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Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead,
By paved fountain,' or by rushy brook,
Or on the beached margent of the fea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou haft difturb'd our sport.
Therefore the winds, piping' to us in vain,

8

or mid fummer. Spring, for beginning, he uses again in K. Henry IV, P. II:

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"As flaws congealed in the fpring of day:"

which expreffion has authority from the fcripture, St. Luke, i. 78: whereby the day-Spring from on high hath vifited us.' Again, in the romance of Kyng Appolyn of Thyre, 1510:

"-arofe in a mornynge at the prynge of the day," &c. Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queen, B. III. c. x:

"He wooed her till day-Spring he efpyde." STEEVENS, So Holinfhed, p. 494:-" the morowe after about the spring of the daie". MALONE.

The middle fummer's spring, is, I apprehend, the feafon when trees put forth their fecond, or as they are frequently called their midfummer foots. Thus, Evelyn in his Silva: "Cut off all the fide boughs, and especially at midfummer, if you spy them breaking out." And again, "Where the rows and brufh lie longer than midfummer, unbound, or made up, you endanger the lofs of the fecond Spring." HENLEY.

7 Paved fountain,] A fountain laid round the edge with ftone. JOHNSON.

Perhaps paved at the bottom. So, Lord Bacon in his Essay on Gardens: As for the other kind of fountaine, which we may call a bathing-poole, it may admit much curiofity and beauty.. As that the bottom be finely paved . . . . the fides likewife," &c. STEEVENS.

The epithet feems here intended to mean no more than that the beds of these fountains were covered with pebbles in oppofition to thofe of the rushy brooks which are oozy.

The fame expreffion is used by Sylvefter in a fimilar fense:

"By fome cleare river's lillie-paved fide." HENLEY.

8 Or on the beached margent-] The old copies read-Or in. Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

9 the winds, piping -] So, Milton:

"While rocking winds, are piping loud." JOHNSON.

As in revenge, have fuck'd up from the fea
Contagious, fogs; which falling in the land,
Have every pelting river made fo proud,
That they have overborne their continents:
The ox hath therefore ftretch'd his yoke in vain,
The ploughman loft his fweat; and the green corn
Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard: '
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrain flock;"

And Garvin Donglas, in his Tranflation of the Encid, p. 69. 1710. fol. Edinb.

"The foft piping wynd calling to fe." The Gloffographer obferves, "we fay a piping vind, when an ordinary gale blows, and the wind is neither too loud nor too calm."

HOLT WHITE.

-pelting river] Thus the quartos: the folio reads-petty. Shakspeare has in Lear the fame word, low pelting farms. The meaning is plainly, defpicable, mean, forry, wretched; but as it is a word without any reafonable etymology, I fhould be glad to difmifs it for petty: yet it is undoubtedly right. We have "petty pelting officer" in Measure for Meafure. JOHNSON.

So, in Gafcoigne's Glafs of Government, 1575:

Doway is a pelting town pack'd full of poor scholars." This word is always used as a term of contempt. So, again, in Lyly's Midas, 1592: "-attire never ufed but of old women and pelting priests." STEEVENS.

overborne their continents:] Born down the banks that contain them. So, in Lear:

3.

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clofe pent up guilts,

"Rive your concealing continents!" JOHNSON.

and the green corn

Hath rotted, ere his youth attain'd a beard:] So, in our author's 12th Sonnet:

"And fummer's green all girded up in heaves,
"Borne on the bier with white and briftly beard."

MALONE.

murrain flock;] The murrain is the plague in cattle. It is here ufed by Shakspeare as an adjective; as a fubftantive by others: fends him as a marrain

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"To ftrike our herds; or as a worfer plague,

"Your people to deftroy."

Heywood's Silver Age, 1613. STEEVENS.

The nine-men's morris is fill'd up with mud;"

5 The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;} In that part of Warwickshire where Shakspeare was educated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the fhepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives to reprefent a fort of imperfect chefsboard. It confifts of a fquare, fometimes only a foot diameter, fometimes three or four yards. Within this is another fquare, every fide of which is parallel to the external fquare; and these fquares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other ftones, which they move in fuch a manner as to take up each other's men as they are called, and the area of the inner fquare is called the Pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. Thefe figures are by the country people called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils; and are fo called, becaufe each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grafs at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy feafons never fail to be choaked up with mud. JAMES.

See Peck on Milton's Mafque, 115, Vol. I. p. 135. STEEVENS. Nine mens' morris is a game ftill play'd by the fhepherds, cowkeepers, &c. in the midland counties, as follows:

A figure is made on the ground (like this which I have drawn) by cutting out the turf; and two perfons take each nine ftones, which they place by turns in the angles, and afterwards move alternately, as at chefs or draughts. He who can place three in a

And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,'
For lack of tread, are undiftinguishable:

6

The human mortals want their winter here; 7

ftraight line, may then take off any one of his adverfary's, where he pleafes, till one, having lost all his men, lofes the game.

