PUCK. Thou speak'ft aright; ' I am that merry wanderer of the night. If Drayton wrote The Nymphidia after A Midsummer-Night's Dream had been acted, he could with very little propriety fay, "Then fince no mufe hath been fo bold, "Or of the later or the ould, “Those elvish secrets to unfold "Jove profper my proceeding." HOLT WHITE. Don Quixote, though publifhed in Spain in 1605, was probably little known in England till Skelton's tranflation appeared in 1612. Drayton's poem was, I have no doubt, fubfequent to that year. The earliest edition of it that I have feen, was printed in 1619. MALONE. Sweet Puck,] The epithet is by no means fuperfluous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It fignified nothing better than fiend, or devil. So, the author of Pierce Ploughman puts the pouk for the devil, fol. lxxxx. B. V. penult. See alfo, fol. lxvii. v. 15: belle powke." It seems to have been an old Gothic word. thanas. Gudm. And. Lexicon Island. TYRWHITT. 66 none Puke, puken; Sa In The Bugbears, an ancient MS. comedy in the poffeffion of the Marquis of Lanfdowne, I likewife met with this appellation of a fiend: "Puckes, puckerels, hob howlard, by gorn and Robin Goodfelow." Again, in The Scourge of Venus, or the Wanton Lady, with the rare Birth of Adonis, 1615: "Their bed doth shake and quaver as they lie, As if it groan'd to bear the weight of finne; Again, in Spenfer's Epithalamion, 1595: "Ne let houfe-fyres, nor lightning's helpeleffe harms, "Ne let mifchievous witches with their charmes Again, in the ninth Book of Golding's Tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofis, edit. 1587, p. 126: and the countrie where Chymera, that fame pooke, "Hath goatifh bodie," &c. STEEVENS. I jeft to Oberon, and make him smile, And, when the drinks, against her lips I bob, 3 Puck. Thou Speak'ft aright;] I would fill up the verse which I fuppofe the author left complete: "I am, thou speak'ft aright; It seems that in the Fairy mythology, Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trufty fervant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakspeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia, the fame fairies are engaged in the fame bufinefs. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen: Oberon being jealous, fends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a fpell. JOHNSON. —a roafted crab;] i. e. the wild apple of that name. So, in the anonymous play of King Henry V. &c. "Yet we will have in store a crab in the fire, "With nut-brown ale," &c. Again, in Damon and Pythias, 1582: "And fit down in my chaire by my wife faire Alison, In Summer's Laft Will and Teftament, 1600, Chriftmas is deferibed as fitting in a corner, turning crabs, "Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale." STEEVENS. The wifeft aunt,] Aunt is fometimes used for procures. In Gafcoigne's Glafs of Government, 1575, the bawd Pandarina is always called aunt." Thefe are aunts of Antwerp, which can make twenty marriages in one week for their kinfwoman." See Winter's Tale, Act IV. fc. i. Among Ray's proverbial phrafes is the following." She is one of mine aunts that made mine uncle to go a begging." The wifeft aunt may therefore mean the most sentimental bawd, or, perhaps, the most profaic old woman. STEEVENS. The first of thefe conjectures is much too wanton and injurious to the word aunt, which in this place at least certainly means no other than an innocent old woman. RITSON. And tailor cries," and falls into a cough; And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;" And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and fwear A merrier hour was never wafted there. But room, Faery, here comes Oberon. FAI. And here my miftrefs:-'Would that he were gone! 6 And tailor cries,] The cuftom of crying tailor at a fudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have obferved. He that flips befide his chair, falls as a tailor fquats upon his board. The Oxford editor, and Dr. Warburton after him, read and rails or cries, plaufibly, but I believe not rightly. Befides, the trick of the fairy is reprefented as producing rather merriment than anger. JOHNSON. This phrafe perhaps originated in a pun. Your tail is now on the ground. See Camden's Remaines, 1614. PROVERBS. "Between two ftools the tayle goeth to the ground." MALONE. 