That we are awake?-it seems to me, That yet we fleep, we dream.-Do not you think, Hel. And Hippolita. From Gemellus, a twin. For Demetrius had that night acted two fuch different parts, that she could hardly think them both played by one and the fame Demetrius; but that there were twin Deme. triufes like the two Sofias in the farce. From Gemellus comes the French, Gemeau or Jumeau, and in the feminine, Gemelle or Jumelle: So in Maçon's tranflation of the Decameron of Boccace"Il avoit trois filles plus âgées que les mafles, des quelles les deux qui eftoient, JUMELLES avoient quinze ans." Quatrieme Jour. Nov. 3. WARBURTON. This emendation is ingenious enough to deferve to be true. "The JOHNSON. Dr. Warburton has been accused of coining the word, gemell: but Drayton has it in the preface to his Baron's Wars. quadrin doth never double; or to use a word of heraldrie, never bringeth forth gemels." FARMER. Again: "-unless they had been all gemels or couplets.' STEEVENS. Helena, I think, only means to fay, that having found Demetrius unexpectedly, the confidered her property in him as infecure as that which a perfon has in a jewel that he has found by accident, which he knows not whether he fhall retain, and which therefore may properly enough be called his own and not his own. Helena does not fay, as Dr. Warburton has reprefented, that Demetrius was like a jewel, but that she had found him, like a jewel &c. A kindred thought occurs in Antony and Cleopatra : 66 -by starts "His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear The fame kind of expreffion is found alfo in The Merchant of Venice: "Where ev'ry fomething, being blent together, "Expreft, and not expreft." MALONE. See also the REVISAL, P. 57. 2 EDITOR. Are you fure That we are awake?] This paffage, hitherto omitted, I have restored from the quartos, 1600. STEEVENS. Lyf. Lyf. And he did bid us follow to the temple. Dem. Why then, we are awake: let's follow him; And, by the way, let us recount our dreams. [Exeunt., As they go out, Bottom awakes. Bot. When my cue comes, call me, and I will anfwer-my next is, Moft fair Pyramus-Hey, ho!-Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout the tinker! Starveling! God's my life! ftol'n hence, and left me afleep! I have had a moft rare vifion. I have had a dream,-paft the wit of man to fay what dream it was: Man is but an afs, if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and methought I had,― But man is but a patch'd fool', if he will offer to fay what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the car of man hath not feen; man's hand is not able to tafte, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it fhall be call'd Bottom's Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will fing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke": Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I fhall fing it at her death. [Exit. SCENE — man is but a patch'd fool,] The quarto, 1600, gives the paffage thus; "But man is but patch'd a fool, &c. STEEVENS. s Patel'd fool] That is, a fool in a particolour'd coat. JOHNSON. 6 I will fing, &c.] In former editions: Peradventure to make it the more gracious, I fhall fing it at her death. At whose death? In Bottom's fpeech there is no mention of any fhe creature, to whom this relative can be coupled. I make not the leaft fcruple but Bottom, for the fake of a jeft, and to render his voluntary, as we may call it, the more gracious and extraordinary, faid;—I shall fing it after death. He, as Pyramus, is kill'd upon the fcene; and fo might promife to rife again at the conclufion of the interlude, and give the duke his dream by way of fong. The fource of the corruption of the text is very obvious. The fin after being funk by the vulgar pronunciation, the copyift might write it from the Athens. Quince's Houfe. Enter Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling. Quin. Have you fent to Bottom's houfe? is he come home yet? Star. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt, he is tranfported. Flu. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; It goes not forward, doth it? Quin. It is not poffible: you have not a man in all Athens, able to discharge Pyramus, but he. Flu. No; he hath fimply the best wit of any handycraft man in Athens. Quin. Yea, and the beft perfon too: and he is a very paramour, for a sweet voice. Flu. You must fay, paragon: a paramour is, God blefs us a thing of nought. Enter Snug. Snug. Mafters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married: if our fport had gone forward, we had all been made men 9. the found,-a'ter: which the wife editors not understanding, concluded, two words were erroneoufly got together; fo, splitting them, and clapping in an b, produced the prefent reading-at her. THEOBALD. 7-at her death.] He means the death of Thifte, which is what his head is at prefent full of. STEEVENS. A thing of nought.] This Mr. Theobald changes with great pomp to a thing of naught; i. c. a good for nothing thing. JOHNSON. A thing of nought is the true reading. So in Hamlet: Ham. The king is a thing "Guil. A thing my lord? See the note on this paffage. STEEVENS. 9 made men. In the fame fenfe as in the Tempest, any monfier in England makes a man. See vol. i. p. 64. JOHNSON Flu. Flu. O fweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he loft fixpence a-day during his life; he could not have 'fcaped fix-pence a-day: an the duke had not given him fix-pence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll be hang'd; he would have deferv'd it: fix-pence a day, in Pyramus, or nothing'. Enter Bottom. Bot. Where are these lads? where are these hearts? Quin. Bottom!-O moft courageous day! O most happy hour! Bot. Mafters, I am to difcourfe wonders: but afk me not what; for, if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you every thing, right as it fell out. Quin. Let us hear, fweet Bottom. Bot. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you, is, that the duke hath dined: Get your apparel together; good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet prefently at the palace; every man look o'er his part; for, the short and the long is, our play is preferr'd. In any cafe, let Thisby have clean linen; and let not him, that plays the lion, pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions, nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them fay, it is a fweet comedy. No more words; away; go, away. [Exeunt. 1-fixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.] Shakspeare has already ridiculed the title-page of Cambyfes by Tho. Prefton; and here he seems to aim a perfonal stroke at him. Prefion acted a part in John Ritwife's play of Dido before queen Elizabeth at Cambridge, in 1564; and the queen was fo well pleafed, that The bestowed on him a penfion of twenty pounds a year, which is little more than a fhilling a day. Our poet, in the first part of Henry IV. has made Falstaff declare, that when he prefented the prince's father, he would do it, "In King Cambyfes' vein." STEEVENS. ACT ACT V. SCENE I. The Palace. Enter Thefeus, Hippolita, Egeus, Philoftrate, Lords, &c. Hip. 'Tis ftrange, my Thefeus, that these lovers speak of. The. More ftrange than true. I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers, and madmen, have fuch feething brains, Such shaping fantafies that apprehend More than cool reafon ever comprehends. The lunatick, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact': One fees more devils than vaft hell can hold; The poet's eye, s in a fine frenzy rolling, And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 2 These beautiful lines are in all the old editions thrown out of metre. They are very well restored by the later editors. JOHNSON. 3 Are of imagination all compact:] i. e. made up of mere imagination. So, in As You Like It: "If he, compact of jars, grow mufical." STEEVENS. 4 That is the madman: the lover, all as frantick,] Such is the reading of all the old copies; instead of which, the modern editors have given us : "The madman: while the lover all as frantick." STEEVENS. 5-in a fine frenzy rolling- ] This feems to have been imitated by Drayton in his Epile to J. Reynolds on Poets and Poetry: defcribing Marlowe, he says: that fine madness ftill he did retain, "Which rightly should poffefs a poet's brain!" MALONE. Turns |