of it if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I will condole in some measure. To the rest-yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks, "And shivering shocks, "And Phibbus' car This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players.— This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flu. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You must take Thisby on you. Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Flu. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman: I have a beard coming. Quin. That's all one. You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too. I'll speak in a monstrous little voice :-"Thisne, Thisne —Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!" Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus, and, Flute, you Thisby. Bot. Well, proceed. Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. Star. Here, Peter Quince. The foolish fates.] These lines are printed as prose in all the old copies. Very possibly they are some quotation, as Bottom would hardly be made extemporize to the extent of eight lines. VOL. II. D d Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father. -Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part;-and, I hope, here is a play fitted 5. Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Bot. Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me: I will roar, that I will make the duke say, "Let him roar again: let him roar again." Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. All. That would hang us, every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us, but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove: I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale ". Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day, a most lovely, gentlemanlike man; therefore, you must needs play Pyramus. Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in? Quin. Why, what you will. Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at HERE is a play fitted.] The folio reads, there. I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.] The folio omits "you," all, and then you will play bare-faced.-But masters, here are your parts; and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moon-light: there will we rehearse; for if we meet in the city, we shall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely, and courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough, hold, or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt. 7 ACT II. SCENE I. A Wood near Athens. Enter a Fairy and PUCK from opposite sides. Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you? Thorough bush, thorough brier, we may rehearse MORE obscenely.] Fisher's 4to. only has most: probably an error. shold, or cut bow-strings.] This seems intended as a strong assurance of a determination to keep the appointment: the origin of the phrase is uncertain. 9 - from opposite sides.] The old stage-direction partakes of the simplicity of our early theatres. The scene is obviously laid in a wood, but the representatives of the Fairy and Puck are said to enter at different "doors," the wood being, probably, supposed. In the old stage-direction, and in the prefixes to the speeches, Puck is called Robin-goodfellow, until after the entrance of Oberon. Robin-goodfellow was his popular name: See "The Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of Robin Good-fellow," recently reprinted by the Percy Society, from a unique copy of 1628, in the library of Lord Francis Egerton. The Introduction to the reprint contains a copy of a unique ballad founded upon the same tract. Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire, In those freckles live their savours: Puck. The king doth keep his revels here to-night. Because that she, as her attendant, hath But she, perforce, withholds the loved boy, 1 Swifter than the moon's sphere.] Coleridge, in his lectures in 1818, was very emphatic in his praises of the beauty of these lines: "the measure," he said, "had been invented and employed by Shakespeare, for the sake of its appropriateness to the rapid and airy motion of the Fairy by whom the passage is delivered." In his " Literary Remains," II. 112, he dwells upon the subject with more particularity, and dissects the lines according to the Greek measures, observing upon "the delightful effect on the ear in the sweet transition," from the eight amphimacers of the first four lines to the trochees of the concluding verses. It has been usual to print "moon's " as two syllables, "moones;" as if it were to be pronounced like "whales," p. 362; but it is not so given in any of the old copies, and all that seems required for the measure is to dwell a little longer than usual upon the monosyllable "moon's." 2 Farewell, thou LOB of spirits:] The Fairy, by the word lob, reproaches Puck with heaviness, compared with his own lightness. 3 spangled starlight SHEEN,] "Sheen " is bright, shining. But they do square1; that all their elves, for fear, Fai. Either I mistake your shape and making quite, Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite, Call'd Robin Good-fellow. Are you not he, That frights the maidens of the villagery; 5 Skims milk, and sometimes labours in the quern", Puck. Thou speak'st aright; I am that merry wanderer of the night. 4 But they do sQUARE] i. e. quarrel. See note 9, p. 190. 5 That FRIGHTS the maidens -] So the 4tos. and folio properly; and it is clear that the verbs "skims," "labours," "makes," &c., though not so printed, should be in the singular also. 6 - in the QUERN,] i. e. In the mill, from kuerna, Islandic. the drink to bear no barm ;] i. e. Not to work: "barm" is yeast. 8 And "TAILOR" cries,] "The custom," observes Johnson, " of crying tailor at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board." 9 And WAXEN in their mirth,] Dr. Farmer's conjecture, that "waxen is a misprint for yexen, i. e. hiccup, deserves consideration. However, it may be doubted, as Johnson suggests, whether "waxen" is not to be taken merely as the |