Demetrius loves your fair:' O happy fair! air More tuneable than lark to fhepherd's car, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching; O, were favour fo!' Your's would I catch," fair Hermia, ere I go; 3 Demetrius loves your fair :] Fair is used again as a fubftantive in The Comedy of Errors, A&t III. fc. iv: - My decayed fair, "A funny look of his would foon repair." Again, in The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, 1601: Again, in The Pinner of Wakefield, 1599: "Then tell me, love, fhall I have all thy fair?" Again, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: " falfe to Menelaus, yet her fair made him brook her follies." Though the were Again: "Flora in tawny hid up all her flowers, "And would not diaper the meads with fair." STEEVENS. 4 Your eyes are lode-ftars ;] This was a compliment not unfreThe lode ftar is the leading or guiding ftar, that is, the pole-ftar. The magnet is, for the fame reafon, called the lode-ftone, either because it leads iron, or because it guides the failor. Milton has the fame thought in L'Allegro: quent among the old poets. "Towers and battlements it fees "Bofom'd high in tufted trees, "Where perhaps fome beauty lies, "The cynofure of neighb'ring eyes." Davies calls Queen Elizabeth, "Lode-flone to hearts, and lode-ftone to all eyes." JOHNSON. So, in The Spanish Tragedy: "Led by the loadstar of her heavenly looks." Again, in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594: "The loadftar and the honour of our line." STEEVENS. O, were favour fo!] Favour is feature, countenance. So, in Twelfth Night, Act II. fc. iv: thine eye "Hath ftay'd upon fome favour that it loves." STEEVENS. 6 Yours would I catch,] This emendation is taken from the My ear fhould catch your voice, my eye your eye, HER. I frown upon him, yet he loves me ftill. HEL. O, that your frowns would teach my fmiles fuch fkill! HER. I give him curfes, yet he gives me love. HEL. O, that my prayers could fuch affection move! HER. The more I hate, the more he follows me. HEL. The more I love, the more he hateth me. HER. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.3 HEL. None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine! 9 Oxford edition. The old reading is-Your words I catch. JOHNSON. Mr. Malone reads " Your words I'd catch." STEEVENS. The emendation [I'd catch] was made by the editor of the fecond folio. Sir T. Hanmer reads "Yours would I catch;" in which he has been followed by the fubfequent editors. As the old reading (words) is intelligible, I have adhered to the ancient copies. MALONE. I have deferted the old copies, only because I am unable to difcover how Helena, by catching the words of Hermia, could also catch her favour, i. e. her beauty. STEEVENS. to be to you tranflated.] To tranflate, in our author, fometimes fignifies to change, to transform. So, in Timon: to prefent flaves and fervants 66 "Tranflates his rivals." STEEVENS. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.] The folio, and the quarto printed by Roberts, read-His folly, Helena, is none of mine. JOHNSON. 9 None, but your beauty; 'Would that fault were mine!] I would point this line thus: "None. But your beauty;-Would that fault were mine!" HENDERSON. HER. Take comfort; he no more fhall fee my face; Lyfander and myself will fly this place.― O then, what graces in my love do dwell, Lrs. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grafs, 3 2 Take comfort; he no more shall fee my face; Lyfander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lyfander fee,] Perhaps every reader may not difcover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to confider the power of pleafing, as an advantage to be much envied or much defired, fince Hermia, whom the confiders as poffeffing it in the fupreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the lofs of happinefs. JOHNSON. 3 —faint primrofe-beds] Whether the epithet faint has reference to the colour or fmell of primrofes, let the reader determine. STEEVENS. • Emptying our bojoms of their counsel fweet;] That is, emptying our bofoms of thofe fecrets upon which we were wont to confult each other with fo fweet a fatisfaction. HEATH. Emptying our befoms of their counsel swell'd; And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, To feek new friends, and ftrange companions.] This whole scene is ftrictly in rhyme; and that it deviates in these two couplets, I am perfuaded, is owing to the ignorance of the firft, and the inaccuracy of the later editors. I have therefore ventured to reitore And thence, from Athens, turn away our eyes, : the rhimes, as I make no doubt but the poet first gave them. Sweet was eafily corrupted into swell'd, because that made an antithefts to emptying and ftrange companions our editors thought was plain English; but franger companies, a little quaint and unintelligible. Our author very often ufes the fubftantive, ftranger adjectively; and companies to fignify companions: as in Richard II. Act I: "To tread the ftranger paths of banishment.” And in Henry V: "His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow." THEOBALD. Dr. Warburton retains the old reading, and perhaps juftifiably; for a bofom fwell'd with fecrets does not appear as an expreffion unlikely to have been used by our author, who speaks of a stuff'd bofom in Macbeth. In Lyly's Midas, 1592, is a fomewhat fimilar expreffion: "I am one of thofe whofe tongues are fewell'd with filence." Again, in our author's K. Richard II: 66 the unfeen grief "That wells in filence in the tortur'd foul." "Of counfels fwell'd" may mean-fwell'd with counfels. Of and with, in other ancient writers have the fame fignification. See alfo, Macbeth-Note on 65 Of Kernes and Gallow-glaffes was supplied." i. e. with them. In the fcenes of K. Richard II. there is likewife a mixture of rhime and blank verfe. Mr. Tyrwhitt, however, concurs with Theobald. Though I have thus far defended the old reading, in deference to the opinion of other criticks I have given Theobald's conjectures a place in the text. STEEVENS. I think, fweet, the reading propofed by Theobald, is right. The latter of Mr. Theobald's emendations is likewife fupported by Stowe's Annales, p. 991, edit. 1615: "The prince hinfelf was faine to get upon the high altar, to girt his aforefaid companies with the order of knighthood." Mr. Heath obferves, that our author feems to have had the following paffage in the 55th Pfalm, (v. 14, 15,) in his thoughts: "But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend. We took fweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends.” MALONE. Keep word, Lyfander: we muft ftarve our fight [Exit Lys. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; when Phabe doth behold, &c. deep midnight.] Shakspeare has a little forgotten himself. It appears from p. 5. that to-morrow night would be within three nights of the new moon, when there is no moonshine at all, much leis at deep midnight. The fame overfight occurs in A&t III. sc. i. BLACKSTONE. bolding no quantity,] Quality feems a word more fuitable to the fenfe than quantity, but either may ferve. JOHNSON. Quantity is our author's word. So, in Hamlet, A&t III: fc. ii: "And women's fear and love hold quantity." STEEVENS. in game-] Game here fignifies not contentious play, but Sport, jeft. So Spenfer: 6 7 L'iwixt earnest, and 'twixt game." JOHNSON. Hermia's eyne,] This plural is common both in Chaucer |