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She was pinch'd and pull'd, he said,
"And he by friers' lanthorn led;
"Tells how the drudging goblin fweat
"To earn his cream-bowl duly fet,
"When in one night, ere glimpse of mora,
"His fhadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
"That ten day-labourers could not end;
"Then lies him down the lubber fiend."

A like account of Puck is given by Drayton, in his Nymphidia:
"He meeteth Puck, which moft men call
"Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall
"This Puck feems but a dreaming dolt,'
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of bed doth bolt,
"Of purpose to deceive us;

66

And leading us makes us to stray,

Long winters' nights out of the way,

"And when we ftick in mire and clay,

"He doth with laughter leave us.'

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It will be apparent to him that shall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then fome fyftem of the fairy empire generally received, which they both reprefented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakspeare wrote firft, I cannot discover. JOHNSON.

The editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1775, fuppofes Drayton to have been the follower of Shakspeare: for, fays he, “ Don Quixote (which was not published till 1605,) is cited in The Nymphidia, whereas we have an edition of A Midfummer Night's Dream in 1600."

In this century fome of our poets have been as little fcrupulous in adopting the ideas of their predeceffors. In Gay's ballad, inferted in The What d'ye call It, is the following stanza:

"How can they fay that nature
"Has nothing made in vain ;

"Why then beneath the water

Should hideous rocks remain?" &c. &c.

Compare this with a pallage in Chaucer's Frankelines Tale, Tyrwhitts edit. v. i. 11179, &c.

"In idel, as men fain, ye nothing make,

"But, lord, thife grifly fendly rockes blake," &c. &c. And Mr. Pope is more indebted to the fame author for beauties, inferted in his Eloifa to Abelard, than he has been willing to ac knowledge. STEEVENS.

D 2

1

PUCK.

3

Thou fpeak'ft aright; '

I am that merry wanderer of the night.

If Drayton wrote The Nymphidia after ▲ Midfummer-Night's Dream had been acted, he could with very little propriety fay,

Then fince no mufe hath been fo bold,

"Or of the later or the ould,

"Thofe elvish fecrets to unfold

Which lye from others reading;
My active mufe to light fhall bring
The court of that proud fayry king,
"And tell there of the revelling;

"Jove profper my proceeding."

HOLT WHITE,

Don Quixote, though published in Spain in 1605, was probably little known in England till Skelton's tranflation appeared in 1612. Drayton's poem was, I have no doubt, fubfequent to that year. The earliest edition of it that I have feen, was printed in 1619.

MALONE.

-Jweet Puck:] The epither is by no means fuperfluous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It fignified nothing better than fiend, or devil. So, the author of Pierce Ploughman puts the pouk for the devil, fol. lxxxx. B. V. penult. See alfo, fol. lxvii. v. 15: none helle powke."

It seems to have been an old Gothic word. Puke, puken; Sathanas. Gudm. And, Lexicon Iland. TYRWHITT.

In The Bugbears, an ancient MS. comedy in the poffeffion of the Marquis of Lanfdowne, I likewife met with this appellation of a fiend:

"Puckes, puckerels, hob howlard, by gorn and Robin Goodfelow." Again, in The Scourge of Venus, or the Wanton Lady, with the rare Birth of Adonis, 1615:

Their bed doth fhake and quaver as they lie,
"As if it groan'd to bear the weight of finne;
"The fatal night.crowes at their windowes flec,
"And crie out at the fhame they do live in :
"And that they may perceive the heavens frown,
"The poukes and goblins pul the coverings down."

Again, in Spenfer's Epithalamion, 1595:

Ne let houfe- fyres, nor lightning's helpeleffe harms,
Ne let the pouke, nor other evil fpright,

"Ne let mifchievous witches with their charmes
"Ne let hobgoblins," &c.

Again, in the ninth Book of Golding's Tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis, edit. 1587, p. 126:

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and the countrie where Chymæra, that fame pooke,

Hath goatifh bodie," &c. STEVENS.

I jeft to Oberon, and make him fmile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal :
And fometime lurk I in a goffip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roafted crab;

+

And, when the drinks, againft her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wifeft aunt,' telling the faddeft tale,
Sometime for three-foot ftool mistaketh me;
Then flip I from her bum, down topples fhe,

3 Puck. Thou speak'ft aright;] I would fill up the verfe which I fuppofe the author left complete :

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"I am, thou fpeak'ft aright;

It seems that in the Fairy mythology, Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or dete& the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakspeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia, the fame fairies are engaged in the fame bufinefs. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen: Oberon being jealous, fends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a fpell. JOHNSON.

