that our poet had the following beautiful passage in his thoughts:-"There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble valleys, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers: meadows, enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade were witnessed so too by the cheerful disposition of many welltuned birds: each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs with bleating oratory craved the dam's comfort: here a shepherd's boy piping, as though he should never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to works, and her hands kept time to her voice-music."

SCENE II." Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain," &c.

In Churchyard's 'Charitie,' a poem published in 1595, the "distemperature" of that year is thus described :

"A colder time in world was never seen:

The skies do lower, the sun and moon wax dim;

Summer scarce known but that the leaves are green.

The winter's waste drives water o'er the brim;
Upon the land great floats of wood may swim.

Nature thinks scorn to do her duty right,

Because we have displeas'd the Lord of Light."

This " progeny of evils" has been recorded by the theologians as well as the poets. In Strype's Annals' we have an extract from a lecture preached by Dr. J. King, at York, in which are enumerated the signs of Divine wrath with which England was visited in 1593 and 1594. The lecturer says-" Remember that the spring" (that year when the plague broke out) “was very unkind, by means of the abundance of rains that fell. Our July hath been like to a February; our June even as an April: so that the air must needs be infected." Then, having spoken of three successive years of scarcity, he adds,-" And see, whether the Lord doth not threaten us much more, by sending such unseasonable weather and storms of rain among us: which if we will observe, and compare it with that which is past, we may say that the course of nature is very much inverted. Our years are turned upside down. Our summers are no summers: our harvests are no harvests: our seed-times are no seed-times. For a great space of time, scant any day hath been seen that it hath not rained upon us." And, more naturally than poet or theologian, does the astrologer leave us his testimony to the ungenial character of this particular Dr. Simon Forman, in his MS. in the Ashmolean Museum (quoted by Mr. Halliwell in his 'Introduction to A Midsummer-Night's Dream'), says, in 1594, "This monethes of June and July were very wet and wonderfull cold like winter."

season.

• SCENE II." The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud.”

Upon the green turf of their spacious commons the shepherds and ploughmen of England were wont to cut a rude series of squares, and other right lines, upon which they arranged eighteen stones, divided between two players, who moved them alternately, as at chess or draughts, till the game was finished by one of the players having all his pieces taken or impounded. This was the nine men's morris. It is affirmed that the game was brought hither by the Norman conquerors, under the name of merelles; and that this name, which signifies counters, was subsequently corrupted into morals and morris. In a wet season the lines upon which the nine men moved were "filled up with mud ;" and "the quaint mazes," which the more active of the youths and maidens in propitious seasons trod "in the wanton green," were obliterated.

7 SCENE II." My gentle Puck, come hither: Thou remember`st," &c. There can be no doubt that the "fair vestal" of this exquisite description was Queen Elizabeth. Those who desire to know how Warburton attempted to prove that the "mermaid, on a dolphin's back," was Mary Queen of Scots, and how Ritson demolished the theory in his usual cutting and slashing style, may consult the variorum editions.

8 SCENE III." You spotted snakes," &c.

Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess' has passages which strongly remind us of the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.' But they are such as a man of high genius would naturally produce with a beautiful model before him. Take the Song of the River God as an example :

:

"Do not fear to put thy feet

Naked in the river, sweet;

Think not leech, or newt, or toad

Will bite thy foot, when thou hast trod."

ACT III.

SCENE I-The Wood. The Queen of Fairies lying asleep.

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVE

Bot. Are we all met?

LING.

Quin. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal: This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tyring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will do it before the duke.

Bot. Peter Quince,

Quin. What say'st thou, Bully Bottom?

Bot. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby' that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Snout. By'rlakin,a a parlous fear.

Star. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bot. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue: and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords; and that Pyramus is not killed indeed: and, for the more better assurance, tell them, that I Pyramus am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver: This will put them out of fear.

Quin. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.

Bot. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

Star. I fear it, I promise you.

e Eight and six-alternate verses of eight and six syllables.

Bot. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in, God shield us! a lion among ladies, is a most dreadful thing: for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion, living; and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore, another prologue must tell he is not a lion. Bot. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect,-Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or I would request you, or I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble: : my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: No, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are: and there, indeed, let him name his name; and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.*

Quin. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber: for you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.

Snug. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play? Bot. A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac ; find out moonshine," find out moonshine.

Quin. Yes, it doth shine that night.

Bot. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber-window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the casement.

Quin. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say, he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. Snug. You can never bring in a wall.-What say you, Bottom?

Bot. Some man or other must present wall: and let him have some plaster, or some lome, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall; or let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.

Quin. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every one according to his cue.

Enter PUCK behind.

Puck. What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, So near the cradle of the fairy queen ?

What, a play toward? I'll be an auditor;
An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.

Quin. Speak, Pyramus :-Thisby, stand forth.

Pyr. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet.

Quin. Odours, odours.

Pyr.

odours savours sweet:

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
But, hark, a voice! stay thou but here a while,
And by and by I will to thee appear.

[Exit.

[Aside.-Exit.

Puck. A stranger Pyramus than e'er play'd here!

This. Must I speak now?

Quin. Ay, marry, must you: for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

This. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily white of hue,

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,

Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,

I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.

Quin. Ninus' tomb, man: Why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus: you speak all your part at once, cues and all.-Pyramus, enter; your cue is past; it is, never tire.

Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOмM with an ass's head.

This. O,-As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire.
Pyr. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine :-

Quin. O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.

Pray, masters! fly, masters! help!

[Exeunt Clowns.

Puck. I'll follow you, I'll lead you about a round,

Through bog, through bush, through brake, through

brier;

Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,

A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;

Quince's description of Bottom going "to see a noise" is akin to Sir Toby Belch's notion of "to hear by the nose." (Twelfth Night,' Act II., Scene 3.)

VOL. II.

E