An odorous chaplet of fweet fummer buds "And this fame progeny of evils comes "From our debate, from our dissention." In all this there is no difficulty. All these calamities are the confequences of the diffention between Oberon and Titania; as feems to be fufficiently pointed out by the word therefore, so often repeated. Thofe lines which have it not, are evidently put in appofition with the preceding line in which that word is found. MALONE. 2 this diftemperature,] Is, this perturbation of the elements. STEEVENS. By diftemperature, I imagine is meant in this place, the perturbed state in which the king and queen had lived for fome time paft. MALONE. 3 Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rofe;] To have "fnow in the lap of June," is an expreffion ufed in Northward Hoe, 1607, and Shakspeare himself in Coriolanus, talks of the " confecrated fnow that lies on Dian's lap:" and Spenfer in his Faery Queen, B. II. c. ii. has: "And fills with flow'rs fair Flora's painted lap." STEEVENS. This thought is elegantly expreffed by Goldfmith in his Traveller: "And winter lingering chills the lap of May." M. MASON. Hyems' chin,] Dr. Grey, not inelegantly, conjectures, that the poet wrote: "on old Hyems' chill and icy crown." It is not indeed eafy to difcover how a chaplet can be placed on the chin. STEEVENS. I believe this peculiar image of Hyem's chin muft have come from Virgil, (Æneid iv. 253) through the medium of the tranflation of the day: tum flumina mento "Precipitant fenis, et glacie riget horrida barba." S. W. Thus tranflated by Phaer, 1561: and from his hoary beard adowne, "The streames of waters fall; with yce and froft his face doth frowne." This fingular image was, I believe, fuggefted to our poet by Golding's tranflation of Ovid, Book II: The childing autumn,' angry winter, change "And lastly, quaking for the colde, ftood Winter all forlorne, "With rugged head as white as dove, and garments all to torne, "Forladen with the ifycles, that dangled up and downe It fhould rather be for thin, i. e. thin-hair'd. So, Cordelia, fpeaking of Lear: to watch, 'poor perdu! "With this thin helm." STEEVENS. MALONE. TYRWHITT. Thinne is nearer to chinne (the fpelling of the old copies) than chill, and therefore, I think, more likely to have been the author's word. MALONE. 5 The childing autumn,] Is the pregnant autumn, frugifer autumSo, in Heywood's Brazen Age, 1613: nus. 66 Fifty in number childed all one night.” Again, in his Golden Age, 1611: "I childed in a cave remote and filent." Again, in his Silver Age, 1613: "And at one inftant she shall child two iffues." There is a rofe called the childing rofe. STEEVENS. Again, in Taffo's Godfrey of Bulloigne, by Fairfax, B. XVIII. ft. 26: "An hundreth plants befide (even in his fight) "Childed an hundreth nymphes fo great, fo dight." Childing is an old term in botany, when a fmall flower grows out of a large one; "the childing autumn," therefore means the autumn which unfeasonably produces flowers on those of summer. Florists have also a childing daisy, and a childing scabious. HOLT WHITE. By their increafe,] That is, By their produce. JOHNSON. So, in our author's 97th Sonnet: "The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, "Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime." The latter expreffion is fcriptural: "Then fhall the earth bring forth her increafe, and God, even our God, shall give us his bleffing." PSALM lxvii. MALONE. And, thorough this diftemperature, we fee and thereby is always fubject to coughes, diftillations, and other rumatick difeafes." MALONE. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, &c.] The repeated adverb therefore, throughout this fpeech, I fuppofe to have conftant reference to the first time when it is used." All these irregularities of feafon happened in confequence of the difagreement be tween the king and queen of the fairies, and not in confequence of each other. Ideas crouded faft on Shakspeare; and as he committed them to paper, he did not attend to the distance of the leading object from which they took their rife. Mr. Malone concurs with me on this occafion. That the feftivity and hospitality attending Chriftmas, decreased, was the fubject of complaint to many of our ludicrous writers. Among the reft to Nafh, whofe comedy called Summer's Laft Will and Teftament, made its firft appearance in the fame year with this play, vix. 1600. There Chrifimas is introduced, and Summer fays to him: Christmas, how chance thou com'ft not as the rest, Christmas. "Ay, antiquity was the mother of ignorance," &c. and then proceeds to give reafons for fuch a decay in mirth and houfe-keeping. The confufion of feafons here defcribed, is no more than a poetical account of the weather, which happened in England about the time