which Oberon boasts he partook with the morn ing's love. HOLT WHITE,

P. 141, 1, 7 10. What the fairy Monarch means to inform Puck of, is this.

not compelled,

That, he was.

like meaner spirits, to vanish at the first appearance of the dawn. STEEVENS.

P. 142. 1. 22. Ho, ho! ko, ho!] This exclama tion would have been utter'd by Puck with greater propriety, if he were not now playing an assumed character, which he, in the present in stance, seems to forget. MALONE.

P. 142, 1. 29. Thou shalt buy this dear, i. e. thou shalt dearly pay for this. Though this is sense, and may well enough stand, yet the poet perhaps wrote thou shalt by it another place, thou shalt aby it. ,,How dearly I abide that boast so

dear.

So,

So, in
Milton,

vain."

True delight, etc.] The second

line would be improved, I think, both in its measure and construction, if it were written thus: When thou wak'st,

P. 144, L 15. I see no reason why the fourth act should begin here, when there seems no interruption of the action. In the old quartos of 1609, there is no division of acts, which seems to have been afterwards arbitrarily made in the first folio, and may therefore be altered at pleasure.

JOHNSON. P. 144, 1. 19. To coy is to sooth, to stroke. STEEVENS.

P. 145, 1. 9. — neif,] i, e. fist.

P. 145, 1. 15. — but to help cavalero Cobweb to scratch.] Without doubt it should be Cavalero Peas blossom, as for cavalero Cobweb, he had just been dispatched upon a perilous adventure.

P. 145, 1. 20.

GREY.

let us have the tongs and the bones.] The old rustic

musick of the tongs and key. STEEVENS. P. 145, last but one 1 Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.] i. e.

J

disperse yourselves, and scout out severally, in your watch, that danger approach us from no quarter. THEOBALD.

P. 145, last 1. and P. 146, 1. 1. 2.

So doth the woodbine, the sweet honey.

suckle,

Gently entwist, the female ivý so Enrings the barky fingers of the clm.] What does the woodbine cutwist? The honey suckle. But the woodbine and honeysuckle were, till now, but two names for one and the same plant. Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, interprets Madre Setva by woodbine or honie - suckle. We must therefore find a support for the woodbine as well as for the ivy. Which is done by reading

the lines thus:

So doth the woodbine, the sweet honey suckle,

„Gentle entwist the maple; toy so

Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.« The corruption might happen by the first blun derer dropping the pin writing the word maple, which word thence became male. A following transcriber, for the sake of a litile sense and measure, thought fit to change this male into female; and then tacked it as an epither to iʊy. WARBURTON,

Mr. Upton reads:

,,So doth the woodrine the sweet honey!

ཀྭ ?

suckle,"

for bark of the wood. Shakspeare perhaps only meant, so the leaves involve the flower, using woodbine for the plant, and honeysuckle for the flower; or perhaps Shakspeare made a blunder.

JOHNSON.

The thought is Chaucer's. See his Troilus and Cresseide, v. 1256.

What Shakspeare seems to mean, is this So the woodbine, i. e. the sweet honey-suckle, doth gently entwist the barky fingers of the elm, and so does the female ivý enring the same fingers. It is not unfrequent in the poets, as well as other writers; to explain one word by another which is better known. The reason why Shakspeare thought woodbine wanted illustration,

perhaps is this. In some counties, by woodbine of woodbind would have been generally understood the ivy, which he had occasion to mention in the very next line. In the following instance: from Old Fortunatus, 1600, woodbind is used for ivy:

,,And, as the running woddbind, spread her

And Barrett in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, enforces the same distinction that Shakspeare thought it necessary to make :

,,Woodbin that beareth the honey - suckle.“

STEEVENS.

This passage has given rise to various conjec tures. It is certain, that the woodbine and the honeysuckle were sometimes considered as diffe

rent plants. In one of Taylor's poems, We

have

,,The woodbine, primrose, and the cowslip fine,

3

,,The honisuckle, and the daffadill."

But I think Mr. Steevens's interpretation the true one. The old writers did not always carry the auxiliary verb forward, as Mr. Capell seems to suppose by his alteration of enrings to enring. So Bishop Lowth, in his excellent Introduction to Grammar, p. 126, has without reason corrected a similar passage in our translation of St. Matthew. FARMER.

Were any change necessary, I should not scruple to read the weedbind, i. e. smilax: a plant that twists round every other that grows in its way. STEEVENS.

In Lord Bacon's Nat. Hist. Experiment 496, it is observed that there are two kinds of honey suckles, both the woodbine, and the trefoil." i. e. the first is a plant that winds about trees, and the other is a three-leaved grass. Perhaps these. are meant in Dr. Farmer's quotation. The distinction, however, may serve to shew why Shakspeare and other authors frequently added woodbine, to honeysuckle, when they mean the plant and not the grass. TOLLET.

The interpretation of either Dr. Johnson or Mr. Steevens removes all difficulty.

If Dr. Johnson's explanation be right, there should be no point after woodbine, honey suckle, or enrings. MALONE.

P. 146, first 1. Shakspeare calls it female ivy, because it always requires some support, which is poetically called its husband.

STEEVENS.

Though

Though the ivy here represents the female, there is, notwithstanding, an evident reference in the words enrings and fingers, to the ring of the marriage rite. HENLEY.

In our ancient marriage ceremony, (or rather, perhaps, contract,) the woman gave the man a ring, as well as received one from him.

STEEVENS.

P. 146, 1. 16. The eye of a flower is the technical term for its center. STEEVENS.

P. 147, first 1. Dian's bud, is the bud of the Agnus Castus, or Chaste Tree. Cupid's flower, is the Viola tricolor, or Love in Idleness.

STEEVENS.

P. 147, 1. 25. And bless it to all fair posterity:] We should read:

,, to all far posterity."

i. e. to the remotest posterity.

WARBURTON.

Fair posterity is the right reading.

In the concluding song, where Oberon blesses the nuptial bed, part of his benediction is, that the posterity of Theseus shall be fair.

M. MASON.

P. 147, 1. 28. Sad signifies only grave, sober; and is opposed to their dances and revels, which were now ended at the singing of the morning lark. So, in The Winter's Tale, Act IV: „My father and the gentlemen are in sad talk." For grave or serious. WARBURTON.

A statute 3 Henry VII. c. xiv. directs certain offences committed in the King's palace, to be tried by twelve sad men of the King's houshold.

BLACKSTONE. P. 148, 1. 3. For now our observation is perform'd:] The honours due to the morning of May. I know not why VOL. III.

19