May all to Athens back again repair; Be, as thou wast wont to be; [Touching her eyes with an herb. See, as thou waft wont to see : Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower" Hath fuch force and bleifed power. OBE. There lies your love. TITA. How came thefe things to pafs? Titania, mufick call; and flrike more dead OBE. Sound, mufick. [Still mufick. ] Come, my And rock the ground whereon thefe fleepers be. от 6 Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower -] The old copies read Cupid's. Corre&ed by Dr. Thilby. The herb now employed is ftyled Diana's bud, because it is applyed as an antidote to that charm which had conftrained Titania to dote on Bottom with foul of love." MALONE. 66 the Dian's bud, is the bud of the Agnus Caftus, or Chafe Tree. Cu pid's flower, is the Viola tricolor, or Love in Idleness. STEEVENS. 7 -of all thefe five the fenfe.] The old copies read thefe fire; but this moft certainly is corrupt. My emendation needs no juftification. The five, that lay afleep on the flage were Demetrius, Lyfander, Hermia, Helena, and Bottom. Dr. Thirlby likewife communicated this very correction. THEOBALD. -- 1 Now thou and I are new in amity; And will, to-morrow midnight, folemnly, There fhall the pairs of faithful lovers be PUCK. Fairy king, attend, and mark; OBE. Then, my queen, in filence fad, Dance in duke Thefeus' houfe triumphantly, And blefs it to all fair pofterity:] We fhould read: i. c. to the remoteft pofterity. WARBURTON. Fair pofterity is the right reading. In the concluding fong, where Oberon bleffes the nuptial bed, part of his benediction is, that the pofterity of Thefeus fhall be fair: "And the blots of nature's hand "Shall not in their iffue ftand; "Normark prodigious, fuch as are Defpifed in nativity, "Shall upon their children be." M. MASON. -to all fair profperity: ] I have preferred this, which is the reading of the firft and beft quarto, printed by Fisher, to that of the other quarto and the folio, (pofterity,) induced by the following lines in a former fcene: "To Thefeus must be wedded, and you come "To give their bed joy and profperity." MALone. 9 Then, my queen, in filence fad, Trip we after the night's fhade:] Sad fignifies only grave, fober; and is oppofed to their dances and revels, which were now ended at the finging of the morning lark. So, in The Winter's Tale, A& IV: " My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk.” grave or ferious. WARBURTON. For A ftatute 3 Henry VII. c. xiv. directs certain offences committed in the king's palace, to be tried by twelve sad men of the king's houfhold. BLACKSTONE. We the globe can compass foon, TITA. Come, my lord; and in our flight, With thefe mortals, on the ground. [Exeunt. [Horns found within. Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLITA, EGEUS, and train. THE. Go, one of you, find out the forefter; My love fhall hear the musick of my hounds. 3 our obfervation is perform'd:] The honours due to the morning of May. I know not why Shakspeare calls this play A Midfummer Night's-Dream, when he fo carefully informs us that it happened on the night preceding May day. JOHNSON. The title of this play feems no more intended, to denote the precife time of the action, than that of The Winter's Tale; which we find, was at the feafon of fheep-fhearing. FARMER. The fame phrase has been used in a former scene: "To do obfervance to a morn of May." I imagine that the title of this play was fuggefted by the time it was first introduced on the ftage, which was probably at Midfunmer. "A Dream for the entertainment of a Midfummer-night." Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale had probably their titles from a fimilar circumftance. MALONE. That In Twelfth Night, A& III. fc. iv. Olivia obferves of Malvolio's feeming frenzy, that it is a very Midfummer madness." time of the year we may therefore fuppofe was anciently thought productive of mental vagaries refembling the fcheme of Shakspeare's Play. To this circumftance it might have owed its title. 4 STEEVENS. the vaward of the day,] Vaward is compounded of van and ward, the forepart. In Knolles's Hiftory of the Turks, the word vayuod is used in the fame fenfe. Edinburgh Magazine, for Nov, 1786. STEEVENS. Uncouple in the weflern valley; go:- Of hounds and echo in conjunction. HIP. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear' With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, befides the groves, S they bay'd the bear ] Thus all the old copies. And thus in Chaucer's Knightes Tale, v. 2020. Tyrwhitt's edit: "The hunte ytrangled with the wild beres." Bearbaiting was likewife once a diverfion efteemed proper for royal perfonages, even of the fofter fex. While the princefs Elizabeth remained at Hatfield Houfe, under the cuftody of Sir Thomas Pope, he was vifited by queen Mary. The next morning they were entertained with a grand exhibition of bearbaiting, with which their highneffes were right well content. See Life of Sir Thomas Pope, cited by Warton in his Hiflory of English Poetry, Vol. II. P. 391. STEEVENS. In The Winter's Tale Antigonus is deftroyed by a bear, who is chaced by hunters. See alfo our poet's Venus and Adonis: "For now he hears it is no gentle chafe, "But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud." MALONE. Holinfhed, with whofe hiflories our poet was well acquainted, fays the beare is a beaft commonlie hunted in the Eaft countrie." See Vol. I. p. 206; and in p. 226, he fays, Alexander at vacant time hunted the tiger, the pard, the bore, and the beare." Pliny, Plutarch, &c. mention bear-hunting. Turberville, in his Book of Hunting, has two chapters on hunting the bear. As the perfons mentioned by the poet are foreigners of the heroic ftrain, he might perhaps think it nobler fport for them to hunt the bear than the boar. Shakspeare must have read the Knight's Tale in Chaucer, wherein are mentioned Thefeus's "white alandes [grey-hounds] to huntin at the lyon, or the wild bere." TOLLET. 6 - fuch gallant chiding;] Chiding in this inftance means only found. So, in K. Henry VIII: "As doth a rock against the chiding flood." 8 The skies, the fountains, every region near THE. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, So flew'd, fo fanded; and their heads are hung Again, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1608: I take great pride "To hear foft mufick, and thy fhrill voice chide." Again, in the 22d chapter of Drayton's Polyolbion: แ drums and trumpets chide." STEEVENS. 7 The fkies, the fountains, ] Inftead of fountains, Mr. Heath would tead -mountains. The change had been proposed to Mr. Theobald, who has well fupported the old reading, by obferving that Virgil and other poets have made rivers, lakes, &c. refponfive to found: "Tum vero exoritur clamor, ripæque lacus que .. Refponfant circa, & cœlum tonat omne tumultu." MALONE. 8 Seem'd all one mutual cry:] The old copies concur in reading -feem; but, as Hippolyta is fpeaking of time paft, I have adopted Mr. Rowe's corre&ion. STEEVENS. 9 My hounds are bred, &c.] This paffage has been imitated by Lee in his Theodofius: "Then through the woods we chac'd the foaming boar, "With hounds that open'd like Theffalian bulls; Like tygers flew'd, and fanded as the fhore, "With cars and chefts that dafh'd the morning dew." MALONE. So flew'd,] Sir T. Hanmer juflly remarks, that flews are the large chaps of a deep-mouth'd hound. Arthur Golding ufes this word in his tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis, finished 1567, a book with which Shakspeare appears to have been well acquainted. The poet is defcribing Adxon's hounds, B. III. p. 34. b. 1575. Two of them, like our author's, were of Spartan kind; bred from a Spartan bitch and a Cietan dog: 66 with other twaine, that had a fyre of Crete, "And dam of Sparta: tone of them called Jollyboy, a great "And large-flew'd hound." Shakspeare mentions Cretan hounds (with Spartan) afterwards in this fpeech of Thefeus. And Ovid's tranflator, Golding, in VOL. VII. K |