My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, HER. I frown upon him, yet he loves me ftill. HEL. O, that your frowns would teach my fmiles fuch fkill! HER. I give him curfes, yet he gives me love. HEL. O, that my prayers could fuch affection move! 8 HER. The more I hate, the more he follows me, HEL. The more I love, the more he hateth me. HER. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine. HEL. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine!? Oxford edition, The old reading is Your words I catch. JOHNSON. STEEVENS. Mr. Malone reads "Your words I'd catch." The emendation [I'd catch] was made by the editor of the fecond folio. Sir T. Hanmer reads "Yours would I catch;" in which he has been followed by the fubfequent editors. As the old reading (words) is intelligible, I have adhered to the ancient copies. MALONE. I have deferted the old copies, only because I am unable to dis-, cover how Helena, by catching the words of Hermia, could also catch her favour, i. e. her beauty. STEEVENS. to be to you tranflated.] To tranflate, in our author, fometimes fignifies to change, to transform. So, in Timon to prefent flaves and fervants 66 Tranflates his rivals.". STEEVENS. 8 His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.] The folio, and the quarto printed by Roberts, read. His folly, Helena, is none of mine. JOHNSON. 9 None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine!] I would point this line thus: "Noue. -But your beauty; VOL. VII. Would that fault were mine!" HENDERSON, C HER. Take comfort; he no more fhall fee my face; 2 Lyfander and myself will fly this place. O then, what graces in my love do dwell, Lys. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: To-morrow night when Phoebe doth behold Her filver vifage in the wat'ry glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grafs, (A time that lovers' flights doth ftill conceal,) Through Athen's gates have we devis'd to fteal. HER. And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrofe-beds 3 were wont to lie, Emptying our bofoms of their counfel fweet; There my Lyfander and myfelf fhall meet: 2 Take confort; he no more shall fee my face; Lyfander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lyfander fee,] Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these liues. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to confider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much defired, fince Hermia, whom fhe confiders as poffeffing it in the fupreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the lofs of happiness. JOHNSON. faint primrofe-beds - Whether the epithet faint has reference to the colour or smell of primroses, let the reader determine. 3 STEEVENS. Emptying our bofoms of their counsel fweet;] That is, emptying our bofoms of thofe fecrets upon which we were wont to confult each other with fo fweet a fatisfaction. HEATH. Emptying our befoms of their counsel swell'd; And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, To feek new friends, and strange companions.] This whole scene is strictly in rhyme; and that it deviates in these two couplets, I am perfuaded, is owing to the ignorance of the firft, and the inaccuracy of the later editors. I have therefore ventured to restore And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, the rhimes, as I make no doubt but the poet first gave them. Sweet was easily corrupted into fwell'd, because that made an antithesis to emptying and range companions our editors thought was plain English; but franger companies, a little quaint and unintelligible. Our author very often ufes the fubftantive, Aranger adjectively and companies to fignify companions as in Richard II. Ad I: To tread the ranger paths of banishment." And in Henry V: His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow." THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton retains the old reading, and perhaps juftifiably; for a bofom fwell'd with fecrets does not appear as an expreffion unlikely to have been used by our author, who speaks of a stuff'di. bofom in Macbeth. In Lyly's Midas, 1592. is a fomewhat fimilar expreffion: "I am one of thofe whole tongues are fwell'd with filence." Again,, in our author's K. Richard II: ،، แ the unfeen grief "That fwells in filence in the tortur'd foul." Of counfels fwell'd" may mean — fwell'd with counfels. Of and with, in other ancient writers have the fame fignification.. See alfo, Macbeth แ Note on Of Kernes and Gallow-glaffes was supplied." i. e. with them. In the scenes of K. Richard II. there is likewife a mixture of rhime and blank verfe. Mr. Tyrwhitt, however, concurs with Theobald. Though I have thus far defended the old reading, in deference to the opinion of other criticks I have given Theobald's conjec tures a place in the text. STEEVENS. I think, Sweet, the reading propofed by Theobald, is right. The latter of Mr. Theobald's emendations is likewise supported by Stowe's Annales, p. 991. edit. 1615: "The prince himself was faine to get upon the high altar, to girt his aforefaid companies with the order of knighthood." Mr. Heath obferves, that our author feems to have had the following paffage in the 55th Pfalm, (v. 14, 15,) in his thoughts: "But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend. We took Sweet counsel together, and walked in the houfe of God as friends." MALONE. Keep word, Lyfander: we must ftarve our fight [Exit LYS. HEL. How happy fome, o'er other fome, can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as fhe. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not fo; He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermin's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. រ Things base and vile, holding no quantity, when Phabe doth behold, &c. deep midnight.] Shakspeare has a little forgotten himself. It appears from p. 5. that to-morrow night would be within three nights of the new moon, when there is no moonshine at all, much lefs at deep midnight. The fame overfight occurs in A& III. fc. i. BLACKSTONE. holding no quantity,] Quality feems a word more fuitable to the sense than quantity, but either may ferve. JOHNSON. Quantity is our author's word. So, in Hamlet, A& III. fc. ii : "And women's fear and love hold quantity." STEEVENS. in game-] Game here fignifies not contentious play, but Sport, jeft. So Spenfer : 6 'twixt earnest, and 'twixt game." JOHNSON. Hermia's eyne,] This plural is common both in Chaucer And when this hail fome heat from Hermia felt, If I have thanks, it is a dear expence: SCENE II. The fame. A Room in a Cottage. Enter SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, QUINCE, and STARVELING. 3 QUIN. Is all our company here? and Spenfer. So, in Chaucer's Charader of the Prioreffe, Tyrwhitt's “While flashing beams do dare his feeble eyen.” this hail STEEVENS. Thus all the editions, except the quarto, 1600, printed by Roberts, which reads inftead of this hail, his hail. 9 STEEVENS. it is a dear expence :] i. e. it will cost him much, (be a severe conftraint on his feelings,) to make even fo flight a return for my communication. STEEVENS. In this fcene Shakspeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre, to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he firft fteps upon the flage. The fame Bottom, who feems bred in a tiring-room, has another hiftrionical paffion. He is for engroffing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all pofibility of diftin&ion. He is therefore defirous to play Pyramus, Thibe, and the Lion, at the fame time. JOHNSON, |