contain them. So, in Lear: The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain, 8 close pent up guilts, “Rive your concealing continents!” Johnson. Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:] So, in our author's 12th Sonnet: "And summer's green, all girded up in sheaves, "Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard." Malone. 9 murrain flock;] The murrain is the plague in cattle. It is here used by Shakspeare as an adjective; as a substantive by others: sends him as a murrain "To strike our herds; or as a worser plague, Heywood's Silver Age, 1613. Steevens, 1 The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;] In that part of Warwickshire where Shakspeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to represent a sort of imperfect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men, as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are, by the country people, called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils: and are so called because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choaked up with mud. James. See Peck on Milton's Masque, 115, Vol. I, p. 135. Steevens. Nine men's morris is a game still played by the shepherds, cowkeepers, &c. in the midland counties, as follows; A figure is made on the ground (like this which I have drawn) by cutting out the turf; and two persons take each nine stones, which they place by turns in the angles, and afterwards move alternately, as at chess or draughts. He, who can place three in a straight line, may then take off any one of his adversary's, where he pleases, till one, having lost all his men, loses the game. And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,2 Alchorne. In Cotgrave's Dictionary, under the article Merelles, is the following explanation: "Le Jeu des Merelles. The boyish game called Merils, or fivepenny morris; played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns, or men made on purpose, and termed merelles." The pawns or figures of men used in the game might originally be black, and hence called morris, or merelles, as we yet term a black cherry a morello, and a small black cherry a merry, perhaps from Maurus, or Moor, or rather from morum, a mulberry. Tollet. The Fue de merelles was also a table-game. A representation of two monkies engaged at this amusement, may be seen in a German edition of Petrarch de remedio utriusque fortunæ, B. I, ch. 26. The cuts to this book were done in 1520. Douce. 2 the quaint mazes in the wanton green,] This alludes to a sport, still followed by boys; i. e. what is now called running the figure of eight. Steevens. 3 The human mortals -] Shakspeare might have employed this epithet, which, at first sight appears redundant, to mark the difference between men and fairies. Fairies were not human, but they were yet subject to mortality. It appears from the romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux, that Oberon himself was mortal. The same phrase, however, occurs in Chapman's translation of Homer's address to Earth, the mother of all: "This, however, (says Mr. Ritson,) does not by any means appear to be the case. Oberon, Titania, and Puck, never dye; the inferior agents must necessarily be supposed to enjoy the same privi lege; and the ingenious commentator may rely upon it, that the No night is now with hymn or carol blest:4- That rheumatick diseases do abound:5 oldest woman in England never heard of the death of a Fairy. Human mortals is, notwithstanding, evidently put in opposition to fairies who partook of a middle nature between men and spirits." It is a misfortune, as well to the commentators as to the readers of Shakspeare, that so much of their time is obliged to be employed in explaining and contradicting unfounded conjectures and assertions. Spenser in his Fairy Queen, B. II, c. x, says, (I use the words of Mr. Warton; Observations on Spenser, Vol. I, p. 55,) "That man was first made by Prometheus, was called Elfe, who wandering over the world, at length arrived at the gardens of Adonis, where he found a female whom he called Fay.-The issue of Elfe and Fay were called Fairies, who soon grew to be a mighty people, and conquered all nations. Their eldest son Elfin governed America, and the next to him, named Elfinan, founded the city of Cleopolis, which was enclosed with a golden wall by Elfinine. His son Elfin overcame the Gobbelines; but of all fairies, Elfant was the most renowned, who built Panthea of crystal. To these succeeded Elfar, who slew two brethren giants; and to him Elfinor, who built a bridge of glass over the sea, the sound of which was like thunder. At length, Elficleos ruled the Fairy-land with much wisdom, and highly advanced its power and honour: he left two sons, the eldest of which, fair Elferon, died a premature death, his place being supplied by the mighty Oberon; a prince, whose wide memorial' still remains; who, dying, left Tanaquil to succeed him by will, she being also called Glorian or Gloriana." I transcribe this pedigree, merely to prove that in Shakspeare's time the notion of Fairies dying was generally known. Reed. Mr. Reed might here have added the names of many divines and philosophers, whose sentiments coincide with his own position on this subject: " post prolixum tempus moriuntur omnes" i. e. aerial and familiar spirits, &c. were all mortal. See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, edit. 1632, p. 42. Steevens. No night is now with hymn or carol blest:] Since the coming of Christianity, this season, [winter,] in commemoration of the birth of Christ, has been particularly devoted to festivity. And to this custom, notwithstanding the impropriety, hymn or carol blest certainly alludes. Warburton. Hymns and carols, in the time of Shakspeare, during the season of Christmas, were sung every night about the streets, as a pretext for collecting money from house to house. Steevens. 5 That rheumatick diseases do abound:] Rheumatick diseases signified in Shakspeare's time, not what we now call rheumatism, but distillations from the head, catarrhs, &c. So, in a paper entitled “The State of Sir H. Sydney's bodie, &c. Feb. 1567 ;” And thorough this distemperature, we see Sydney's Memorials, Vol. I, p. 94: " he hath verie much distempered diverse parts of his bodie, as namely, his hedde, his stomach, &c. and thereby is always subject to coughes, distillations, and other rumatic diseases." Malone. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, &c.] The repeated adverb therefore, throughout this speech, I suppose to have constant reference to the first time, when it is used. All these irregularities of season happened in consequence of the disagreement between the king and queen of the fairies, and not in consequence of each other. Ideas crouded fast on Shakspeare; and, as he committed them to paper, he did not attend to the distance of the leading object from which they took their rise. Mr. Malone concurs with me on this occasion. That the festivity and hospitality attending Christmas, decreased, was the subject of complaint to many of our ludicrous writers. Among the rest to Nash, whose comedy called Summer's Last Will and Testament, made its first appearance in the same year with this play, viz. 1600. There Christmas is introduced, and Summer says to him: "Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the rest, 66 Accompanied with some music or some song? "A merry carrol would have grac'd thee well, "Thy ancestors have us'd it heretofore." "Christmas. Ay, antiquity was the mother of ignorance," &c. and then proceeds to give reasons for such a decay in mirth and house-keeping. The confusion of seasons here described, is no more than a poetical account of the weather, which happened in England about the time when the Midsummer Night's Dream was written. For this information I am indebted to chance, which furnished me with a few leaves of an old meteorological history. The date of the piece, however, may be better determined by a description of the same weather in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595, when, says he, "a colder season, in all sorts, was never seene.' He then proceeds to say the same over again in rhyme : "A colder time in world was neuer seene: "The skies do lowre, the sun and moone waxe dim; "The winter's waste driues water ore the brim; "Because we have displeasde the Lord of Light." Let the reader compare these lines with Shakspeare's, and he will find that they are both descriptive of the same weather and its consequences. Churchyard is not enumerating, on this occasion, fictitious but real misfortunes. He wrote the present poem to excite Charity on his own behalf; and among his other sufferings, very natu- |