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Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.
Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no fooner in,
But ev'ry man betake him to his legs.

Rom. A torch for me. Let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels; For I am proverb'd with a granfire-phrase; I'll be a candle-holder, and look on. The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.

Mer. Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable's own word;

If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire; * Or, save your reverence, Love, wherein thou stickest Up to thine ears: come, we burn day-light, ho.

7 Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable'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
grandfire's 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 (fays Romeo) and
look on. It is true, if I could
play myself, I could never ex-
pect 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, i. e. of a dark complexion.
And so replies, Tut! dun's the
mouse; a proverbial expression of

Rom.

the fame import with the French, La nuit tous les chats font gris. As much as to say, You need not fear, night will make all your complexions alike. And because Romeo had introduced his obfervation with,

I am proverb'd with a grandfire's phrase, Mercutio adds to his reply, the conftable's own word. As much as to say, if you are for old proverbs, I'll fit you with one; 'tis the conftable's own word: whose custom was, when he summoned his watch, and affigned them their several stations, to give them what the foldiers call, the word. But this night guard being distinguished for their pacific character, the conftable, as an emblem of their harmless disposition, chose that domestic animal for his word: which, in time, might become proverbial. WARE.

8 Or, fave your reverence, Love, The word or obscures the sentence; we should read O! for or Love, Mercutio having called Queen: which is very pertinent; for that designs her power: Then she is called the fairies' midwife; but what has that to do with the point in hand? If we would think that Shakespeur wrote sense, we must say, he wrote--the FANCY'S midwife: and this is a proper title, as it introduces all that is faid afterwards of her vagaries. Befides, it exactly quadrates with these lines :

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Rom. Nay, that's not fo.

Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay

We waste our lights in vain, like lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment fits
Five times in that, ere once in our fine wits.

Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask,

But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one afk?

Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer. And fo did I.

Rom. Well what was yours?

Mer. That dreamers often lye.

Rom. -In bed afsleep; while they do dream things

true.

Mer. O, then I fee, Queen Mab hath been with

you..

She is the Fancy's mid-wife, and she comes

having called the affection with which Romeo was entangled by fo disrespectfuul a word as mire, cries out,

O! Save your reverence, Love. 90, then I fee, Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the FAIRIES' midwife.] Thus begins that admirable fpeech upon the effects of the imagination in dreams. But, Queen Mab the fairies' midwife? What is she then Queen of? Why, the fairies. What! and their midw fe too? But this is not the greatest of the abfurdities. Let us fee upon what occasion she is introduced, and under what quality. It is as a Being that has great power over human imaginations. But then the title given her, must have reference to the employment she is put upon: First then, the is

:

I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantafie.

These dreams are begot upon fantafie, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth. And fancy's midwife is a phrase altogether in the manner of our author.

WARBURTON.

In shape no bigger than an agat ftone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart mens' noses as they lie afleep:
Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grafhoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half fo big as a round little worm,
Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this State she gallops, night by night,
Through lover's brains, and then they dream of love;
On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies strait;
O'er lawyers fingers, who strait dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who strait on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a fuit;

Sometimes she gallops d'er a
AWYER's nose,

And then dreams be of smelling out a fuit;] The old editions have it, COURTIER's nose; and this undoubtedly is the true reading: and for these reasons, First, In the present reading there is a vicious repetition in this fine speech; the fame thought having been given in the foregoing line, O'er lawyers' fingers, who trait dream on fees':

Nor can it be objected that there

And

will be the fame fault if we read courtier's, it having been faid before.

On courtiers' knees, that dream on curifies ftrat: because they are shewn in two places under different views: in the first, their foppery; in the second, their rapacity is ridiculed. Secondly, In our author's time, a court-folicitation was called fimply, a fuit and a process, a fuit at law, to diftinguish it from the other. The King (fays an anonymous

1

!

And fometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,

Tickling the parfon as he lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another Benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a foldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

anonymous contemporary writer of the life of Sir William Cecil) called him [Sir William Cecil) and after long talk with him, being much delighted with his anfwer's, willed his Father to FIND [i. c. to smell out] A SUIT for bim. Whereupon he became SUITER for the reverfion of the Custos brevium office in the Common Pleas. Which the King willingly granted, it being the first SUIT he had in bis life. Indeed our Poet has very rarely turned his fatire again lawyers and law proceedings; the common topic of later writers. For, to observe it to the honour of the English judicatures, they preferved the purity and fimplicity of their first institution, long after Chicane had over run all the other laws of Euroje. Philip de Commines gives us a very frank description of the horrid abuses that had infected the courts of justice in France, so early as the time of Lewis XI. Auffi defiroit fort qu' en ce Royaume on usaft d' une coustume, d'un poix, d'une mesure: et que toutes ces coustumes fuffent mises en françoys, en un beau Livre, pour eviter la cautelle & la pillerie des advocats: qui est si grande en ce Royaume, que nulle autre n'est semblable, & les nobles d'iceluy la doivent bien cougnoistre. At this time the administration of the law in England was conduct

ed with great purity and integrity. The reason of this difference I take to be, that, 'till of late, there were few gloffers or commentators on our laws, and those very able, honest, and concise. While it was the fortune of the other municipal laws of Europe, where the Roman civil law had a fupplemental authority, to be, in imitation of that law, overloaded with gloffes and commentators. And what corruption this practice oсcasioned in the administration of the Roman law itself, and to what a miferable condition it reduced public justice, we may fee in a long and fine digression of the historian Ammianus Marcellinus; who has painted, in very lively colours, the different kinds of vermine, which infected their tribunals and courts of law : whereby the state of public juftice became in a short time so desperately corrupt, that Juftinian was obliged to new-model and digeft the enormous body of their laws.

WARB.

2 Spanish blades,] A sword is called a Toledo, from the excellence of the Toletan steel. So Grotius,

Enfis Toletanus

Unda Tagi non eft ano celebranda metallo, Utilis in cives eft ibi lamna fuos.

Of

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Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And fsleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
3 And cakes the elf-locks in foul fluttish hairs,
Which, once entangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is the

Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace;
Thou talk'ft of nothing.

Mer. True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing, but vain phantafy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more unconstant than the wind; who wooes
Ev'n now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping fouth.

Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our

selves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.
Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives,
Some consequence, yet hanging in the Stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he, that hath the steerage of my course,
+ Direct my fuit ! On, lusty Gentlemen.

Ben. Strike, drum.

[They march about the Stage, and Exeunt.

3 And cakes the elf lock:, &c.] This was a common superstition; and feems to have had its rife from the horrid disease called the

I

WARBURTON.

Plica Polonica. + Divest my fuit!] Guide the Sequel of the adventure.

SCENE

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