ALCHORNE.

In Cotgrave's Dictionary, under the article Merelles, is the following explanation. "Le Jeu des Merelles. The boyish game called Merils, or fivepenny morris; played here most commonly with ftones, but in France with pawns, or men made on purpose, and termed merelles." The pawns or figures of men ufed in the game might originally be black, and hence called morris, or merelles, as we yet term a black cherry a morello, and a small black cherry a merry, perhaps from Maurus a Moor, or rather from morum a mulberry. TOLLET.

The jeu de merelles was alfo a table-game. A reprefentation of two Monkies engaged at this amufement, may be feen in a German edition of Petrarch de remedio utriufque fortunæ, B. I. chap. 26. The cuts to this book were done in 1520. DOUCE.

5the quaint mazes in the wanton green,] This alludes to a fport ftill followed by boys; i. e. what is now called running the figure of eight. STEEVENS,

6 The human mortals] Shakspeare might have employed this epithet, which, at first fight, appears redundant, to mark the difference between men and fairies. Fairies were not human, but they were yet subject to mortality. It appears from the Romance of Sir Huon of Bordeaux, that Oberon himself was mortal.

STEEVENS.

Human

"This however (fays Mr. Ritfon,) does not by any means appear to be the cafe. Oberon, Titania, and Puck, never dye; the inferior agents must neceffarily be fuppofed to enjoy the fame privilege; and the ingenious commentator may rely upon it, that the oldeft woman in England never heard of the death of a Fairy. mortals is, notwithstanding, evidently put in oppofition to fairies who partook of a middle nature between men and spirits." It is a misfortune as well to the commentators, as to the readers of Shakfpeare, that fo much of their time is obliged to be employed in explaining and contradicting unfounded conjectures and affertions. Spenfer, in his Faery Queen, B. II. c. x. fays, (I ufe the words of Mr. Warton; Obfervations on Spenfer, Vol. I. p. 55.) “That man was first made by Prometheus, was called Elfe, who wandering over the world, at length arrived at the gardens of Adonis, where he found a female whom he called Fay.-The iffue of Elfe

No night is now with hymn or carol bleft: -
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

That rheumatic difeafes do abound: "

and Fay were called Fairies, who foon grew to be a mighty people, and conquered all nations. Their eldest fon Elfin governed America, and the next to him, named Elfinan, founded the city of Cleopolis, which was enclosed with a golden wall by Elfinine. His fon Elfin overcame the Gobbelines; but of all fairies, Elfant was the most renowned, who built Panthea of chryftal. To thefe fucceeded Elfar, who flew two brethren giants; and to him Elfinor, who built a bridge of glafs over the fea, the found of which was like thunder. At length Elficleos ruled the Fairy-land with much wifdom, and highly advanced its power and honour: he left two fons, the eldest of which, fair Elferon, died a premature death, his place being fupplied by the mighty Oberon; a prince, whofe wide memorial' ftill remains; who dying left Tanaquil to fucceed him by will, the being alfo called Glorian or Gloriana." I tranfcribe this pedigree, merely to prove that in Shakspeare's time the notion of Fairies dying was generally known. REED.

7 -- their winter here;] Here, in this country.-I once inclined to receive the emendation propofed by Mr. Theobald, and adopted by Sir T. Hanmer,-their winter cheer; but perhaps alteration is unneceffary. "Their winter" may mean those sports with which country people are wont to beguile a winter's evening, at the feafon of Christmas, which, it appears from the next line was particularly in our author's contemplation:

The wery winter nights reftore the Christmas games, "And now the fefon doth invite to banquet townish dames." Romeus and Juliet, 1562. MALONE.

8 No night is now with hymn or carol bleft:-] Since the coming of Chriftianity, this feafon, [winter,] in commemoration of the birth of Chrift, has been particularly devoted to festivity. And to this cuftom, notwithstanding the impropriety, hymn or carol bleft certainly alludes. WARBURTON.

Hymns and carols, in the time of Shakspeare, during the season of Christmas, were fung every night about the streets, as a pretext for collecting money from house to houfe. STEEVENS.

9 That rheumatick diseases do abound:] Rheumatick diseases fignified in Shakspeare's time, not what we now call rheumatism, but diftillations from the head, catarrhs, &c. So, in a paper entitled "The State of Sir H. Sydney's bodie, &c. Feb. 1567;" Sydney's Memorials, Vol. I. p. 94: "he hath verie much diftempered diverse parts of his bodie, as namely, his hedde, his ftomach, &c.

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