i. e. their arms unserviceable. Hence when one would give another absolute assurance of meeting him, he would say proverbially hold or cut bow-strings - i. e. whether the bow strings held or broke. For cut is used as a neuter like the verb fret. As when we say, the string frets, the silk frets, for the passive, it is cut or fretted. WARBURTON'

This interpretation is very ingenious, but somewhat disputable. The excuse made by the militia soldiers is a mere supposition, without proof; and it is well known that while bows were in use, no archer ever entered the field without a supply of strings in his pocket; whence originated the proverb, to have two strings to one's bow.

STEEVENS,

To meet, whether bow-strings hold or are cut, is to meet in all events. To cut the bowstring, when bows were in use, was probably a common practice of those who bore enmity to the archer. MALONE.

P. 106, 1. 10. Swifter than the moones sphere;] Unless we suppose this to be the Saxon genitive case, (as it is here printed,) the metre will be defective.

So, in a letter from Gabriel Harvey to. Spenser, 1580,,Have we not Gods hys wrath, for Goddes wrath, and a thousand of the same stampe, wherein the corrupte orthography in the moste, hath Been the sole or principal cause of corrupte pro, sodye in over-many?" STEEVENS.

P. 106, 1. 12. The orbs here mentioned are the circles supposed be made by the fairies on the ground, whose verdure proceeds from the fairies care to water them. JoHNSON.

P. 106, 1. 13. The cowslip was a favourite

among the fairies. There is a hint in Drayton of their attention to May morning:

For the Queen a fitting tower,
,,Quoth he, is that fair cowslip flower.
„In all your train there's not a fay.
,,That ever went to gather May,

,,But she hath made it in her way,

„The tallest there that groweth. JOHNSON, This was said in consequence of Queen Elizabeth's fashionable establishment of a band of miiitary courtiers, by the name of pensioners. They were some of the handsomest and tallest young men of the best families and fortune, that could be found. Hence, says Mrs. Quickly, in The Merry Wives, Act II. sc. ii: and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, Pensioners." They gave the mode in dress and diversions. They accompanied the Queen in her progress to Cambridge, where they held staff- torches at a play on a Sunday evening in King's College Chapel.

"

T. WARTON. P. 106, 1. 13. 14. The cowslips tall her pensioners be;

In their gold coats spots you see;] Shakspeare, in Cymbeline, refers to the same red spots:

A mole cinque - spotted, like the crimson

drops

,,I' th' bottom of a cowslip."

PERCY.

Perhaps there is likewise some allusion to the habit of a pensioner. STEEVENS.

P. 106, l. 19. Lob, lubber, looby, lobcock, all denote both inactivity of body and dulness of mind. JOHNSON.

P. 106, last 1. Changeling is commonly used

for the child supposed to be left by the fairies, but here for a child taken away. JOHNSON.

It is here properly used, and in its common acceptation; that is for a child got in exchange. A fairy is now speaking. RITSON.

P. 107, 1. 7. — sheen,] Shining, bright, gay.

: JOHNSON. P. 107, 1. 8. To square here is to quarrel. The French word contrecarrer has the same import. JOHNSON. It is somewhat whimsical, that the glasiers use the words square and quarrel as synonymous terms, for a pane of glass. BLACKSTONE.

P. 107, 1. 12. 13. Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite,

Call'd Robin Good-fellow:] This account of Robin Good-fellow corresponds, in every article, with that given of him in Harsenet's Declaration, ch. xx. P. 134:,,And if that the bowle of curds and creame were not duly set out for Robin Goodfellow, the frier, and Sisse the dairy maid, why then either the pottage was burnt to next day in the pot, or the cheeses, would not curdle, or the butter would not coine, or the ale in the fat never would have good head. But if a Peter-penny, or an housle-egge were behind, or a patch of tythe unpaid, then ware of bull beggars, spirits," etc. He is men tioned by Cartwright [ Ordinary Act III. sc. i.] as a spirit particularly fond of disconcerting and disturbing domestic peace and oeconomy.

T. WARTON.

Reginald Scot gives the same account of this frolicksome spirit, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, Lond. 1584, 4to. p. 66: „Your grandames' maids' were wont to set a bowl of milk for him, for

his pains in grinding malt and mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight this white bread and bread and milk, was his standing fee."

STEEVENS.

P. 107, 1. 13-17. The sense of these lines is confused. Are not you he, says the fairy, `thất fright the country girls, that skim milk, work in the hand-mill, and make the tired dairywoman churn without effect? The mention of the mill seems out of place, for she is not now telling the good, but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus:

,,And sometimes make the breathless house

Or, by a simple transposition of the lines:
„And bootless make the breathless housewife
churn

Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the

quern."

Yet there is no necessity of alteration.

A

JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson thinks the mention of the mill out of place, as the Fairy is not now telling the good but the evil he does. The observation will apply, with equal force, to his skimming the milk, which, if it were done at a proper time, and the cream preserved, would be a piece of service. But we must understand both to be mischievous pranks. He skims the milk, when it ought not to be skimmed : and grinds the corn, when it is not wanted; at the same time

perhaps throwing the flour about the house.

RITSON.

A Quern is a hand-mill, kucrna, mola. Islandic. STEEVINS.

P. 107, 1. 18. Barme is a name for yeast, yet used in our midland counties, and universally in Ireland. STEEVENS..

P. 107, 1. 19. It will be apparent to him that shall compare Drayton's poem with this play, that either one of the poets copied the other, or, as I rather believe, that there was then some system of the fairy empire generally received, which they both represented as accurately as they could. Whether Drayton or Shakspeare wrote first, I' cannot discover. JOHNSON.

The editor of The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in 4 vols. Evo. 1775, supposes Drayton to have been the follower of Shakspeare; for, says he, ,,Don Quixote (which was not published ill 1605,) is cited in The Nymphidia, whereas we have an edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1600." In this century some of our poets have been as little scrupulous in adopting the ideas of their predecessors.

Mr. Pope is more indebted to Chaucer for beauties inserted in his Eloisa to Ahelard, than he has been willing to acknowledge.

STEEVENS.

Don Quixote, though published in Spain in 1605, was probably httle known in England till. Skelton's translation appeared in 1612. Drayton's poem was, I have no doubt, subsequent to that year. The earliest edition of it that I have scent, was printed in 1619. MALONE.

P. 107, 1. 19. and sweet Puck,] The epithet is by no means superfluous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appella