STAR. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.

QUIN. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thifby's father;-Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part:— and, I hope, here is a play fitted.

SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am flow of study.s QUIN. You may do it extempore, do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.

Bor. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke fay, Let him roar again, let him roar again.

QUIN. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchefs and the ladies, that they would fhriek; and that were enough to hang us all.

ALL. That would hang us every mother's fon. Bor. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more difcretion but to hang us: but I will ag

you must play Thifby's mother,] There feems a double for getfulness 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 leaft notice taken here. THEOBALD.

Theobald is wrong as to this laft particular. The introduction of Wall and Moonshine was an after-thought. See Act III. fc. i. It may be observed, however, that no part of what is rehearfed is afterwards repeated, when the piece is acted before Thefeus.

STEEVENS. -flow of study.] Study is ftill the cant term used in a theatre for getting any nonfenfe by rote. Hamlet afks the player if he can "Study" a fpeech. STEEVENS.

gravate my voice fo, that I will roar you as gently as any fucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale."

QUIN. You can play no part but Pyramus: for Pyramus is a fweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall fee in a fummer's day; a moft lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you muft needs play Pyramus.

Bor. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I beft to play it in?

QUIN. Why, what you will.

Bor. I will discharge it in either your ftraw-coloured beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow."

QUIN. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced."-But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and defire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood,

6-an 't were any nightingale.] An means as if. So, in Troilus and Creffida: "He will weep you, an 'twere a man born in

April." STEEVENS.

7 — your perfect yellow.] Here Bottom again difcovers a true genius for the ftage by his folicitude for propriety of drefs, and his deliberation which beard to ehoofe among many beards, all unnatural. JOHNSON.

So, in the old comedy of Ram-Alley, 1611:

"What colour'd beard comes next by the window?

"A black man's, I think;

"I think, a red: for that is moft in fashion."

This cuftom of wearing coloured beards, the reader will find more amply explained in Meafure for Meafure, Act IV. fc. ii. STEEVENS.

8

French crowns, &c.] That is, a head from which the hair has fallen in one of the laft ftages of the lues venerea, called the corona veneris. To this our poet has too frequent allufions.

a mile without the town, by moon-light; there will we rehearfe: for if we meet in the city, we fhall be dog'd with company, and our devices known. In the mean time, I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you,

fail me not.

Bor. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obfcenely, and courageoufly. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.

QUIN. At the duke's oak we meet.

Bor. Enough; Hold, or cut bow-ftrings."

[Exeunt.

-properties,] Properties are whatever little articles are wanted in a play for the actors, according to their refpective parts, dreffes and fcenes excepted. The perfon who delivers them out is to this day called the property-man. In The Baffingbourne Roll, 1511, we find " garnements and propyrts." See Warton's Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 326.

Again, in Albumazar, 1615:

Furbo, our beards,

"Black patches for our eyes, and other properties." Again, in Weftward-Hoe, 1607:

"I'll go make ready my ruftical properties." STEEVENS. At the duke's oak we meet.

-Hold, or cut bow-ftrings.] This proverbial phrafe came originally from the camp. When a rendezvous was appointed, the militia foldiers would frequently make excufe for not keeping word, that their bowftrings were broke, i. e. their arms unferviceable. Hence when one would give another abfolute afsurance of meeting him, he would fay proverbially-hold or cut bow-ftrings— i. e. whether the bow-ftrings held or broke. For cut is used as a neuter, like the verb fret. As when we fay, the firing frets, the filk frets, for the paffive, it is cut or fretted. WARBURTON.

This interpretation is very ingenious, but fomewhat difputable. The excufe made by the militia foldiers is a mere fuppofition, without proof; and it is well known that while bows were in ufe, no archer ever entered the field without a fupply of ftrings in his pocket; whence originated the proverb, to have two firings to one's barv. In The Country Girl, a comedy by T. B. 1647, is the fol lowing threat to a fidler:

ACT II. SCENE I.

A Wood near Athens.

Enter a Fairy at one door, and Puck at another.

Puck. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
FAI. Over hill, over dale,'

Thorough bufh, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,

Thorough flood, thorough fire,

I do wander every where,
Swifter than the moones fphere ; *

66

fiddler, ftrike;

"I'll ftrike you, elfe, and cut your begging bowftrings." Again, in The Ball, by Chapman and Shirley, 1639:

66

have you devices to jeer the reft?

"Luc. All the regiment of 'em, or I'll break my bowftrings. The bowftrings in both these inftances may only mean the firings which make part of the bow with which mufical inftruments of feveral kinds are ftruck. The propriety of the allusion I cannot fatisfactorily explain. STEEVENS.

To meet, whether bow-ftrings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events. To cut the bowftring, when bows were in ufe, was probably a common practice of those who bore enmity to the archer. "He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowftring, (fays Don Pedro in Much ado about nothing,) and the little hangman dare not shoot at him." MALONE.

Hold, or cut cod piece point, is a proverb to be found in Ray's Collection, p. 57. edit. 1737. COLLINS.

3 Over hill, over dale, &c.] So Drayton in his Nymphidia, or Court of Fairy:

"Thorough brake, thorough brier,

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Thorough muck, thorough mire,

"Thorough water, thorough fire." JOHNSON.

4- -the moones fphere;] Unless we fuppofe this to be the Saxon genitive cafe, (as it is here printed,) the metre will be defective.

And I ferve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowflips tall her penfioners be;"
In their gold coats fpots you fee;"

So, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. i. ft. 15:

"And eke through feare as white as whales bone."

Again, in a letter from Gabriel Harvey to Spenfer, 1580: " Have we not God bys wrath, for Goddes wrath, and a thousand of the fame ftampe, wherein the corrupte orthography in the mofte, hath been the fole or principal caufe of corrupte profodye in over-many?" STEEVENS.

5 To dew her orbs upon the green:] The orbs here mentioned are the circles fuppofed to be made by the fairies on the ground, whofe verdure proceeds from the fairies' care to water them. Thus Drayton:

They in their courses make that round, "In meadows and in marshes found,

Of them fo called the fairy ground." JOHNSON. Thus in Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus " - fimiles illis fpectris, quæ in multis locis, præfertim nocturno tempore, fuum faltatorium orbem cum omnium mufarum concentu verfare folent." It appears from the fame author, that these dancers always parched up the grafs, and therefore it is properly made the office of Puck to refresh it. STEEVENS.

6 The cowflips tall her penfioners be ;] The cowflip was a favourite among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning:

For the queen a fitting tower,

Quoth he, is that fair cowflip flower.-
"In all your train there's not a fay
"That ever went to gather May,
"But he hath made it in her way,
"The talleft there that groweth.

JOHNSON.

This was faid in confequence of Queen Elizabeth's fashionable eftablishment of a band of military courtiers, by the name of penfiners. They were fome of the hand fomeft and talleft young men of the best families and fortune, that could be found. Hence, fays Mrs. Quickly, in The Merry Wives, A&t II. fc. ii. " and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, Penfioners." They gave the mode in drefs and diverfions. They accompanied the queen in her progrefs to Cambridge, where they held staff-torches at a play on a Sunday evening in King's College Chapel.

T. WARTON.