Of this (save reverence) love, wherein thou stick'st Up to the ears.-Come, we burn day-light 11, ho. Rom. Nay, that's not so.

Mer. I mean, sir, in delay We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. Take our good meaning; for our judgment sits Five times in that, ere once in our five wits 12.

Rom. And we mean well, in going to this mask; But 'tis no wit to go.

Mer.
Why, may one ask?
Rom. I dreamt a dream to-night.

Mer.

Rom. Well, what was yours?

Mer.

And so did I.

That dreamers often lie.

Rom. In bed, asleep, while they do dream things

true.

employed with no other intent than that of quibbling on the word done. Why it is attributed to a constable we know not. It occurs in the comedy of Patient Grissel, 1603. So in The Two Merry Milkmaids, 1620 :—'Why then, 'tis done, and dun's the mouse, and undone all the courtiers.' To draw dun out of the mire was a rural pastime, in which dun meant a dun horse, supposed to be stuck in the mire, and sometimes represented by one of the persons who played, at others by a log of wood. Mr. Gifford has described the game, at which he remembers often to have played, in a note to Ben Jonson's Masque of Christmas, vol. vii. p. 282 :—' A log of wood is brought into the midst of the room; this is dun (the cart horse), and a cry is raised that he is stuck in the mire. Two of the company advance, either with or without ropes, to draw him out. repeated attempts, they find themselves unable to do it, and call for more assistance. The game continues till all the company take part in it, when dun is extricated of course; and the merriment arises from the awkward and affected efforts of the rustics to lift the log, and sundry arch contrivances to let the ends of it fall on one another's toes.'

After

11 This proverbial phrase, which was applied to superfluous actions in general, occurs again in The Merry Wives of WindSee vol. i. p. 208.

sor.

12 The quarto of 1597 reads, Three times a day;' and right wits instead of five wits.

Mer. O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife 13 13; and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman 14,
Drawn with a team of little atomies 15
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 watery beams:
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film :
Her waggoner, a small gray-coated gnat 16,
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 lawyer's fingers, who straight dream on fees:

13 The fairies' midwife does not mean the midwife to the fairies, but that she was the person among the fairies whose department it was to deliver the fancies of sleeping men of their dreams, those children of an idle brain. When we say the king's judges, we do not mean persons who judge the king, but persons appointed by him to judge his subjects.-Steevens. Warburton, with some plausibility, reads, 'the fancy's midwife.'

14 The quarto of 1597 has, of a burgomaster.' The citizens of Shakspeare's time appear to have worn this ornament on the thumb. So Glapthorne in his comedy of Wit in a Constable :'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.' Shakspeare compares his fairy to the figure carved on the agate-stone of a thumb ring. See vol. iii. p. 366, note 7; and vol. v. p. 176, note 29.

15 Atomies for atoms.

16 There is a similar fanciful description of Queen Mab's chariot in Drayton's Nymphidia, which was written several years after this tragedy.

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 17.

18

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit 19:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
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,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades 20,
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 21 in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,

·

17 This probably alludes to the kissing comfits' mentioned by Falstaff in the last act of the Merry Wives of Windsor.

18 This speech received much alteration after the first edition in the quarto of 1597: and Shakspeare has inadvertently introduced the courtier twice. Mr. Tyrwhitt finding countries knees' in the first instance printed in the second folio, would read counties' (i. e. noblemen's) knees. Steevens remarks that the whole speech bears a resemblance to a passage of Claudian In Sextum Consulatum Honorii Augusti Præfatio.

19 A place in court.

20 The quarto of 1597 reads, counter mines.' Spanish blades were held in high esteem. A sword was called a Toledo, from the excellence of the Toletan steel.

21 i. e. fairy locks, locks of hair clotted and tangled in the night. It was a common superstition; and Warburton conjectures that it had its rise from the horrid disease called Plica polonica.

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;
Which is as thin of substance as the air;
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even 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 consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire 23 the term
Of a despised life, clos'd in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death:
But He, that hath the steerage of my course,
Direct my sail!-On, lusty gentlemen.
Ben. Strike, drum 24.

22 So in Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 2:

[Exeunt.

let them be men of great repute and carriage.

'Moth. Sampson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great carriage; for he carried the town-gates.'

23 So in The Rape of Lucrece:

'An expir'd date cancell'd ere well begun.'

And in Mother Hubbard's Tale :

Now whereas time flying with wings swift
Expired had the term,' &c.

24 Here the folio adds: They march about the stage, and serving men come forth with their napkins.

SCENE V1. A Hall in Capulet's House.
Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

1 Serv. Where's Potpan, that he helps not to take away? he shift a trencher! he scrape a

trencher!

2 Serv. When good manners shall lie all'in one or two men's hands, and they unwashed too, 'tis a foul thing.

1 Serv. Away with the joint-stools, remove the court-cupboard3, look to the plate:-good thou, save me a piece of marchpane*; and, as thou lovest

1 This scene is not in the first copy in the quarto of 1597. 2 To shift a trencher was technical. So in The Miseries of Enforst Marriage, 1608:- Learne more manners, stand at your brother's backe, as to shift a trencher neately,' &c. Trenchers were used in Shakspeare's time and long after by persons of good fashion and quality. They continued common till a late period in many public societies, and are now, or were lately, still retained at Lincoln's Inn.

3 The court cupboard was the ancient sideboard: it was a cumbrous piece of furniture, with stages or shelves gradually receding, like stairs, to the top, whereon the plate was displayed at festivals. They are mentioned in many of our old comedies. Thus in Chapman's Monsieur D'Olive, 1606 :-' Here shall stand my court cupboard, with its furniture of plate.' Again in his May Day, 1611:-' Court cupboards planted with flaggons, cans, cups, beakers,' &c. Two of these ancient pieces of furniture are still in Stationers' Hall: they are used at public festivals to display the antique silver vessels of the Company, consisting of cans, cups, beakers, flaggons, &c. There is a print in a curious work, entitled Laurea Austriaca, folio, 1627, representing an entertainment given by King James I. to the Spanish ambassadors, in 1623; from which the reader will get a better notion of the court cupboard than volumes of description would afford him. It was sometimes also called a cupboard of plate, and a livery cupboard.

4 Marchpane was a constant article in the desserts of our an cestors. It was a sweet cake, composed of filberts, almonds, pistachoes, pine kernels, and sugar of roses, with a small portion of flour. They were often made in fantastic forms. 1562 the Stationers' Company paid for ix marchpaynes xxvi.s. viii.d.'

In