the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled, in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show.

King. Call them forth quickly, we will do so.
Arm. Holla! approach.

Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH,
COSTARD, and others.

This side is Hiems, winter; this Ver, the spring; the one maintain❜d by the owl, the other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

SONG.

I.

Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue,

And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds70 of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

II.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

70 Gerarde in his Herbal, 1597, says, that the flos cuculi cardamine, &c. are called 'in English cuckoo flowers, in Norfolk Canterbury bells, and at Namptwich, in Cheshire, Ladie-smocks.' In Lyte's Herbal, 1578, it is remarked, that cowslips are, in French, of some called coquu prime vere, and brayes de coquu. Herbe a coqu was one of the old French names for the cowslip, which it seems probable is the flower here meant. See Lear, Act i. Sc. 4.

The cuckoo, then, on every tree,

Mocks married men, for thus sings he,
Cuckoo ;

Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear

III.

!

Winter. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

To-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

IV.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs 71 hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;

To-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot72.

71 This wild English apple, roasted before the fire, and put into ale, was a very favourite indulgence in old times.

72 To keel, or kele, is to cool, from Celan, Anglo Saxon. Latterly it seems to have been applied particularly to the cooling of boiling liquor. To keel the pot is to cool it by stirring the pottage with the ladle to prevent the boiling over. Tooke was un

aware of the following ancient example, or he would have been less severe upon the commentators:

'And lered men a ladel bygge, with a long stele

That cast for to kele a crokke, and save the fatte above.'

P. Plouhman, p. 380. Ed. 1813.

Arm. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way; we, this way. [Exeunt.

In this play, which all the editors have concurred to censure, and some have rejected as unworthy of our poet, it must be confessed that there are many passages mean, childish, and vulgar; and some which ought not to have been exhibited, as we are told they were, to a maiden queen. But there are scattered through the whole many sparks of genius; nor is there any play that has more evident marks of the hand of Shakspeare. JOHNSON.

END OF VOL. II.

C. and C. Whittingham, College House, Chiswick.