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good master Cobweb: If I cut my finger, I fhall make bold with you.-Your name, honeft gentleman? 8

PEAS. Peas-bloffom.

Bor. I pray you, commend me to mistress Squash, your mother, and to master Peafcod, your father. Good master Peas-bloffom, I fhall defire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you, fir?

Mus. Muftard-feed.

Bor. Good mafter Mustard-feed, I know your

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he praid

"Him carneftly, with careful voice, of furthrance and of

aid."

Again, in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1621:

—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 fpeech but one-" I shall defire of you more acquaintance." But the old reading is undoubt edly the true one.

So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. II. c. ix:

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

8 good mafter Cobweb: If I cut my finger, I fhall make bold with you. Your name, honeft gentleman?] In The Mayde's Metamorphofis, a comedy by Lyly, there is a dialogue between fome foresters and a troop of fairies, very fimilar to the prefent:

"Mapfo. I pray, fir, what might I call you?

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1. Fai. My name is Penny.

Mop. I am forry I cannot purfe you.

Frifco. I pray you, fir, what might I call you?
2. Fai. My name is Cricket.

Frif. I would I were a chimney for your fake."

The Maid's Metamorphofis was not printed till 1600, but was probably written fome years before. Mr. Warton fays, (Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. II. p. 393-) that Lyly's laft play appeared in 1597. MALONE.

9-mistress Squash, your mother,] A fquafb is an immature peafcod. So, in Twelfth Night, Act I. fc. v:

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as a fquafb is, before 'tis a peafcod." STEEVENS.

patience well: that fame cowardly, giant-like, ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house: I promise you, your kindred hath made my eyes water ere now. I defire you more acquaintance, good mafter Mustard-feed.

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

The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye; And when the weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting fome enforced chastity.

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Tie up my love's tongue,' bring him filently.

[Exeunt.

patience-] The Oxford edition reads—I know your parentage well. I believe the correction is right. JOHNSON. Parentage was not eafily corrupted to patience. I fancy, the true word is, paffions, fufferings.

There is an ancient fatirical Poem entitled-"The Poor Man's Passions, [i. e. sufferings,] or Poverty's patience." Patience and Paffions are fo alike in found, that a careless transcriber or compofitor might eafily have substituted the former word for the latter. FARMER.

Thefe words are spoken ironically. According to the opinion prevailing in our author's time, muftard was fuppofed to excite to choler. See note on Taming of the Shrew, A&IV. fc. iii. REED. Perhaps we should read—“ I know you paffing well.”

M. MASON

3 my love's tongue,] The old copies read-" my lover's tongue." STEEVENS.

Our poet has again ufed lover as a monofyllable in Twelfth Night:

"Sad true lover never find my grave." MALONE.

In the paffage quoted from Twelfth Night, " true lover" is evidently a mistake for-" true-love," a phrafe which occurs in the very scene before us:

"And laid the love-juice on fome true love's fight."

Lover, in both the foregoing inftances, i muit therefore fuppofe 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 monofyllable? STEEVENS.

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 the muft dote on in extremity.

Enter PUCK.

Here comes my meffenger.-How now, mad spirit?
What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
PUCK. My miftrefs with a monster is in love.
Near to her clofe and confecrated bower,
While fhe was in her dull and fleeping hour,
A crew of patches,' rude mechanicals,
That work for bread upon Athenian falls,

4what night-rule-] Night-rule in this place fhould feem to mean, what frolick of the night, what revelry is going forward? So, in Tom Tyler and his Wife, 1661:

Again:

"Marry, here is good rule!"

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-why how now ftrife! here is pretty rule!"

It appears, from the old fong of Robin Goodfellow, in the third volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, that it was the office of this waggifh fpirit" to viewe [or fuperintend] the night-fports." STEEVENS.

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

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

The name was rather taken from the patch'd or pyed coats worn by the fools or jefters of thofe times.

Were met together to rehearse a play,
Intended for great Thefeus' nuptial day.
The shallowest thick-fkin of that barren fort,"
Who Pyramus prefented, in their sport
Forfook his fcene, and enter'd in a brake:
When I did him at this advantage take,
An afs's now I fixed on his head;"
Anon, his Thisbe must be answered,

And forth my mimick comes: When they him spy, As wild geefe that the creeping fowler eye,

So, in The Tempeft:

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what a py'd ninny's this?"

Again, in Prefton's Cambyfes:

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

"It is fimplicitie, that patch." STEEVENS.

I fhould fuppofe patch to be merely a corruption of the Italian pazzo, which fignifies properly a fool. So, in The Merchant of Venice, Act II. fc. v. Shylock fays of Launcelot: The patch is kind enough;-after having juft called him, that fool of Hagar's offSpring. TYRWHITT.

barren fort,] Barren is dull, unpregnant. So, in Hamlet: "fome quantity of barren fpectators," &c.

Sort is company. STEEVENS.

7 An afs's now I fixed on his head;] A head. Saxon.

So, Chaucer, in The Hiftory of Beryn, 1524:

JOHNSON.

"No fothly, quoth the fteward, it lieth all in thy noll, "Both wit and wyfdom," &c.

Again, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584:

"One thumps me on the neck, and another strikes me on the nole."

STEEVENS.

The following receipt for the procefs tried on Bottom, occurs in Albertus Magnus de Secretis: "Si vis quod caput hominis affimiletur capiti afini, fume de fegimine afelli, & unge hominem in capite, & fic apparebit." There was a tranflation of this book in Shakspeare's time. Douce.

8 — mimick-] Minnock is the reading of the old quarto, and I believe right. Minnekin, now minx, is a nice trifling girl. Minnock is apparently a word of contempt. JoHNSON.

Or ruffet-pated choughs," many in fort,
Rifing and cawing at the gun's report
Sever themselves, and madly fweep the sky;
So, at his fight, away his fellows fly:

And, at our stamp,' here o'er and o'er one falls;
He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.

The folio reads-mimmick; perhaps for mimick, a word more familiar than that exhibited by one of the quartos, for the other reads-minnick. STEEVENS.

Mimmick is the reading of the folio. The quarto printed by Fisher has-minnick; that by Roberts, minnock: both evidently corruptions. The line has been explained as if it related to Thibe; but it does not relate to her, but to Pyramus. Bottom had just been playing that part, and had retired into a brake; (according to Quince's direction: "When you have spoken your fpeech, enter into that brake.") "Anon his Thibe must be answered, And forth my mimick (ie. my actor) comes." In this there feems no difficulty.

Mimick is ufed as fynonymous to actor, by Decker, in his Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "Draw what troop you can from the stage after you; the mimicks are beholden to you for allowing them elbow room." Again, in his Satiromaftix, 1602: "Thou [B. Jonfon] haft forgot how thou ambled'ft in a leather pilch by a play-waggon in the highway, and took'ft mad Jeronymo's part, to get fervice amongst the mimicks." MALONE.

7--choughs,] The chough is a bird of the daw kind. It is mentioned also in Macbeth:

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By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks," &c. STEEVENS. -fort,] Company. So above:

and in Waller :

that barren fort;"

"A fort of lufty Shepherds frive." JOHNSON.

So, in Chapman's May-day, 1611:

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though we neuer lead any other company than a fort of quart-pots." STEEVENS.

And, at our ftamp,] This feems to be a vicious reading. Fairies are never reprefented ftamping, or of a fize that fhould give force to a ftamp, nor could they have diftinguished the ftamps of Puck from thofe of their own companions. I read :

"And at a stump here o'er and o'er one falls.” So Drayton :

"A pain he in his head-piece feels,

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Againft a ftubbed tree he reels,

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