And I will purge thy mortal grossness so,
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.-

Peas-blossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustard-seed!

TITA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks, and dewberries 2, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey bags steal from the humble-bees, And, for night tapers, crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the firy glow-worm's eyes", To have my love to bed, and to arise; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moon-beams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

2

Where shall we go?] In the ancient copies, this, and the three preceding speeches, are given to the Fairies collectively. By the advice of Dr. Farmer I have omitted a useless repetition of-" and I," which overloaded the measure. STEEVENS. dewberries,] Dewberries strictly and properly are the fruit of one of the species of wild bramble called the creeping or the lesser bramble: but as they stand here among the more delicate fruits, they must be understood to mean raspberries, which are also of the bramble kind. T. HAWKINS.

Dewberries are gooseberries, which are still so called in several parts of the kingdom. HENLEY.

3the firy glow-worm's eyes,] I know not how Shakspeare, who commonly derived his knowledge of nature from his own observation, happened to place the glow-worm's light in his eyes, which is only in his tail. JOHNSON.

The blunder is not in Shakspeare, but in those who have construed too literally a poetical expression. It appears from every line of his writings that he had studied with attention the book of nature, and was an accurate observer of any object that fell within his notice. He must have known that the light of the glow-worm

1 FAI. Hail, mortal1!

2 FAI. Hail!

3 FAI. Hail!

4 FAI. Hail!

Bor. I cry your worship's mercy, heartily.—I beseech, your worship's name.

COB. Cobweb.

BOT. I shall desire you of more acquaintance", good master Cobweb: If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.-Your name, honest gentleman " ?

was seated in the tail; but surely a poet is justified in calling the luminous part of a glow-worm the eye. It is a liberty we take in plain prose; for the point of greatest brightness in a furnace is commonly called the eye of it.

Dr. Johnson might have arraigned him with equal propriety for sending his fairies to light their tapers at the fire of the glowworm, which in Hamlet he terms uneffectual:

"The glow-worm shews the matin to be near,

"And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire." M. MASON.

4 HAIL, mortal!] The old copies read-Hail, mortal, hail! The second hail was clearly intended for another of the fairies, so as that each of them should address Bottom. The regulation now adopted was proposed by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

5 I shall desire you of more acquaintance,] This line has been very unnecessarily altered. The same mode of expression occurs in Lusty Juventus, a morality:

"I shall desire you of better acquaintance."

Such phraseology was very common to many of our ancient writers.

So, in An Humorous Day's Mirth, 1599:

"I do desire you of more acquaintance."

Again, in Golding's version of the 14th book of Ovid's Metamorphosis:

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he praid

"Him earnestly, with careful voice, of furthrance and of aid." Again, in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1621:

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craving you of more acquaintance." STEEVENS. The alteration in the modern editions was made on the authority of the first folio, which reads in the next speech but one"I shall desire of you more acquaintance." But the old reading is undoubtedly the true one.

So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, b. ii. c. ix. :

"If it be 1, of pardon I you pray." MALONE.

PEAS. Peas-blossom.

Bor. I pray you, commend me to mistress Squash, your mother, and to master Peascod, your father. Good master Peas-blossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance too.-Your name, I beseech you, sir?

Mus. Mustard-seed.

Bor. Good master Mustard-seed, I know your patience well: that same cowardly, giant-like oxbeef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you, your kindred hath made my

6 - good master Cobweb: If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your name, honest gentleman ?] In The Mayde's Metamorphosis, a comedy by Lyly, there is a dialogue between some foresters and a troop of Fairies, very similar to the present: "Mopso. I pray, sir, what might I call you?

"1 Fai. My name is Penny.

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Mop. I am sorry I cannor purse you.

"Frisco. I pray you, sir, what might I call you?
"2 Fai. My name is Cricket.

"Fris. I would I were a chimney for your sake."

The Maid's Metamorphosis was not printed till 1600, but was probably written some years before. Mr. Warton says, (History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 393,) that Lyly's last play appeared

in 1597. MALONE.

7

mistress SQUASH, your mother,] A squash is an immature peascod. So, in Twelfth-Night, Act I. Sc. V.:

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as a squash is, before 'tis a peascod." STEEVENS. 8 - patience-] The Oxford edition reads-I know your parentage well. I believe the correction is right. JOHNSON. Parentage was not easily corrupted to patience. 1 fancy, the true word is, passions, sufferings.

There is an ancient satirical Poem entitled-" The Poor Man's Passions, [i. e. sufferings,] or Poverty's Patience." Patience and Passions are so alike in sound, that a careless transcriber or compositor might easily have substituted the former word for the latter. FARMER.

No change is necessary. These words are spoken ironically. According to the opinion prevailing in our author's time, mustard was supposed to excite to choler. See note on Taming of the Shrew, Act IV. Sc. III. REED.

Perhaps we should read—“ I know you passing well."

M. MASON.

eyes water ere now. I desire you more acquaintance, good master Mustard-seed.

TITA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.

The moon, methinks, looks with a watery eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforced chastity.

Tie up my lover's tongue, bring him silently. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Another part of the Wood.

Enter OBERON.

OBE. I wonder, if Titania be awak'd;
Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
Which she must dote on in extremity.

Enter PUCK.

Here comes my messenger.-How now, mad

spirit?

What night-rule' now about this haunted grove?

9-my LOVE's tongue,] The old copies read—“ tongue." STEEVENS.

my lover's

Our poet has again used lover as a monosyllable in TwelfthNight:

"Sad true lover never find my grave." MALONE. In the passage quoted from Twelfth-Night, "true lover" is evidently a mistake for-" true love," a phrase which occurs in the very scene before us :

"And laid the love-juice on some true love's sight."

Lover, in both the foregoing instances, I must therefore suppose to have been a printer's blunder for love; and have therefore continued Mr. Pope's emendation in the text. How is lover to be pronounced as a monosyllable? STEEVENS.

How either is to be pronounced as a monosyllable, see p. 243; but this point is more fully discussed in the Essay on Shakspeare's Versification. MALONE.

what NIGHT-RULE] Night-rule in this place should VOL. V.

S

PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.
Near to her close and consecrated bower,
While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
A crew of patches2, rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.

3

The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort*,
Who Pyramus presented, in their sport

seem to mean, what frolick of the night, what revelry is going forward? So, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661:

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Marry, here is good rule!"

why how now strife! here is pretty rule!" It appears from the old song of Robin Goodfellow, in the third volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, that it was the office of this waggish spirit "to viewe [or superintend] the night-sports." STEEVENS.

2

-patches,] Patch was in old language used as a term of opprobry; perhaps with much the same import as we use raggamuffin, or tatterdemalion. JOHNSON.

Puck calls the players, "a crew of patches." A common opprobrious term, which probably took its rise from Patch, Cardinal Wolsey's fool. In the western counties, cross-patch is still used for perverse, ill-natur'd fool. T. WARTON.

The name was rather taken from the patch'd or pied coats worn by the fools or jesters of those times.

So, in The Tempest:

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what a pied ninny's this? Again, in Preston's Cambyses :

"

"Hob and Lob, ah ye country patches!" Again, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"It is simplicitie, that patch." STEEVENS.

I should suppose patch to be merely a corruption of the Italian pazzo, which signifies properly a fool. So, in The Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. V. Shylock says of Launcelot: The patch is kind enough ;-after having just called him, that fool of Hagar's off-spring. TYRWHITT.

3 thick-skin-] See Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV. Sc. V. STEEVENS.

4 - BARREN Sort,] Barren is dull, unpregnant.

Hamlet:

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some quantity of barren spectators," &c.

Sort is company. STEEVENS.

So, in