4 —a roafted; crab | i. e. the wild apple of that name.

in the anonymous play of King Henry V. &c.

"Yet we will have in ftore a crab in the fire,

"With nut-brown ale," &c.

Again, in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

So,

"And fit down in my chaire by my wife faire Alison, "And turne a crabbe in the fire," &c.

In Summer's Laft Will and Teftament, 1600, Christmas is defcribed as

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The wifeft aunt,] Aunt is fometimes ufed for procurefs. In Gafcoigne's Glafs of Government, 1575, the bawd Pandarina is always called aunt. "Thefe are aunts of Antwerp, which can make twenty marriages in one week for their kinfwoman." See Winter's Tale, A& IV. fc. i. Among Ray's proverbial phrafes is the following. "She is one of mine aunts that made mine uncle to go a begging." The wifeft aunt may therefore mean the most fentimental bawd, or, perhaps, the most profaic old woman. STEEVENS.

The first of thefe conje&tures is much too wanton and injurious to the word aunt, which in this place at least certainly means no other than an innocent old woman RITSON,

And tailor cries,," and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe ;7

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And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear A merrier hour was never wafted there.

But room, Faery, here comes Oberon.

FAI. And here my miftrefs: -'Would that he were gone!

6 And tailor cries, ] The cuftom of crying tailor at a fudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have obferved. He that flips befide his chair, falls as a tailor fquats upon his board. The Oxford editor, and Dr. Warburton after him, read and rails or cries, plaufibly, but I believe not rightly. Befides, the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger.

JOHNSON.

This phrafe perhaps originated in a pun. Your tail is now on the ground. See Camden's Remaines, 1614. PROVERBS. "Between. two flools the tayle goeth to the ground." MALONE.

7

hold their hips, and loffe; ] So, in Milton's L'Allegro: "And laughter holding both his fides." STEEVENS.

8 And waxen

-

-] And encreafe, as the moon waxes. JOHNSON. A feeble fenfe may be extracted from the foregoing words as they ftand; but Dr. Farmer obferves to me that waxen is probably corrupted from yoxen, or yexen. Yoxe Saxon. to hiccup. Yyxyn. Singultio. Prompt. Parv.

Thus in Chaucer's Reve's Tale, v. 4149:

"He yoxeth, and he fpeaketh thurgh the nose."

That yex, however, was a familiar word fo late as the time of Ainsworth the lexicographer, is clear from his having produced it as a tranflation of the Latin fubftantive - fingultus.

The meaning of the paffage before us will then be, that the objeas of Puck's waggery laughed till their laughter ended in a yex or hiccup.

It should be remembered, in fupport of this conjecture, that Puck is at prefent speaking with an affectation of ancient phrafeology. STEEVENS.

9 But room, Faery, ] Thus the old copies. Some of our modern editors read "But make room, Fairy." The word Fairy, or Faery, was fometimes of three fyllables, as often in Spenfer.

JOHNSON.

Enter OBERON,'

SCENE II.

at one door, with his train, and

TITANIA, 3 at another, with hers.

OBE. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania. TITA. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; I have forfworn his bed and company.

CBE. Tarry, rafh wanton; Am not I thy lord? TITA. Then I must be thy lady: But I know When thou haft ftol'n away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin fat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and verfing love To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the fartheft fteep of India?

2 Enter Oberon, ] Oberon had been introduced on the flage in 1594, by fome other author. In the Stationers' books is entered "The Scottishe ftory of James the fourthe, flain at Flodden, intermixed with a pleafant comedie prefented by Oberon, King of Fairies." The judicious editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in his Introductory Difcourfe, (See Vol. IV. p. 161.) obferves that Pluto and Proferpina in The Merchant's Tale, appear to have been "the true progenitors of Shakspeare's Oberon and Titania."

STEEVENS.

3 Titania,] As to the Fairy Queen, fays Mr. Warton in his Obfervations on Spenfer,) confidered apart from the race of fairies, the notion of fuch an imaginary perfonage was very common. Chaucer, in his Rime of Sir Thopas, mentions her, together with a Fairy land. Again, in the Wif of Bathes Tale, v. 6439:

"In olde dayes of the king Artour,

"Of which that Bretons fpeken gret honour;
"All was this lond fulfilled of faerie;
"The Elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie
"Danced ful oft in many a grene mede:
"This was the old opinion as I rede."

STEEVENS.

verfing love Perhaps Prior was the laft who employed

this verb: "And Mat mote praife what Topaz verfeth." STEEVENS

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