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+ You orphan-heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office, and your quality.— Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy o-yes.

Eva. Elves, lift your names; filence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windfor chimneys fhalt thou leap: Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept, There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry.

Our radiant queen hates fluts, and fluttery.

Fal. They're fairies; he, that speaks to them, fhall die:

I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye. [Lies down upon his face. Eva. Where's Pede?-Go you, and where you find a maid,

That, ere fhe fleep, hath thrice her prayers faid,

+ You ORPHAN-heirs of fixed deftiny,] But why orphan-heirs? Destiny, whom they fucceeded, was yet in being. Doubtlefs the poet wrote,

You OUPHEN heirs of fixed deftiny,

i. e. you elves, who minifter, and fucceed in fome of the works of destiny. They are called, in this play, both before and afterwards, ouphes; here ouphen; en being the plural termination of Saxon nouns. For the word is from the Saxon Alpenne, lamiæ, dæmones. Or it may be understood to be an adjective, as wooden, woollen, golden, &c. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton corrects orphan to ouphen; and not without plaufibility, as the word ouphes occurs both before and afterward. But, I fancy, in acquiefcence to the vulgar doctrine, the address in this line is to a part of the troop, as mortals by birth, but adopted by the fairies: orphans in refpect of their real parents, and now only dependent on defling herfelf. A few lines from Spenfer will fufficiently illuftrate this passage :

"The man whom heavens have ordaynd to bee
"The fpoufe of Britomart is Arthegall.

"He wonneth in the land of Fayeree,

"Yet is no Fary borne, ne fib at all,

"To elfes, but fprong of feed terrestriall,
"And whilome by falfe Faries ftolen away,

"Whiles yet in infant cradle he did crall, &c."

Edit. 1590. B. 3. St. 26.
FARMER.

Rein

5 Rein up the organs of her fantasy;

Sleep the as found as careless infancy:

But thofe, as fleep, and think not on their fins, Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, fhoulders, fides, and fhins.

Quic. About, about;

Search Windfor castle, elves, within and out.
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every facred room;
That it may ftand 'till the perpetual doom,
6 In ftate as wholfome, as in ftate 'tis fit;

Worthy

S RAISE up the organs of her fantafy ;] The fenfe of this fpeech is that the, who had performed her religious duties, fhould be fecure against the illufion of fancy; and have her fleep, like that of infancy, undisturbed by difordered dreams. This was then the popular opinion, that evil spirits had a power over the fancy; and, by that means, could inspire wicked dreams into those who, on their going to fleep, had not recommended themselves to the protection of heaven. So Shakefpeare makes one, on his lying down, fay,

From fairies, and the tempters of the night,

Protect us heaven!

As this is the fenfe, let us fee how the common reading expreffes it;

Raife up the organs of her fantafy;

i. e. inflame her imagination with fentual ideas; which is just the contrary to what the poet would have the speaker say. Ws cannot therefore but conclude he wrote,

REIN up the organs of her fantafy;

i. e. curb them, that the be no more disturbed by irregular imaginations, than children in their fleep. For, he adds immediately,

Sleep fhe as found as careless infancy.

So in The Tempeft:

"Give not dalliance too much the REIN."

And in Measure for Meafure:

"I give my fenfual race the REIN."

To give the rein, being juft the contrary to rein up. The fame thought he has again in Macbeth:

66

Merciful powers!

"Reftrain in me the curfed thoughts that nature

"Gives way to in repofe." WARBURTON.

In ftate as wholfome,] The Oxford editor, not knowing the meaning of wholjome, has altered it to,

In fite as wholjom,

and

7 Worthy the owner, as the owner it.
The feveral chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm, and every precious flower:
Each fair inftalment coat, and several creft,
With loyal blazon, evermore be bleft!
And nightly, meadow-fairies, look, you fing,
Like to the garter-compafs, in a ring:
The expreffure that it bears, green let it be,
More fertile-fresh than all the field to fee;
And, Hony Soit Qui Mal y Penfe, write,

• In emerald-tufts, flowers purple, blue, and white; and fo has made the wish a most abfurd one. For the fite or fituation muft needs be what it is, till the general deftruction. But wholfom here fignifies integer. He wishes the caftle may ftand in its prefent state of perfection, which the following words plainly fhew,

as in ftate 'tis fit. WARBURTON.

