SCENE 2. Page 103.

HEL. So with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

It may be doubted whether this passage has been rightly explained, and whether the commentators have not given Shakspeare credit for more skill in heraldry than he really possessed, or at least than he intended to exhibit on the present occasion. Helen says, "we had two seeming bodies, but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position by a simile-" we had two of the first, i. e. bodies, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as one person, but which, like our single heart, have but one crest."

SCENE 2. Page 112.

Puck. And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to church-yards.

Aurora's harbinger is Lucifer, the morning star.

"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East

It was the popular belief that ghosts retired at the approach of day. Thus the spirit of Hamlet's father exclaims,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.”

In further illustration see a subsequent note on Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1.

SCENE 2. Page 117.

HEL. And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye. Again, in Macbeth:

"Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care."

It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do you service.

Dr. Johnson suspects a line to be lost, as he "knows not what it is to stretch and con an intent;" but it is surely not intents that are stretch'd and conn'd but the play, of which Philostrate is speaking. If the line

"Unless you can find sport, &c."

were printed in a parenthesis, all would be right. Mr. Steevens, not perceiving this, has endeavoured to wrest from the word intents, its plain and usual meaning, and would unnecessarily convert it to attention, which might undoubtedly be stretch'd, but could not well be conn'd.

SCENE 1. Page 148.

PHILOST. The prologue is addrest.

We have borrowed this sense of the word (ready) from the French adressé.

SCENE 1. Page 157.

MOON. This lantern doth the horned moon present.

But why horned? He evidently refers to the materials of which the lantern was made.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

Puck. By the triple Hecat's team.

By this team is meant the chariot of the moon, said to be drawn by two horses, the one black, the other white. It is probable that Shakspeare might have consulted some translation of Boccaccio's Genealogy of the gods, which, as has been already remarked, appears to have occasionally supplied him

with his mythological information. As this is the first time we meet with the name of Hecate in our author, it may be proper to notice the error he has committed in making it a word of two syllables, which he has done in several other places, though in one (viz. I. Henry Sixth, if he wrote that play) it is rightly made a trisyllable:

"I speak not to that railing Hĕcătē." Act III. Scene 2. His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Spenser in the Fairy queen,

Thus

"As Hěcătē, in whose almighty hand." B. vii. Canto 6. Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in a note on Macbeth, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar, has used the word Hecate as a dissyllable. It may be added that Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

SCENE 2. Page 168.

Puck. I am sent with broom before,

To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the Fairy queen, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept,

And from uncleanness kept,

We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the Fairies farewell, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his Poetica stromata, 1648, 18mo. It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies!

Good housewives now may say;
For now foule sluts in dairies
Doe fare as well as they :

And though they sweepe their hearths no less

Than mayds were wont to doe,

Yet who of late for cleanliness

Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

SCENE 2. Page 170.

OBE. To the best bride bed will we,

Which by us shall blessed be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed at the marriage of a princess. It was used at all marriages. This was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa ad lectum pervenerint, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.-Item benedictio super lectum. Benedic, Domine, hoc cubiculum, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus: custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuæ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.-Deinde fiat benedictio super eos in lecto tantum cum Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.His peractis aspergat eos aqua benedicta, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French romance of Melusine, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water.

Sometimes during the benediction the married couple only sat upon the bed; but they generally received a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least before supper, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations.