DEM. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot, Thou runn'st before me, shifting every place; And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face. Where art thou? PUCK. Come hither; I am here. DEM. Nay, then thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear, King Richard III.) a roaring devil enters, with the Vice on his back, Iniquity in one hand, and Juventus in the other, crying: Ho, ho, ho! these babes mine are all.” Again, in Gammer Gurton's Needle: "But Diccon, Diccon, did not the devil cry ho, ho, ho?” And, in the same play: "By the masse, ich saw him of late cal up a great blacke devill. O, the knave cryed ho, ho, he roared and he thundered." 66 So, in the Epitaph attributed to Shakspeare: 66 Hoh! quoth the devil, 'tis my John O'Coombe." Again, in Goulart's Histories, 1607: "The fellow . . . coming to the stove... sawe the Diuills in horrible formes, some sitting, some standing, others walking, some ramping against the walles, but al of them assoone as they beheld him ran unto him, crying Hoh, Hoh, what makest thou here?" Again, in the same book : "The black guests returned no answere, but roared and cryed eut, Hoh sirra let alone the child, or we will teare thee all to pieces." Indeed, from a passage in Wily Beguiled, 1606, (as quoted in the new edition of Dodsley's Old Plays,) I suspect that this same "knavish sprite was sometimes introduced on the stage as a demi-devil : I'll rather," it is one Robin Goodfellow who speaks, "put on my flashing red nose, and my flaming face, and come wrap'd in a calf's skin, and cry ho, ho." See also, Grim the Collier of Croydon. RITSON. The song above alluded to may be found in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. iii. p. 203. MALONE. 8 Where art thou?] For the sake of the measure, which is otherwise imperfect, I suppose we ought to read: Demetrius, conceiving Lysander to have still been shifting his ground, very naturally asks him where he is at that instant. STEEVENS. 9-buy this dear,] i. e. thou shalt dearly pay for this. Though this is sense, and may well enough stand, yet the poet perhaps If ever I thy face by day-light see: Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me [Lies down and sleeps. Enter HELENA. HEL. O weary night, O long and tedious night, Abate thy hours: shine, comforts, from the east; That I may back to Athens, by day-light, From these that my poor company detest :And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me a while from mine own company'. [Sleeps. PUCK. Yet but three? Come one more; Two of both kinds makes up four. Here she comes, curst and sad: Cupid is a knavish lad, Thus to make poor females mad. wrote-thou shalt 'by it dear. So, in another place-thou shalt aby it. So, Milton, "How dearly I abide that boast so vain." JOHNSON. Steal me a while from mine own company.] Thus also in an address to sleep, in Daniel's tragedy of Cleopatra, 1599: "That from ourselves so steal'st ourselves away." STEEVENS. Mr. Steevens is not quite accurate, when he says, that the address in Daniel's play is to sleep. The words are spoken by Cleopatra in the fifth Act, and are addressed to the aspick. After inveighing against death, that flies the poor distress'd, "Tortures our bodies, ere he takes our breath, "And loads with pains the already weak oppress'd, &c." She adds, "Therefore come thou of wonders wonder chief, "The dore of life, come, gentle cunning thief, Cleopatra, 1594. MALONE. Enter HERMIA. HER. Never so weary, never so in woe, Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers; I can no further crawl, no further go; My legs can keep no pace with my desires. Here will I rest me, till the break of day. Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray! PUCK. On the ground Sleep sound: I'll apply To your eye, Gentle lover, remedy. [Lies down. [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER's eye. When thou wak'st, Thou tak'st 2 True delight In the sight Of thy former lady's eye: And the country proverb known, That every man should take his own, 3 Jack shall have Jill 3; Nought shall go ill; The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well *. [Exit PUCK.-DEM. HEL. &c. sleep. 2 When thou wak'st, Thou tak st, &c.] The second line would be improved, I think, both in its measure and construction, if it were written thus : "True delight," &c. TYRWHItt. 3 Jack shall have Jill; &c.] These three last lines are to be found among Heywood's Epigrams on Three Hundred Proverbs. STEEVENS. 4 - all shall be WELL.] Well is so bad a rhyme to ill, that I cannot help supposing our author wrote-still, i. e. all this dis ACT IV. SCENE I. The Same. Enter TITANIA and BOTTOM, Fairies attending; OBERON behind unseen. TITA. Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed, And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, PEAS. Ready. Bor. Scratch my head, Peas-blossom.-Where's monsieur Cobweb? COB. Ready. cord shall subside in a calm, become hushed and quiet. So, in Othello: 66 Ha! no more moving? "Still as the grave." STEEVENS. s I see no reason why the fourth Act should begin here, when In the old quartos of there seems no interruption of the action. 1600, 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. 6-do coy,] To coy, is to sooth, to stroke. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584: "Plays with Amyntas' lusty boy, and coys him in the dales." Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, book vi, chap. xxx. : "And whilst she coys his sooty cheeks, or curls his sweaty top." Again, in Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lucan, b. ix. : 66 66 his sports to prove, Coying that powerful queen of love." Again, in Golding's translation of the 7th book of Ovid's Metamorphosis: ་་ Their dangling dewclaps with his hand he coid unfearfully." Again, ibid.: and with her hand had coid "The dragons' reined neckes —.” The behaviour of Titania, on this occasion, seems copied from that of the lady in Apuleius, lib. viii. STEEVENS. Bor. Monsieur Cobweb; good monsieur, get your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you overflown with a honeybag, signior.-Where's monsieur Mustard-seed? MUST. Ready. Bor. Give me your neif', monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave your courtesy, good monsieur. MUST. What's your will? 8 Bor. Nothing, good monsieur, but to help cavalero Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for, methinks, I am marvellous hairy about the face and I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch. TITA. What, wilt thou hear some musick, my sweet love? Bor. I have a reasonable good ear in musick : let us have the tongs and the bones. 9 TITA. Or, say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat. Bor. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks, I have a great desire to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow. 7 - neif,] i. e. fist. So, in King Henry IV. Act II. Sc. X.: "Sweet knight, I kiss thy neif." GREY. -cavalero Cobweb-] Without doubt it should be cavalero Peas-blossom; as for cavalero Cobweb, he had just been dispatched upon a perilous adventure. GREY. 9 the TONGS-] The old rustick musick of the tongs and key. The folio has this stage direction : "Musicke Tongs, Rurall Musicke." This rough musick is likewise mentioned by Marston, in an address ad rithmum prefixed to the second Book of his Satires, 1598 : "Yee wel-match'd twins (whose like-tun'd tongs affords |