And foar with them above a common Bound.
Rom. I am too fore enpearced with his Shaft,
To foar with his light Feathers; and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull Woe.
Under Love's heavy burthen do I fink.

Mer. And to fink in it, should you burden Love,
Too great Oppression for a tender Thing!

Rom. Is Love a tender Thing! It is too rough,
Too rude, too boist'rous; and it pricks like Thorn.

Mer. If Love be rough with you, be rough with
Love;

Prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down.
Give me a cafe to put my visage in?

A Vifor for a Vifor!

[Putting on his Mafk.

what care I, What curious eye doth quote deformities? Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

Ben. Come, knock and enter; and no fooner in, But ev'ry man betake him to his legs.

Rom. A torch for me. Let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb'd with a granfire-phrase;
I'll be a candle-holder, and look on.

The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done.
Mer. (7) Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable's own

word;

If

(7) Tut! dun's the mouse, the conftable's own word;] This poor obfcure stuff should have an explanation in mere charity. It is an answer to these two lines of Romeo,

and

For I am proverb'd with a grandfire's phrase, The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done. Mercutio, in his reply, answers the last line first. The thought of which, and of the preceeding, is taken from gaming, I'll be a candle-kolder (fays Romeo) and look on. It is true, if I could play myself, I could never expect a fairer chance than in the company we are going to: but, alas! I am done. I have nothing to play with; Lhave loft my heart already. Mercutio catches at the word done, and quibbles with it, as if Romeo had faid, The ladies indeed are fair, but I am dun, i. e. of a dark complexion. And fo replies, Tut! dun's the mouse; a proverbial expression of the fame import with the French, La nuit tous les chats font gris. As much as to say, You need not fear, night will make all your complexions alike. And because Romeo had introduced his obfervation with, I am proverb'd with a grandfire's phrafe,

Mercutio adds to his reply, the conftable's azun word. As much as

to

If thou * art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire; (8) Or, save your reverence, Love, wherein thou stick

eft

Up to thine ears; come, we burn day-light, ho.
Rom. Nay, that's not so.

Mer. I mean, Sir, in delay

We waste our lights in vain, like lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment fits
Five times in that, ere once in our fine wits.

Rom. And we mean well in going to this mask;

But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer. Why, may one afk?

Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer. And fo did I.

Rom. Well what was yours?

Mer. That dreamers often lye.

Rom. -In bed afleep; while they do dream things

true.

Mer. (9) O, then I fee, Queen Mab hath been with

you.

She

to say, if you are for old proverbs, I'll fit you with one; 'tis the conftable's own word: whose custom was, when he fummoned his watch, and affigned them their several stations, to give them what the foldiers call, the word. But this night guard being diftinguished for their pacific character, the constable, as an emblem of their harmless disposition, chose that domestic animal for his word : which, in time, might become proverbial.

WARBURTON.

*Merc. If thou art Dun, que'll draw thee from the mire;] A proverbial saying used by Mr. Thomas Heywood, in his play, intitled, The Dutchess of Suffolk, act iii.

"A rope for Bishop Bonner, Clunce, run,

"Call help, a rope, or we are all undone.

"Draw Dun out of the ditch."

Dr. GRAY.

(8) Or, fave your reverence, Love,] The word or obfcures the sentence; we should read, O! for or Love. Mercutio having called the affection with which Romeo was entangled by so disrespectful a word as mire, cries out,

O! Save your reverence, Love.

(9) O, then I see, Queen Mab both been with you.

She is the FAIRIES' midwife,] Thus begins that admirable speech upon the effects of the imagination in dreams. But, Queen Mab the fairies' midwife? What is the then Queen of? Why, the fairies. What! and their midwife too? But this is not the greateft of the abfurdities. Let us see upon what occasion she is introShe is the Fancy's mid-wife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agat-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies, Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep : Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover of the wings of grashoppers; The traces of the smallest spider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watry beams. Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film; Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm, Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies coach-makers. And in this State she gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'fies strait; O'er lawyers fingers, who strait dream on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who strait on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweatmeats tainted are. (1) Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And

duced, and under what quality. It is as a Being that has great power over human imaginations. But then the title given her, must have reference to the employment she is put upon: First then, she is called Queen: which is very pertinent; for that defigns her power: Then she is call'd the fairies' midwife; but what has that to do with the point in hand? If we would think that Shakespear wrote sense, we must say, he wrote the FANCY'S midwife: and this is a proper title, as it introduces all that is faid afterwards of her vagaries. Besides, it exactly quadrates with these lines:

I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasie.