7 Worthy the owner, AND the owner it.] And cannot be the true reading. The context will not allow it; and his court to queen Elizabeth directs us to another,

AS the owner it.

For, fure he had more addrefs than to content himself with wishing a thing to be, which his complaifance must suppose actually was, namely, the worth of the owner.

WARB.

In emerald-tufts, flowers PURPLE, blue, and white;

Like faphire, pearl, AND rich embroidery,] Thefe lines are moft miferably corrupted. In the words-Flowers purple, blue, and white-the purple is left uncompared. To remedy this, the editors, who feem to have been fenfible of the imperfection of the comparison, read, AND rich embroidery; that is, according to them, as the blue and white flowers are compared to faphire and pearl, the purple is compared to rich embroidery. Thus inftead of mending one falfe ftep they have made two, by bringing faphire, pearl, and rich embroidery under one predicament. The lines were wrote thus by the poet :

In emrald-tuffs, flowers PURPLED, blue, and white;
Like faphire, pearl, IN rich embroidery,

i. e. let there be blue and white flowers worked on the greenfword, like faphire and pearl in rich embroidery. To purfie, is to over-lay with tinfel, gold thread, &c. fo our ancestors called a certain lace of this kind of work a purfling-lace. "Tis from the French pourfiler. So Spenfer :

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she was yclad,

"All in a filken camus, lilly-white,

"PURFLED upon, with many a folded plight."

The

Like faphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knight-hood's bending knee;
Fairies use flowers for their 9 charactery.
Away; difperfe: but, 'till 'tis one o'clock,
Our dance of cuftom round about the oak
Of Herne, the hunter, let us not forget.

}

Eva. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in
order fet:

And twenty glow-worms fhall our lanthorns be,
To guide our measure round about the tree.
But, ftay; I fmell a man of middle earth.

Fal. Heavens defend me from that Welch fairy, left he transform me to a piece of cheese !

Eva. Vile worm, thou waft o'er-look'd even in thy birth.

2

Quic. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;
If he be chafte, the flame will back descend,
And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

Eva. A trial, come..

[They burn him with their tapers, and pinch him.

Come, will this wood take fire.

Fal. Oh, oh, oh!

Quic. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in defire !-

The change of and into in, in the fecond verfe, is neceffary. For flowers worked, or purfled in the grafs, were not like faphire and pearl fimply, but faphire and pearl in embroidery. How the corrupt reading and was introduced into the text, we have fhewn above. WARBURTON.

9

chara&tery.] For the matter with which they make letters. JOHNSON.

I

of middle earth.] Spirits are fuppofed to inhabit the ethereal regions, and fairies to dwell under ground, men therefore are in a middle ftation. JOHNSON.

2 With trial-fire, &c.] So Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Faithful Shepherdess:

"In this flame his finger thruft,

"Which will burn him if he luft;

"But if not, away will turn,

As loth unfpotted flesh to burn." STEEVENS.

About

About him, fairies; fing a fcornful rhime:

And, as you trip, ftill pinch him to your time.
Eva. 3 It is right, indeed, he is full of leacheries
and iniquity.

The SON G.

Fie on finful phantafy!
Fie on luft and luxury!
4 Luft is but a bloody fire,
Kindled with unchafte defire,

Fed in heart; whofe flames afpire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villainy :

Pinch him, and burn him, and turn him about,
'Till candles, and ftar-light, and moon-fhine be out.

5 During this fong, they pinch him. Doctor Caius comes
one way, and steals away a fairy in green; Slender
another way, and he takes away a fairy in white; and
Fenton comes, and fteals away Mrs. Anne Page. A
noife of bunting is made within. All the fairies run
away. Falstaff pulls off his buck's head, and rifes.

3 Eva. It is right, indeed,-] This fhort fpeech, which is very much in character for Sir Hugh, I have inferted from the old quartos. THEOBALD.

+ Luft is but a bloody fire,] So the old copies. I once thought it fhould be read,

Luft is but a cloudy fire,

but Sir T. Hanmer reads with lefs violence,

Luft is but i' the blood a fire. JOHNSON.

Either emendation is unneceflary. A bloody fire, means a fire in the blood. In The Second Part of Hen. IV, A&t 4. the fame expreffion occurs :

"Led on by bloody youth," &c.

i. e. fanguine youth. STEEVENS.

5 During this fong,-] This direction I thought proper to infert from the old quartos. THEOBALD.

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YOL. I,

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