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Shakspeare calls this play A Midsummer Night'sDream, when he so carefully informs us that it happened on the night preceding May day.

JOHNSON.

The title of this play seems no more intended, to denote the precise time of the action, than that of The Winter's Tale; which we find, was at the season of sheep shearing. FARMER.

The same phrase has been used in a former

scene:

,,To do observance to a morn of May."

I imagine that the title of this play was suggested by the time it was first introduced on the stage, which was probably at Midsummer. „A Dream for the entertainment of a Midsummernight." Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale had probably their titles from a similar circumstance. MALONE.

In Twelfth Night, Act III. sc. iv. Olivia ob serves of Malvolio's seeming frenzy, that it,,,is a very Midsummer madness." That time of the year we may therefore suppose was anciently thought productive of mental vagaries resembling the scheme of Shakspeare's Play. To this circumstance it might have owed its title. STEEVENS.

P. 148, 1. 4. Vaward is compounded of van and ward, the forepart. STEEVENS.

P. 148, 1. 12. Bearbaiting was once a diversion esteemed proper for royal personages, even of the softer sex. While the Princess Elizabeth remained at Hatfield house, under the custody of Sir Tho mas Pope, she was visited by Queen Mary. The next morning they were entertained with a grand exhibition of bearbaiting, with which their Highnesses were right well content. See life of

Sir Thomas Pope, cited by Warton in his History of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 391. STEEVENS.

In The Winter's Tale Antigonus is destroyed by a bear, who is chaced by hunters. MALONE. Holinshed, with whose histories our poet was well acquainted, says,,,the beare is a beast commonlie hunted in the East countrie." See Vol. I. p. 206; and in p. 226, he says,,,Alexander at vacant time hunted the tiger, the pard, the bore, and the beare." Pliny, Plutarch, etc. mention bear hunting. Turberville, in his Book of Hunting, has two chapters on hunting the bear. the persons mentioned by the poet are foreigners of the heroic strain, he might perhaps think it nobler sport for them to hunt the bear than the boar. Shakspeare must have read the Knight's Tale in Chaucer, wherein are mentioned Theseus's ,,white alandes, [grey-hounds,] to huntin at the lyon, or the wild bere." TOLLET.

As

P. 148, 1. 14. Chiding in this instance means only sound. STEEVENS.

P. 148, 1. 20. So flew'd,] Sir T. Hanmer justly remarks, that flews are the large chaps of a deepmouth'd hound. Arthur Golding uses this word in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis, finished 1567, a book with which Shakspeare appears to have been well acquainted. The poet is describing Actaeon'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 Cretan dog:

,, with other twaine, that had a syre of

Crete,

,,And dam of Sparta : tone of them called Jollyboy, a great

,,And large-flew'd hound."

And

Shakspeare mentions Cretan hounds (with Spartan) afterwards in this speech of Theseus. Ovid's translator, Golding, in the same description, has them both in one verse, ibid. p. 34. a. ,,This latter was a hounde of Crete, the other was of Spart."

T. WARTON.

P. 148, 1. 20. So sanded;] So marked with small spots. JOHNSON.

Sandy'd means of a sandy colour, which is one of the true denotements of a blood - hound. STEEVENS. P. 148, last 1. No doubt, they rose up early, to observe

The rite of May;]

The rite of this month was once so universally observed, that even authors thought their works would obtain a more favourable reception, if published on May day.

P. 149, 1. 9-11. — Saint Valentine is past; Begin these wood birds but to couple now?] Alluding to the old saying, that birds begin to couple on St. Valentine's day. STEEVENS.

P. 150, 1. 4. Fair Helena in fancy following me.] Fancy is here taken for love or affection, and is opposed to fury, as before:

,,Sighs and tears, poor Fancy's followers." Some now call that which a man takes particu lar delight in, his fancy. Flower-fancier, for a florist, and bird-fancier, for a lover and feeder of birds, are colloquial words. JOHNSON.

P. 150, last 1. And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine own, and not mine own.] Hermia had observed that things appeared double to her.

Helena replies, so methinks; and then subjoins, that Demetrius was like a jewel, her own and not her own. He is here, then, compared to something which had the property of appearing to be one thing when it was another. Not the property sure of a jewel: or, if you will, of none but a false one. We should read:

,,And I have found Demetrius like a gemell, ,,Mine own, and not mine own." From Gemellus, a twin. For Demetrius had that night acted two such different parts, that she could hardly think them both played by one and the same Demetrius; but that there were twin Demetriuses like the two Sosias in the farce. From Gemellus comes the French, Gemeau or Jumeau, and in the feminine, Gemelle or Jumelle: So, in Maçon's translation of The Decameron of Boc cace ,,Il avoit trois filles plus âgées que les masles, des quelles les deux qui estoient jumelles avoient quinze ans.“ Quatrieme Jour. Nov. 3.

WARBURTON. This emendation is ingenious enough to deserve to be true. JOHNSON.

Dr. Warburton has been accused of coining the word, gemell: but Drayton has it in the preface to his Baron's Wars,,,The quadrin doth never double; or to use a word of heraldric, never bringeth forth gemels." FARMER.

Again:

unless they had been all gemels or couplets." STEEVENS. Helena, I think, means to say, that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, she considered her property in him as insecure as that which a person has in a jewel that he has found by accident; which he knows not whether he shall retain, and

which therefore may properly enough be called his own and not his own. She does not say, 23 Dr. Warburton has represented, that Demetrius was like a jewel, but that she had found him, like a jewel, etc. MALONE. P. 151, 1. 23. A patch'd fool, is a fool in a particolour'd coat. JOHNSON.

P. 151, 1, 25. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; etc.] He is here blundering upon the scriptural passage of,,Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things," etc. 1. Cor. ii. 9. DOUCE.

P. 152, 1. 17. a thing of nought.] This Mr. Theobald changes with great pomp to a thing of naught; i, e. a good for nothing thing.

JOHNSON.

P. 152, 1. 22. if our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men.] In the same sense as in The Tempest, ,, any monster in England

makes a man.' 66

P. 152, 1. 28.

JOHNSON.

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six-pence a- -day, in Pyramus, or nothing.] Shakspeare has already ridiculed the title page of Cambyses by Thomas Preston; and here he seems to allude to him, or other person who, like him, had been pensioned for his dramatic abilities. Preston acted a part in John Ritwise's play of Dido before Queen Eliza. beth at Cambridge, in 1564; and the Queen was so well pleased, that she bestowed on him a pension of twenty pounds a year, which is little more than a shilling a day. STEEVENS.

P. 153, 1. 10. — good strings to your beards,] i. e. to prevent the false beards, which they were to wear, from falling off. MALONE.

As no false beard could be worn, without a

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