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Now thou and I are new in amity;

And will, to-morrow midnight, folemnly,
Dance in duke Thefeus' houfe triumphantly,
And blefs it to all fair pofterity:

There fhall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Thefeus, all in jollity.

Puck. Fairy king, attend, and mark;
I do hear the morning lark.

OBE. Then, my queen, in filence fad,
Trip we after the night's fhade: "

8 Dance in duke Thefeus' boufe triumphantly,
And blefs it to all fair pofterity:] We should read:
to all far pofterity."

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i. e. to the remoteft pofterity. WARBURTON. Fair pofterity is the right reading.

In the concluding fong, where Oberon bleffes the nuptial bed, part of his benediction is, that the pofterity of Thefeus fhall be

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Defpifed in nativity,

"Shall upon their children be." M. MASON.

to all fair profperity:] I have preferred this, which is the reading of the firft and beft quarto, printed by Fisher, to that of the other quarto and the folio, (pofterity,) induced by the following lines in a former fcene:

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your warrior love

"To Thefeus muft be wedded, and you come

"To give their bed joy and prosperity." MALONE.

9 Then, my queen, in filence fad,

Trip we after the night's fhade:] Sad fignifies only grave, fober; and is oppofed to their dances and revels, which were now ended at the finging of the morning lark. So, in The Winter's Tale, A& IV: "My father and the gentlemen are in fad talk." For grave or ferious. WARBURTON.

A ftatute 3 Henry VII. c. xiv. directs certain offences committed in the king's palace, to be tried by twelve fad men of the king's houfhold. BLACKSTONE.

We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.

TITA. Come, my lord; and in our flight,
Tell me how it came this night,

That I fleeping here was found,

With these mortals, on the ground. [Exeunt. [Horns found within.

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train.

THE. Go, one of you, find out the forefter ;For now our obfervation is perform'd: 3 And fince we have the vaward of the day,+ My love shall hear the mufick of my hounds.

3 our obfervation is perform'd:] The honours due to the morning of May. I know not why Shakspeare calls this play A Midfummer Night's-Dream, when he fo carefully informs us that it happened on the night preceding May day. JOHNSON.

The title of this play feems no more intended, to denote the precife time of the action, than that of The Winter's Tale; which we find, was at the feafon of fheep-fhearing. FARMER.

The fame phrafe has been used in a former scene:

"To do obfervance to a morn of May."

I imagine that the title of this play was fuggefted by the time it was first introduced on the ftage, which was probably at Midsum"A Dream for the entertainment of a Midfummer-night." Twelfth Night and The Winter's Tale had probably their titles from a fimilar circumftance. MALONE.

iner.

In Twelfth Night, A& III. fc. iv. Olivia obferves of Malvolio's feeming frenzy, that it " is a very Midfummer madnefs." That time of the year we may therefore fuppofe was anciently thought productive of mental vagaries refembling the fcheme of Shakspeare's Play. To this circumstance it might have owed its title.

STEEVENS.

4 the vaward of the day,] Vaward is compounded of van and ward, the forepart. In Knolles's Hiftory of the Turks, the word vayvod is ufed in the fame fenfe. Edinburgh Magazine, for Nov. 1786. STEEVENS,

Uncouple in the western valley; go:-
Defpatch, I fay, and find the forefter.-
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the mufical confufion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIP. I was with Hercules, and Cadmus, once, When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear' With hounds of Sparta: never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, befides the

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groves,

they bay'd the bear. -] Thus all the old copies. And thus in Chaucer's Knightes Tale, v. 2020. Tyrwhitt's edit:

"The hunte yftrangled with the wild beres."

Bearbaiting was likewife once a diverfion efteemed proper for royal perfonages, even of the fofter fex. While the princess Elizabeth remained at Hatfield House, under the cuftody of Sir Thomas Pope, she was vifited by queen Mary. The next morning they were entertained with a grand exhibition of bearbaiting, with which their bighneffes 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. See also our poet's Venus and Adonis :

For now the hears it is no gentle chase,

"But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud."

MALONE.