These dreams are begot upon fantafie, and Mab is the midwife to bring them forth. And fancy's midwife is a phrase altogether in the manner of our author. WARBURTON.

(1) Sometimes she gallops o'er a LAWYER'S nose,

And then dreams be of smelling out a fuit ;) The old editions have it, COURTIER's nose; and this undoubtedly is the true reading: and for these reasons. First, In the present reading their is

And then dreams he of finelling out a fuit;
And fometimes comes the with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lies afleep;
Then dreams he of another Benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,

Of

a vicious repetition in this fine speech; the fame thought having been given in the foregoing line,

O'er lawyers' fingers, who ftrait dream on fees :

Nor can it be objected that there will be the fame fault if we read tourtier's, it having been faid before,

On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtfies ftrait: because they reshewn in two places under different views: in the first, their foppery; in the second, their rapacity is ridiculed. Secondly, In our author's time, a court-folicitation was called simply, a fuit: and a process, a fuit at law, to diftinguish it from the other. The King (fays an anonymous contemporary writer of the life of Sir William Cecil) called bim [Sir William Cecil] and after long talk with him, being much delighted with bis answers, quilled bis Father to FIND [i. e. to smell out] A SUIT for bim. Where upon be became SUITER for the reverfion of the Custos brevium office in the Common Peas. Which the King willingly granted, it being the first SUIT be had in his life. Indeed our Poet has very rarely turned his fatire againit lazuyers and law proceedings; the common topic of later writers. For, to observe it to the honour of the English judicatures, they preferved the purity and fimplicity of their first institution, long after Chicane had over-run all the other laws of Europe. Philip de Commines gives us a very frank description of the horrid abuses that had infected the courts of justice in France, so early as the time of Lervis XI. Auffi defiroit fort qu'en ce Royaume on usast d'une coustume, d'un poix, d'une mesure: et que toutes ces coustumes fuffent mises en françoys, en un beau Livre, pour eviter la cautelle & la pillerie des advocats: qui est si grande en ce Royaume, que nulle autre n'est semblable, & les nobles d'ice-luy la doivent bien cournoiftre. At this time the administration of the law in England was conducted with great purity and integrity. The reafon of this difference I take to be, that, 'till of late, there were few gloffers or commentators on our laws, and those very able, honeft, and concife. While it was the fortune of the other municipal laws of Europe, where the Roman civil law had a fupplemental authority, to be, in imitation of that law, overloaded with gloffes and commentators. And what corruption this practice occafioned in the administration of the Roman law itself, and to what a miferable condition it reduced public justice, we may fee in a long and fine digreffion of the historian Ammianus Marcellinus; who has painted, in very lively colours, the different kinds of vermine, which infected their tribunals and courts of law: whereby the state of pub

lic justice became in a short time so desperately corrupt,

VOL. X.

B

that Juftinian

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, (2) Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes.;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
(3) And cakes the elf-locks in foul fluttish hairs,
Which, once entangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is the

Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace ;
Thou talk'ft of nothing.

Mer. True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing, but vain phantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more unconstant than the wind; who wooes Ev'n now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his face to the dew-dropping south. Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our

selves;

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind misgives,

Some confequence, yet hanging in the Stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels; and expire the term

Of a despised life clos'd in my breaft,

ftinian was obliged to new-model and digest the enormous body of their laws.

WARBURTON.

(2) Spanish blades,] A fword is called a Toledo, from the ex

cellence of the Toletan stect. So Grotius,

Enfis Toletanus

Unda Tagi non est uno celebranda metallo,

Utilis in cives est ibi lamna fuos.

(3) And cakes the elf-locks, &c.] This was a common superstition; and feems to have had its rife from the horrid disease called

the Plica Polonica.

WARBURTON.

By