when the Midsummer-Night's Dream was written. For this information I am indebted to chance, which furnished me with a few leaves of an old meteorological history. The date of the piece, however, may be better determined by a defeription of the fame weather in Churchyard's Charitie, 1595, when, fays he, "a colder season, in all forts, was never feene." He then proceeds to fay the fame over again in rhime: "A colder time in world was neuer seene: "The skies do lowre, the fun and moone waxe dim; Let the reader compare thefe lines with Shakspeare's, and he Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rofe;' will find that they are both descriptive of the fame weather and its confequences. Churchyard is not enumerating, on this occafion, fictitious but real misfortunes. He wrote the prefent Poem to excite Charity on his own behalf; and among his other fufferings very naturally dwelt on the coldness of the season, which his poverty had rendered the lefs fupportable. L'Allegro, and il Penferofo, will naturally impute one incident to different caufes. Shakspeare, in prime of life and fuccefs, fancifully afcribes this diftemperature of feafons to a quarrel between the playful rulers of the fairy world; while Churchyard, broken down by age and misfortunes, is feriously difpofed to reprefent the fame inclemency of weather, as a judgement from the Almighty on the offences of mankind. STEEVENS. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, &c.] This line has no immediate connection with that preceding it (as Dr. Johnfon feems to have thought). It does not refer to the omiffion of hymns or carols, but of the fairy rites, which were disturbed in confequence of Oberon's quarrel with Titania. The moon is with peculiar propriety reprefented as incenfed at the ceffation-not of the carols, (as Dr. Warburton thinks,) nor of the heathen rites of adoration, (as Dr. Johnfon fuppofes,) but of thofe fports, which have been always reputed to be celebrated by her light. As the whole paffage has been much mifunderftood, it may be proper to observe that Titania begins with faying, "And never, fince the middle fummer's fpring, "Met we on hill, in dale, foreft, or mead, "But with thy brawls thou haft difturb'd our sport." She then particularly enumerates the feveral confequences that have flowed from their contention. The whole is divided into four clauses: 1." Therefore the winds, &c. "That they have overborne their continents : 2. " 'The Ox hath therefore ftretch'd his yoke in vain ; "The ploughman loft his fweat ; "No night is now with hymn or carol bleft; 3." Therefore the Moon-wafhes all the air, 4." And, thorough this diftemperature, we fee, 66 46 and the mazed world, By their increafe, now knows not which is which: From our debate, from our diffention; OBE. Do you amend it then; it lies in you: I do but beg a little changeling boy, 7 henchman.] Page of honour. This office was abolished by queen Elizabeth. GREY. The office might be abolished at court, but probably remained in the city. Glapthorne, in his comedy called Wit in a Conftable, 1640, has this paffage: 66 I will teach his bench-boys, Serjeants, and trumpeters to act, and fave "The city all that charges." So, again: "When he was lady may'refs, and you humble Again, in Ben Jonfon's Christmas Mafque: well as any of the sheriff's bench-boys.' " he faid grace as Skinner derives the word from Hine A. S. quafi domefticus famulus. Spelman from Hengftman, equi curator, inexoμ. STEEVENS. In a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury dated 11th of December 1565, it is faid, "Her Highness (i. e. Queen Elizabeth) hathe of late, wherat fome doo moche marvell, diffolved the auncient office of Henchemen." (Lodge's Illuftrations, Vol. I. p. 358.) On this paffage Mr. Lodge obferves that Henchmen were" a certain number of youths, the fons of gentlemen, who flood or walked near the perfon of the monarch on all publick occafions. They are mentioned in the fumptuary ftatutes of the 4th of Edward the Fourth, and 24th of Henry VIII. and a patent is preferved in the Fadera, Vol. XV. 242, whereby Edward VI. gives to William Bukley, M. A. propter gravitatem morum et doarme abundantiam, officium docendi, erudiendi, atque inftituendi adolefcentulos vocates HENCHMEN; with a falary of 40l. per annum. Henchman, or Heiufman, is a German word, as Blount informs us in his Gl graphia, fignifying a domeftic, whence our ancient term Hind, a fervant in the houfe of a farmer. Dr. Percy, in a note on the Earl of Northumberland's household-book, with lefs probability, derives the appellation from their custom of ftanding by the fide, or Haunch of their Lord." REED. Upon the establishment of the houfhold of Edward IV. were "henxmen fix enfants, or more, as it pleyfeth the king, eatinge in the |