Holinfhed, with whofe hiftories our poet was well acquainted, fays" the beare is a beast commonlie hunted in the Eaft countrie." See Vol. I. p. 206; and in p. 226, he fays, "Alexander at vacant time hunted the tiger, the pard, the bore, and the beare." Pliny, Plutarch, &c. mention bear-hunting. Turberville, in his Book of Hunting, has two chapters on hunting the bear. As the perfons mentioned by the poet are foreigners of the heroic ftrain, he might perhaps think it nobler fport for them to hunt the bear than the boar. Shakspeare muft have read the Knight's Tale in Chaucer, wherein are mentioned Thefeus's "white alandes [grey-hounds] to huntin at the lyon, or the wild bere." TOLLET.

6-fuch gallant chiding;] Chiding in this inftance means only found. So, in K. Henry VIII:

"As doth a rock against the chiding flood."

The skies, the fountains,' every region near
Seem'd all one mutual cry: I never heard
So mufical a difcord, fuch fweet thunder.

THE. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,

So flew'd, fo fanded; 3 and their heads are hung

Again, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1608: I take great pride

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"To hear foft musick, and thy fhrill voice chide." Again, in the 22d chapter of Drayton's Polyolbion:

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drums and trumpets chide."

STEEVENS.

The skies, the fountains,] Inftead of fountains, Mr. Heath would read-mountains. The change had been proposed to Mr. Theobald, who has well fupported the old reading, by obferving that Virgil and other poets have made rivers, lakes, &c. refponfive to found: "Tum vero exoritur clamor, ripæque lacusque

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Refponfant circa, et cœlum tonat omne tumultu."

MALONE.

& Seem'd all one mutual cry:] The old copies concur in reading -feem; but, as Hippolyta is fpeaking of time paft, I have adopted Mr. Rowe's correction. STEEVENS.

9 My bounds are bred, &c.] This paffage has been imitated by Lee in his Theodofius:

"Then through the woods we chac'd the foaming boar, "With hounds that open'd like Theffalian bulls;

"Like tygers flew'd, and fanded as the shore,

"With ears and chests that dash'd the morning dew."

MALONE.

So flew'd,] Sir T. Hanmer juftly remarks, that flews are the large chaps of a deep-mouth'd hound. Arthur Golding uses this word in his tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis, finished 1567, a book with which Shakspeare appears to have been well acquainted. The poet is defcribing Acteon'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:

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- with other twaine, that had a fyre of Crete,

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

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Shakspeare mentions Cretan hounds (with Spartan) afterwards in this fpeech of Thefeus. And Ovid's tranflator, Golding, in

With ears that fweep away the morning dew; '
Crook-knee'd, and dew-lap'd like Theffalian bulls;
Slow in purfuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
Each under each. A cry more tuneable

Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Theffaly:

Judge, when you hear.-But, foft; what nymphs are these?

EGE. My lord, this is my daughter here afleep; And this, Lyfander; this Demetrius is; This Helena, old Nedar's Helena :

I wonder of their being here together.

THE. No doubt, they rofe up early, to obferve The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,

the fame defcription, has them both in one verfe, ibid. p. 34. a. "This latter was a hounde of Crete, the other was of Spart." T. WARTON. JOHNSON.

2 So fanded;] So marked with small fpots. Sandy'd means of a fandy colour, which is notements of a blood-hound. STEEVENS.

one of the true de

3 With ears that fweep away the morning dew ;] So, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

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the fierce Theffalian hounds,

"With their flag ears, ready to fweep the dew
"From their moift breafts." STEEVENS.

4 I wonder of -] The modern editors read-I wonder at, &c. But changes of this kind ought, I conceive, to be made with great caution; for the writings of our author's contemporaries furnish us with abundant proofs that many modes of fpeech, which now feem harsh to our ears, were juftified by the phrafeology of former times. In All's well that ends well, we have:

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thou diflik'ft

Of virtue, for the name." MALONE.

they rofe up early, to obferve

The rite of May;] The rite of this month was once fo univerfally obferved, that even authors thought their works would obtain a more favourable reception, if published on May-Day. The fol lowing is a title-page to a metrical performance by a once celebrated poet, Thomas Churchyard.

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