Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me. 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 The game was ne'er so fair, and Mercutio, in his reply, answers 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 : Rom. Nay, that's not fo. Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lights by day. 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 Sometimes she gallops d'er a 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, Sometimes she driveth o'er a foldier's neck, 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 Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace; Mer. True, I talk of dreams, Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our selves; Supper is done, and we shall come too late. 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 |