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i. e. put an end to your labours: alluding to, what the Greeks called by one word, Brλuros, the time for unyoking. Hom. II. 6'. 779:

Ημι δ' έλι με ευείσσαλο βιλυόνδε.

Schol. ἐπὶ τὴν ἑσπέραν· δείλης, καθ ̓ ὃν καιρὸν οἱ βοὲς ἀπολυόναι τῶν ἔργων. From this one word Horace has made a whole ftanza. L. III. Od. 6.

"Sol ubi montium

"Mutaret umbras, et juga demeret
"Bobus fatigatis, amicum

"Tempus agens abeunte curru."

Hence too our Milton in his Mask.

"Two fuch I faw, what time the labour'd oxe "In his loofe traces from the furrow came."

Our English word Drphan comes from ePavos, ab depuis being as it were left in darknefs, left void of their greatest bleffing their parents, the light and guide of their steps. 'OgPavos is fpoken of one in the dark and obfcurity: ὀρφανὸς, ὁ ἄσημος καὶ μηκέτι ἐμφανής, fays an ancient grammarian on the Ajax of Sophocles. Now allowing Shakespeare to use the word orphan, as a Grecian would have used it, how elegantly does he call the fairies, the orphan heirs of

destiny:

destiny who administer in her works, acting in darkness and obscurity? The whole paffage runs thus: In the Merry Wives of Windsor, A& V.

"Fairies, black, gray, green and white; "You moon-fhine revellers, and shades of night, "You Orphan-beirs of fixed destiny, "Attend your office and your quality.”

Had the poet written ouphen-beirs, he would have repeated the fame thing. These ouphs I find in modern editions have routed the owls out of their old poffeffions: but I fhall beg leave to reinstate them again, in the Comedy of Errours, Act II.

"This is" the fairy land: oh fpight of spights! "Wetalk with goblins, owls and elvish sprights! "If we obey them not, this will enfue,

σε

They'll fuck our breath, and pinch us black " and blue."

These

12 Fairy land.] Plautus lays the scene at Epidamnum, a town of Macedon, lying upon the Adriatic; whose unfor tunate found made the Romans change it to Dyrrachium : the Roman comedian has some allufions and witticisms on the name. Shakespeare removes the scene to Ephesus ; which he calls the land of conjurors and witches. He had his eye chiefly on that paffage in Acts xix, 19. The cafe Y 2 feems

These owls which the Latins called ftriges, according to vulgar fuperftition had power to fuck children's breath and blood. Ovid. Faft. L. VI. 135.

"Nocte volant, puerofque petunt nutricis egentes, "Et vitiant cunis corpora rapta fuis. "Carpere dicuntur lactantia vifcera roftris, "Et plenum poto fanguine guttur habent.”

Plin.

feems to be this: there were at Ephesus several impostors and jugglers (conjurors the common people called them) who by the affiftance of charms, periapts, amulets, &c. certain magical words, or fuperftitious characters and figures, promised to cure people of their difeafes, or to give them fuccefs in any undertaking. Hefychius has preserved fome of this trumpery in V. Epíosa yeáupala; and of this kind we have still preferved to this day; fuch as Abracadabra, to cure agues: St. George, St. George, &c. to cure the incubus, or night-mare, mention'd by Scot in his discovery of witchcraft, Book IV. C. II. St. Withold, &c. in K. Lear, Act III. with many others eafily to be picked up.Now thefe, or the like, were the curious arts; [Ta wegiegła, an impertinent prying and inquifitiveness into things which. don't belong to us, and are above us: The false accufation laid againft Socrates was, or wiggyátila;] and 'twas nothing but a parcel of this trumpery of periapts, amulets and charms, together with fome aftrological books, that is mention'd to be burnt at Ephefus.-And they counted the price of them, and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of filver : not that the books, in which this ridiculous stuff was writ

ten,

Plin. XI, 39.

"Fabulofum puto de ftrigibus, ubera infan"tium eas labris immulgere."

NOR is Shakespeare's peculiarity in ufing words to be paffed over.

In Richard II. A&t IJ.

"Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs, "Dar'd once to touch a duft of England's "ground?"

i. e. interditted. As the pope's legate told K. John, "He [the pope] hath wholly interdicted

"and

ten, were really worth fo much, but the fuperftitious people of this and the neighbouring countries bought them up at a high price; and the conjurors had provided a great stock. This fhort account of these Ephefian Letters will give a new light not only to this place of the Acts, but will likewife explain a paffage in Ovid's Met. XIV. 57. where Circe is introduced muttering her unintelligible jargon, like those mystical words mention'd in Hefychius. Ovid calls them Verba nova.

-obfcurum VERBORUM ambage NOVOR UM

Ter novies carmen magico dimurmurat ore.

Which is expreffed moft elegantly, and agreeably to ancient fuperftition. So too Shakespeare in King Lear, A& II.

MUMBLING of wicked charms.

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"and curfed you, for the wrongs you have "done unto the holy church." Fox. Vol. I. p. 285.

So in Macbeth, A&t I.

"He fhall live a man forbid."

In Macbeth, A& III.

"And put a barren scepter in my gripe, "Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand.”

į. e. not of my line, or descent.

In Macbeth, A& V,

"For their dear caufes

"Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm "Excite the mortified man."

dear caufes, i. e. dreadful.

So

To this land of conjurors Shakespeare removes the scene, as I faid above, and calls it the Fairy land. This Fairy land ran in Dromio's head so much that Adriana afking him where his mafter is, he replies,

"A Devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
"A fiend, a Fairy, &c."

I find the editors have changed this Fairy into a Fury; notwithstanding Ephefus is here called a Fairy land: and befide Fairy fometimes anfwered to the latin Strix or tamia :

[Horman's

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