"

moonshine at all, much less at deep midnight. The same oversight occurs in Act III. sc. i.

BLACKSTONE, P. 101, 1. 31. Quality seems a word more suit. able to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. JOHNSON.

Quantity is our author's word. So, in Hamlet, Act III. sc. ii..

,,And women's fear and love hold quantity.“ STEVENS. P. 102, 1. 4. Game here signifies not contentious play, but sport, jest. So Spenser:

-'twixt earnest and 'twixt game."

P. 102, 1. 6.

JOHNSON. eyne,] This plural is common both in Chaucer and Spenser. STEEVENS.

P. 102, 1. 13. it is a dear expence:] i. e. it will cost him much, (be a severe constraint on his feelings,) to make even so slight a return for my communication. STEEVENS.

P. 102, l. 16. In this scene 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 first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisbe, and the Lion, at the same time. JOHNSON.

P. 102, 1. 32. A scrip, Fr. escript, now written ecrit. STEEVENS.

P. 102,

P. 102, 1..29. and so grow to a point] Dr. Warburton reads go on; but grow is used, in allusion to his name, Quince. JOHNSON.

To grow to a point, I believe, has no reference to the name of Quince. I meet with the same kind of expression in Wily Beguiled:

As yet we are grown to no conclusion."

STEEVENS.

The sense, in my opinion, hath been hitherto mistaken; and instead of a point, a substantive, I would read appoint a verb, that is, appoint what part each actor is to perform, which is the real Quince first tells them the name of the play,' then calls the actors by their names, and after that, tells each of them what part is set down for him to act.

- case.

Perhaps, however, only the particle a may be inserted by the printer, and Shakspeare wrote to point i, e. to appoint. WARNER.

P. 102, 1. 30. The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.] This is very probably a burlesque on the title page of Cambyses,,A lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of pleasant Mirth, containing, The Life of Ganbises King of Percia, 66 etc. By Thomas Preston, bl. I. no date.

On the registers of the Stationer's company, however, appears the boke of Perymus and Thesbye," 1562. Perhaps Shakspeare copied some part of his interlude from it. STEEVENS.

P. 103, first 1. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. This is designed as a ridicule on the titles of our ancient moralities and interludes. Thus Skelton's Magnificence is called a goodly, interlude and a merry.“

STEEVENS.

16

P. 103, 1. 3.

spread yourselves.] i. e. stand separately, not, in a group, but so that you may be distinctly seen, and called over. STEEVENS. P. 103, 1. 16. I will condole in some measure.] When we use this verb at present, we put with before the person for whose misfortune we profess concern. Anciently it seems to have been em ployed without it. STEEVENS.

P. 103, 1. 19. or a part to tear a cat in,] In the old comedy of The Roaring Girl, 1611, there is a character called Tear-cat, who says:,,I am called, by those who have seen my valour, Tearcat." In an anonymous piece called Histriomastix, or The Player Whipt,' 1610, in six acts, a parcel of soldiers drag a company of players on the stage, and the captain says: ,,Sirrah, this is you that would rend and tear a cat upon a stage," etc. STEEVENS.

P. 103, L 19. to make all split.] This is to be connected with the previous part of the speech; not with the subsequent rhymes. It was the description of a bully. In the second act of The Scornful Lady, we meet with two roaring boys of Rome, that made all split." FARMER. P. 103, 1. 21. With shivering shocks,] The old copy reads ,,And shivering," etc. The emendation is Dr. Farmer's. STEEVENS.

P. 103, 1.31. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.} In Ben Jonson's Masque of Pan's Anniversary, ctc. a man of the, same profession is introduced. I have been told that a bellows mender was one who had the care of organs, regals, etc. STEEVENS,

P. 104, 1. 2—4. Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; etc.] This passage shows how the want of women on the old stage was supplied. If they had not a young man who could perform

the part with a face that might pass for feminiue, the character was acted in a mask, which was at that time a part of a lady's dress so much in use that it did not give any unusual appearance to the scene: and he that could modulate his voice in a female tone, might play the woman very successfully. It is observed in Downes's Roscius Anglicanus, that Kynaston, one of these counterfeit heroines moved the passions more strongly than the women that have since been brought upon the stage. Some of the catastrophes of the old comedies, which make lovers marry the wrong women, are, by recollection of the common use of masks, brought nearer to probability. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson here seems to have quoted from memory. Downes does not speak of Kynaston's performance in such unqualified terms. His words. are - ,,it has since been disputable among the judicious, whether any woman that succeeded him, (Kynaston,) so sensibly touched the audience as he." REED.

Prynne, in his Histriomastix, exclaims with great vehemence through several pages, because a woman acted a part in a play at Blackfryars in the year 1628. STEEVENS.

P. 104, 1. 15- you must play Thisby's mother. There seems a double forgetfulness of our poet, in relation to the characters of this interlude. The father and mother of Thisby, and the father of Pyramus, are here mentioned, who do not appear at all in the interlude; but Wall and Moonshine are both employed in it, of whom there is not the least notice taken here.

THEOBALD.

Theobald is wrong as to this last particular.

The introduction of Wall and Moonshine was an

after-thought. See Act III. sc. i. It may be observed, however, that no part of what is re hearsed is afterwards repeated, when the piece is acted before Theseus. STEEVENS.

P. 104, 1. 22. Study is still the cant term used in a theatre for getting any nonsense by rote. Hamlet asks the player if he can study" a speech. STEEVENS

P. 105, I. 3. An means as if. and Cressida:

So, in Troilus

,,He will weep you, an 'were

a man born in April." STEEVENS.

P. 105, 1. 12-16. Here Bottom again discovers a true genius for the stage. by his solicitude for propriety of dress, and his deliberation which beard to choose among many beards, all unnatural. JOHNSON.

This custom of wearing coloured beards, the rcader will find more amply explained in Measure for Measure, Act IV. sc. ii.

P. 105, 1. 16. 17. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. That is, a head from which the hair has fallen in one of the last stages of the lues vene rea, called the conora veneris. To this our poet has too frequent allusions.. STEEVENS.

P. 105, 1. 25. Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their respective parts, dresses and scenes excepted. The person who delivers them out is to this day called the property-man. STEEVENS.

P. 105, last 1. Hold, or cut bow-strings.] This proverbial phrase came qriginally from the camp. When a rendezvous was appointed, the militia soldiers would frequently make excuse for not keeping word, that their bowstrings were broke,