7 hold their hips, and loffe;] So, in Milton's L'Allegro: And laughter holding both his fides." STEEVENS. And waxen-] And encreafe, as the moon waxes. JOHNSON. A feeble fenfe may be extracted from the foregoing words as they stand; but Dr. Farmer obferves to me that waxen is probably corrupted from yoxen, or yexen. Yoxe Saxon, to hiccup. `Yyxyn. Singultio. Prompt. Parv. Thus in Chaucer's Reve's Tale, v. 4149: "He yoxeth, and he fpeaketh thurgh the nofe." That yex, however, was a familiar word fo late as the time of Ainfworth the lexicographer, is clear from his having produced it as a tranflation of the Latin fubftantive-fingultus. The meaning of the paffage before us will then be, that the objects of Puck's waggery laughed till their laughter ended in a yex or hiccup. It should be remembered, in fupport of this conjecture, that Puck is at present fpeaking with an affectation of ancient phrafeology. STEEVENS. 9 But room, Faery,] Thus the old copies. Some of our modern editors read" But make room, Fairy." The word Fairy, or Faery, was fometimes of three fyllables, as often in Spenfer. JOHNSON. SCENE II. Enter OBERON," at one door, with his train, and TITANIA,' at another, with hers. OBE. Ill met by moon-light, proud Titania. TITA. What, jealous Oberon? Fairy, skip hence; I have forfworn his bed and company. OBE. Tarry, rafh wanton; Am not I thy lord? TITA. Then I must be thy lady: But I know When thou haft ftol'n away from fairy land, And in the shape of Corin fat all day, Playing on pipes of corn, and verfing love* To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here, Come from the farthest steep of India ? 2 Enter Oberon,] Oberon had been introduced on the stage in 1594, by fome other author. In the Stationers' books is entered "The Scottishe story of James the fourthe, flain at Flodden, intermixed with a pleafant comedie prefented by Oberon, King of Fairies." The judicious editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in his Introductory Difcourfe, (See Vol. IV. p. 161.) obferves that Pluto and Proferpina in The Merchant's Tale, appear to have been "the true progenitors of Shakspeare's Oberon and Titania." STEEVENS. Titania,] As to the Fairy Queen, (fays Mr. Warton in his Obfervations on Spenfer,) confidered apart from the race of fairies, the notion of fuch an imaginary perfonage was very common. Chaucer, in his Rime of Sir Thopas, mentions her, together with a Fairy land. Again, in the Wif of Bathes Tale, v. 6439: "In olde dayes of the king Artour, "Of which that Bretons fpeken gret honour; "The Elf-quene, with hire joly compagnie "Danced ful oft in many a grene mede: "This was the old opinion as I rede." STEEVENS. verfing love-] Perhaps Prior was the last who employed this verb: "And Mat mote praife what Topaz verfeth." STEEVENS. But that, forfooth, the bouncing Amazon, OBE. How canft thou thus, for fhame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, Knowing I know thy love to Thefeus? Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night + From Perigenia, whom he ravished? And make him with fair Æglé break his faith, TITA. These are the forgeries of jealoufy: 4 Didft thou not lead him through the glimmering night-] The glimmering night is the night faintly illuminated by ftars. In Macbeth our author fays: "The weft yet glimmers with some streaks of day." STEEVENS. 5 From Perigenia, whom he ravished?] Thus all the editors, but our author who diligently perus'd Plutarch, and glean'd from him, where his fubject would admit, knew, from the life of Thefeus, that her name was Perygine, (or Perigune,) by whom Thefeus had his fon Melanippus. She was the daughter of Sinnis, a cruel robber, and tormenter of paffengers in the Ifthmus. Plutarch and Athenæus are both exprefs in the circumftance of Thefeus ravishing her. THEOBALD. In North's tranflation of Plutarch (Life of Thefeus) this lady is called Perigouna. The alteration was probably intentional, for the fake of harmony. Her real name was Perigune. MALONE. Æglé, Ariadne, and Antiopa were all at different times mistresses to Thefeus. See Plutarch. Theobald cannot be blamed for his emendation; and yet it is well known that our ancient authors, as well as the French and the Italians, were not fcrupuloufly nice about proper names, but almoft always corrupted them. STEEVENS. "And never, fince the middle fummer's fpring, &c.] By the middle fummer's Spring, our author feems to mean the beginning of middle |