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On the fore-finger of an alderman; • Drawn with a team of little atomies, Athwart mens' nofes as they lie afleep: • Her waggon-fpokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover, of the wings of grafhoppers; The traces, of the fmalleft fpider's web; The collars, of the moonshine's watry beams; Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lafh, of film; Her waggoner a fmall grey-coated gnat, Not half fo big as a round little worm, • Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid. • Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, • Made by the joyner fquirrel, or old grub, • Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers: And in this state fhe gallops, night by night, Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love : • On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtfies strait : O'er lawyers' fingers, who ftrait dream on fees: O'er ladies' lips, who ftrait on kiffes dream, • Which oft the angry Mab with blifters plagues, Because their breaths with fweet-meats tainted are. • 9 Sometimes fhe gallops o'er a courtier's nofe, And then dreams he of fmelling out a fuit:

• And great inaccuracy of expreffion. I am therefore inclined to think that Shakespear read and pointed the paffage thus,

-and he comes

In SHADE; no bigger than an agat-fione.

i. e. fhe comes in the night, and is no bigger &c. 9 Sometimes be gallops o'er a LAWYER's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a fuit:] The old editions have it, COURTIER's nofe; and this undoubtedly is the true reading and for these reasons. First, In the prefent reading there is a vicious repetition in this fine fpeech; the fame thought having been given in the foregoing line,

O'er lawyer's fingers who frait dream on fees:

Nor can it be objected that there will be the fame fault if we read courtier's, it having been faid before,

On courtiers' knees that dream on courtfies firait:

bccaufe

• And fometimes comes fhe with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling the parfon as he lies a fleep;

• Then dreams he of another Benefice.

• Sometimes fhe driveth o'er a foldier's neck,
• And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambufcadoes, Spanish blades,

because they are fhewn in two places under different views in the first, their foppery; in the fecond, their rapacity is ridiculed. Secondly, In our author's time, a court-folicitation was called, fimply, a fuit: and a procefs, a fuit at law, to diftinguish it from the other. The King (lays an anonymous contemporary writer of the life of Sir William Cecil) called him [Sir William Cecil] and after long talk with him, being much delighted with his anfwers, willed his Father to FIND [i. e. to fmell out] A SUIT for him. Whereupon he became SUITER for the reverfion of the Cuitos brevium of fice in the Common Pleas. Which the King willingly graunted, it be ing the firft SUIT he had in his life. Indeed our Poet has very rarely turned his fatire against lawyers and law proceedings; the common topic of later writers. For, to obferve it to the honour of the English judicatures, they preferved the purity and fimplicity of their first institution, long after Chicane had overrun all the other laws of Europe. Philip de Commines gives us a very frank defcription of the horid abuses that had infected the courts of juftice in France fo early as the time of Lewis XIth. Auffi defiroit fort qu' en ce Royaume on ufaft d'une couftume, d'un poix, d'une mesure : et que toutes ces couftumes fuffent mifes en françoys, en un beau Livre, pour eviter la cautelle & la pillerie des advocats: qui eft fi grande en ce Royaume, que nulle autre n'eft femblable, & les nobles d'iceluy la doivent bien cougnoiftre. At this time the administration of the law in England was conducted with great purity and integrity. The reason of this difference I take to be, that, 'till of late, there were few gloffers or commentators on our laws, and those very able, honeft, and concife. While it was the fortune of the other municipal laws of Europe, where the Roman civil law had a fupplemental authority, to be, in imitation of that law, overloaded with gloffes and commentators. And what corruption this practice occafioned in the adminiftration of the Roman law itself, and to what a miferable condition it reduced public julice, we may fee in a long and fine digreffion of the hiftorian Ammianus Marcellinus; who has painted, in very lively colours, the different kinds of vermine, which infected their tribunals and courts of law whereby the state of public justice became in a fhort time fo defperately corrupt, that Juftinian was obliged to new-model and digeft the enormous body of their laws,

• Of

• Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon • Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes; And being thus frighted, fwears a prayer or two, And fleeps again. This is that very Mab, That plats the manes of horfes in the night, • ' And cakes the elf-locks in foul fluttish hairs, • Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That preffes them, and learns them first to bear; Making them women of good carriage:

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Rom. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace; Thou talk'ft of nothing.

Mer. True, I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing, but vain phantafie;
Which is as thin of fubftance as the air,
And more unconftant than the wind; who wooes
Ev'n now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping fouth.

Ben. This wind, you talk of, blows us from our
felves;

Supper is done, and we fhall come too late.
Rom. I fear, too early; for my mind mifgives,
Some confequence, yet hanging in the Stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date

With this night's revels; and expire the term
Of a defpifed life clos'd in my breast,
By fome vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he, that hath the fteerage of my course,
2 Direct my fuit! On, lufty Gentlemen.
Ben. Strike, drum.

[They march about the Stage, and Exeunt.

1 And cakes the elf locks &c.] This was a common fuperftition; and feems to have had its rife from the horrid disease called the Plica Polonica.

2 Direct my fait! -] Suit, for courfe, way, not love fuit.

SCENE

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"he scrape a trencher!

66

2 Ser.

When good manners fhall lie all in one or two mens' hands, and they unwash'd too, 'tis <s a foul thing.

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1 Ser. "Away with the joint-ftools, remove the court-cup-board, look to the plate: good thou, fave me a piece of march-pane; and, as thou loveft me, "let the porter let in Sufan Grindstone, and Nell. Antony, and Potpan

2 Ser. " Ay, boy, ready.

I Ser. "You are look'd for, call'd for, ask'd for, " and fought for, in the great chamber.

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2 Ser. We cannot be here and there too; cheerly, boys; be brisk a while, and the longer liver "take all." [Exeunt. Enter all the Guests and Ladies, with the maskers. 1 Cap. Welcome, Gentlemen. Ladies, that have your feet

Unplagu❜d with corns, we'll have a bout with you.
Ah me, my mistreffes, which of you all

Will now deny to dance? fhe that makes dainty,
I'll swear, hath corns; am I come near you now?
Welcome, all, Gentlemen; I've feen the day
That I have worn a vifor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,

Such as would pleafe: 'tis gone; 'tis gone; 'tis gone! [Mufick plays, and they dance. More light, ye knaves, and turn the tables up;

And

And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah, Sirrah, this unlook'd-for fport comes well.
Nay, fit; nay, fit, good coufin Capulet,
For you and I are paft our dancing days:
How long is't now fince laft your felf and I
Were in a mask?

2 Cap. By'r lady, thirty years.

I Cap. What, man! 'tis not fo much, 'tis not fo much;

'Tis fince the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come Pentecoft as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years, and then we mask'd. 2 Cap. 'Tis more, 'tis more; his fon is elder, Sir: His fon is thirty.

1 Cap. Will you tell me that?

His fon was but a ward two years ago.

Rom. What lady's That, which doth enrich the hand

Of yonder knight?

Ser. I know not, Sir.

Rom. O, fhe doth teach the torches to burn bright; "Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, "Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So fhews a fnowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows fhows.

The measure done, I'll watch her place of Stand,
And, touching hers, make happy my rude hand.
Did my heart love 'till now? forfwear it, fight;
I never faw true beauty 'till this night.

Tyb. This by his voice fhould be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy: what! dares the flave
Come hither cover'd with an antick face,
To fleer and fcorn at our folemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To ftrike him dead I hold it not a fin.

Cap.

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