little noticed fact, and one which would serve as some defence of the poet for having introduced Theseus and Hippolyta, and Demetrius and the other Athenians into this fairy tale, that the fairies as they are depicted in this play are as well known in the Greek islands (or at least were so two hundred years ago *) as they are or ever were on the Great or Little Almas Cliff of Yorkshire, or on any hill-side or in any woody dell of Britain, if hill or dell there be where these innocent and amusing superstitions are still lingering. The modern Greeks have also their Puck or Robin Goodfellow, with attributes closely resembling those given to him in this play, and in the popular notions of former England. There are four old editions of this play; namely the two folios, and two quartos both printed in the same year, 1600. The text differs in all the four. The received text is an eclectic text made up from the four, with the addition of several conjectural emendations of the middle-period editors and commentators, some of which appear too probable and too valuable to be rejected, even by the most superstitious adherent to the original text. See the treatise of Leo Allatius, De Græcorum hodie quorundam opinationibus, 8vo. 1645: a treatise full of the most curious information respecting the popular superstitions of the Greek islands, which will be found to correspond in a most remarkable manner with those of the west of Europe, and especially with those of England. Their fairies, whom they call the kaλai apxovriσai, the fair ladies, scarcely differ at all from ours: and between their witches and ours there is as close a resemblance. This treatise is never quoted by Brand; nor can I find that it was known to any of the inquirers into the antiquities of the common people of England till I called attention to it in a paper read before the Bath Royal Institution in 1831. The same close resemblance is found in many minor observances and superstitions; and this in two islands so remote as Scyo and Britain : Under the Levant and the Ponent winds. This is a fact of prime importance, as will be found whenever a philosophical investigation of the origin of these imaginations shall be undertaken. I. i. THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Long withering out a young man's revenue. And then the moon, like to a silver bow NEW bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities. The word new is an editorial substitution for the now of all the original editions. This is one of those cases which are trying to the taste and judgment of an editor who has to decide between the wholesome principle of adhering to the old copies, where it can be done without manifest absurdity, and the giving a reading in which it cannot be denied that something is gained both in sense and melody, while the change is also of such a nature that it may reasonably be supposed the text of the author had suffered in the hands of the printer. However graceful as the opening of this play, and however pleasing these lines may be, they exhibit proof that Shakespeare, like Homer, may sometimes slumber: for, as the old moon had still four nights to run, it is quite clear that at the time Hippolyta speaks of there would be no moon, either full-orbed or "like to a silver bow" to beam on their solemnities, or to make up for the deficient properties of those who were to represent Pyramus and Thisbe, by moonlight, at the tomb of Ninus. I. 1. EGEUs. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With FEIGNING voice, verses of FEIGNING love. The old copies have faining in both places. This is a very injudicious departure from the original text: fain and feign are two quite distinct words. I. 1. THESEUS. Thrice blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage: But EARTHLIER HAPPY is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn, This is the reading of all the old copies. It is perhaps one of Shakespeare's "unfiled expressions," one which he would have a little polished, had he ever "blotted a line," and yet the words after all convey their meaning with sufficient clearness. The virgin is thrice blessed, as respects the heaven for which she prepares herself; but, looking only to the present world, the other is the happier lot. A recent editor has adopted Capell's suggestion, and has printed earthly happier. The objections to this are, (1) that it is against authority; (2) that nothing is gained by it; (3) that if there is any difference in the meaning it is a deterioration, not an improvement; and (4) that it spoils the melody. I. 1. LYSANDER. AH ME! for aught that ever I could read, The course of true love never did run smooth. There is a reading in this passage, presented by the second folio, which has not I think received the slightest notice from any of the editors, and yet it appears to me to have a point and pathos even beyond what the passage, as usually printed, possesses. HERMIA! for aught that ever I could read, &c. A skilful actor might give great effect to the name; and we ought always to remember, what Shakespeare never for got, that he was writing for spokesmen, not in the first instance for students in their closets. I. 1. LYSANder. Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That in a SPLEEN unfolds both heaven and earth, The word spleen is laid under suspicion by Warburton, and is not justified by the later commentators. Nares says, "We do not find it so used by other writers." This is a mistake and it will be seen that a happier choice could not have been made than the poet has made of this word. : Like winter fires that with disdainful heat The opposition of the cold defeat; And in an angry spleen do burn more fair The more encountered by the frosty air. Verses by Poole, before his England's Parnassus. 8vo. 1657. So in Lithgow's Nineteen Years' Travels, 4to. 1632, p. 61, "All things below and above being cunningly perfected, and every one ranked in order with his harquebuse and pike, to stand in the centinel of his own defence, we recommend ourselves in the hands of the Almighty, and in the meanwhile attended their fiery salutations. In a furious spleen, the first holla of their courtesies, was the progress of a martial conflict, thundering forth a terrible noise of gally-roaring pieces," &c. See further uses of the word in Grim the Collier of Croydon, Act iii. Sc. 1.; and in Wither's Abuses Stript and Whipt, p. 32; and by Shakespeare himself, King John, ii. 2, and v. 7. II. 1. OBERON. And make him with fair ÆGLE break his faith. The old copies read Eagles. In fact Shakespeare wrote Egles, as he found it in North's Plutarch :-" and they blame him much also for that he so lightly forsook his wife Ariadne for the love of Ægles, the daughter of Panopeus." Fol. 1603, p. 15. II. 1. HELena. Your virtue is my privilege for that. It is not night, when I do see your face, I cannot pass over this, which is one among the innumerable deteriorations of the old text in the Variorum; and which more recent editors, who have proposed to reconsider the text, and to give it in its virgin purity, have not corrected. The old copies give with one consent―— Your virtue is my privilege: for that It is not night when I do see, &c. A reading infinitely superior to that which is palmed upon us. We now approach a passage on which perhaps more has been written than on any single passage in any part of these writings: II. 2. OBERON.-My gentle Puck, come hither: thou remember'st Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song ; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, OBERON.-That very time I saw, (but thou could'st not,) Flying between the cold moon and the earth, At a fair vestal throned by the west; And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft |