9

In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies

sonating the drowsy midwife, who was insensibly carried away into some distant water, and substituting a new birth in the bed or cradle. It would clear the appellation to read the fairy midwife. The poet avails himself of Mab's appropriate province, by giving her this nocturnal agency. T. WARTON.

pro

9 On the fore-finger of an alderman,] The quarto, 1597, reads of a burgo-master. The alteration was probably made by the poet himself, as we find it in the succeeding copy, 1599: but in order to familiarize the idea, he has diminished its pro priety. In the pictures of burgo-masters, the ring is generally placed on the fore-finger; and from a passage in The First Part of Henry IV. we may suppose the citizens, in Shakspeare's time, to have worn this ornament on the thumb. So again, Glapthorne, in his comedy of Wit in a Constable, 1639: " -and an alderman, as I may say to you, he has no more wit than the rest o'the bench; and that lies in his thumb-ring." STEEVENS. of little atomies-] Atomy is no more than an obsalete substitute for atom.

So, in The Two Merry Milkmaids, 1620:

<< I can tear thee

"As small as atomies, and throw thee off
"Like dust before the wind."

Again, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613:

"I'll tear thy limbs into more atomies

"Than in the summer play before the sun."

In Drayton's Nimphidia there is likewise a description of Queen Mab's chariot:

"Four nimble gnats the horses were,
"Their harnesses of gossamere,

"Fly cranion, her charioteer,

"Upon the coach-box getting:

"Her chariot of a snail's fine shell,
"Which for the colours did excell,
"The fair Queen Mab becoming well,
"So lively was the limning:
"The seat, the soft wool of the bee,
"The cover (gallantly to see)
"The wing of a py'd butterflee,

"I trow, 'twas simple trimming:

A

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep

Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
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
Prick'd 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'sies

straight:

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweet-meats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:

2

"The wheels compos'd of cricket's bones,

"And daintily made for the nonce,

"For fear of rattling on the stones,

"With thistle-down they shod it." STEEVENS. Drayton's Nimphidia was written several years after this tragedy. See Vol. V. p. 348, n. 7. MALONE.

*with sweet-meats] i. e. kissing-comfits. These artificial aids to perfume the breath, are mentioned by Falstaff, in the last Act of The Merry Wives of Windsor. MALONE. 3 Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit: &c.] Mr. Pope reads-lawyer's nose. STEEVENS.

The old editions have it-courtier's nose; and this undoubtedly is the true reading; and for these reasons: First, In the

And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,

new reading there is a vicious repetition in this fine speech; the same thought having been given in the foregoing line;

"O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:"" Nor can it be objected that there will be the same fault if we read courtiers', it having been said before:

"On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight:" Because they are shown 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-solicitation was called simply, a suit, and a process, a suit at law, to distinguish it from the other. "The King (says an anonymous contemporary writer of the Life of Sir William Cecil)" called him Sir William Cecil] and after long talk with him, being much delighted with his ith his answers, willed his father to FIND [i. e. to smell out] A SUIT for him. Whereupon he became sUITOR for the reversion of the Custos-brevium office in the Common Pleas which the king willingly granted, it being the first SUIT he had in his life." Indeed our poet has very rarely turned his satire against lawyers and law proceedings, the common topick of later writers: for, to observe it to the honour of the English judicatures, they preserved the purity and simplicity of their first institution, long after chicane had over-run all the other laws of Europe. WARburton.

As almost every book of that age furnishes proofs of what Dr. Warburton has observed, I shall add but one other instance, from Decker's Guls Hornebooke, 1609: "If you be a courtier, discourse of the obtaining of suits." MALONE.

In these lines Dr. Warburton has very justly restored the old reading, courtier's nose, and has explained the passage with his usual learning; but I do not think he is so happy in his endeavour to justify Shakspeare from the charge of a vicious repetition in introducing the courtier twice. The second folio, I observe, reads:

"On countries knees,-."

which has led me to conjecture, that the line ought to be read thus:

"On counties knees, that dream on court'sies straight:" Counties I understand to signify noblemen in general. Paris, who, in one place, I think, is called earl, is most commonly styled the county in this play.

And so in Much Ado about Nothing, Act IV. we find: "Princes and counties."

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

And in All's well that ends well, Act III:

"A ring the county wears."

The Countie Egmond is so called more than once in Holinshed, p. 1150, and in the Burleigh papers, Vol. I. p. 204. See also p. 7: The Countie Palatine Lowys. However, perhaps, it is as probable that the repetition of the courtier, which offends us in this passage, may be owing (not to any error of the press, but) to the players having jumbled together the varieties of several editions, as they certainly have done in other parts of the play. TYRWHITT.

In the present instance, I think, it is more probable that the repetition arose from the cause assigned by Mr. Steevens.

MALONE

At the first entry of the characters in the history of Orlando Furioso, played before Queen Elizabeth, and published in 1594 and 1599, Sacripant is called the Countie Sacripant. Again, Orlando, speaking of himself:

"Surnam❜d Orlando, the Countie Palatine."

Countie is at least repeated twenty times in the same play. This speech, at different times, received much alteration and improvement. The part of it in question stands thus in the quarto 1597:

"And in this sort she gallops up and down

"Through lovers braines, and then they dream of love:
"O'er courtiers knees, who strait on cursies dreame:
"O'er ladies lips, who dream on kisses strait;
"Which oft the angrie Mab with blisters plagues,
"Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
"Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's lap,
"And then dreames he of smelling out a suit:
"And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pigs taile,
Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleepe,
"And then dreames he of another benefice.
"Sometimes she gallops o'er a souldier's nose,
"And then dreames he of cutting forraine throats,
"Of breaches, ambuscadoes, countermines,

"Of healths five fadome deepe," &c.

Shakspeare, as I have observed before, did not always attend to the propriety of his own alterations. STEEVENS.

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,*
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear; 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;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,"

4

Spanish blades,] A sword is called a toledo, from the excellence of the Toletan steel. So Grotius:

Gladius Toletanus..

"Unda Tagi non est uno celebranda metallo;
"Utilis in cives est ibi lamna suos.'
39

JOHNSON.

The quarto 1597, instead of Spanish blades, reads countermines. STEEVENS.

In the passage quoted from Grotius, alio has been constantly printed instead of uno, which makes it nonsense; the whole point of the couplet depending on that word. I have corrected it from the original. MALONE,

5

Of healths five fathom deep;] So, in Westward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "troth, sir, my master and sir Goslin are guzzling; they are dabbling together fathom deep. The knight has drunk so much health to the gentleman yonder, on his knees, that he hath almost lost the use of his legs.'

MALONE.

• And bakes the elf-locks &c.] This was a common superstition; and seems to have had its rise from the horrid disease called the Plica Polonica. WARBURTON.

So, in Heywood's Iron Age, 1632:

"And when I shook these locks, now knotted all,

"As bak'd in blood,-." MALONE.

7-when maids &c.] So, in Drayton's Nimphidia: "And Mab, his merry queen, by night

"Bestrides young folks that lie upright,

(In elder times the mare that hight)

"Which plagues them out of measure."

So, in Gervase of Tilbury, Dec. I. c. 17: "Vidimus quosdam dæmones tanto zelo mulieres amare, quod ad inaudita prorumpunt ludibria, et cum ad concubitum earum accedunt, mira mole eas opprimunt, nec ab aliis videntur." STEEVENS.