MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

BY

WILL. SHAKSPERE:

Printed Complete from the TEXT of

SAM. JOHNSON and GEO. STEEVENS,

And revised from the last Editions.

When Learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First rear'd the Stage, immortal SHAKSPERE rose;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new;
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain :
His pow'rful strokes presiding Truth confess'd,
And unresisted Passion storm'd the breast.

DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

LONDON:

Printed for, and under the direction of,
JOHN BELL, British-Library, STRAND.

MDCCLXXXV.

OBSERVATIONS

ON THE Fable And Composition OF THE

MIDSUMMER-NIGHT's DREAM.

THIS play was entered at Stationers' Hall, O&. 8. 1600, by Thomas Fisher. It is probable that the hint for it was received from Chaucer's Knight's Tale. Thence it is, that our author speaks of Theseus as duke of Athens. The tale begins thus: "Whilom as olde stories tellen us,

"There was a Duk that highte Theseus,

"Of Athenes he was lord and governour, &c."

Late edit. v. 861. Lidgate too, the monk of Bury, in his translation of the Tragedies of John Bochas, calls him by the same title, chap. xii. 1. 21. "Duke Theseus had the victorye."

Creon, in the tragedy of Jocasta, translated from Euripides in 1566, is called Duke Creon:

So likewise Skelton :

"Not lyke Duke Hamilcar,

"Nor lyke Duke Asdruball."

Stanyhurst, in hi. translation of Virgil, calls Æneas, Duke Æneas; and in Heywood's Iron Age, 2d Part, 1632, Ajax is styled Duke Ajax, Palamedes, Duke Palamedes, and Nestor, Duke Nestor, &c. STEEVENS.

Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their va rious modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure

which the author designed.

fashion

Fairies in his time were much in

; common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great. JOHNSON.

Dramatis perfonae,

MEN

THESEUS, Duke of Athens.

EGEUS, Father to Hermia.

LYSANDER, in love with Hermia.

DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia.
PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Sports to Theseus.

QUINCE, the Carpenter.

SNUG, the Joiner.

BOTTOM, the Weaver.

FLUTE, the Bellows-Mender.

SNOUT, the Tinker,

STARVELING, the Taylor.

WOMEN,

HIEPOLITA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus. HERMIA, Daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. HELENA, in love with Demetrius.

Attendants.

OBERON, King of the Fairies.

TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies.

PUCK, or ROBIN-GOODFELLOW, a Fairy.

Other Fairies attending their King and Queen: Attendants on

Theseus and Hippolitą.

SCENE, Athens, and a Wood not far from it.

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove :

A sweet Athenian lady is in love

With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes;
But do it, when the next thing he espies
May be the lady: Thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care; that he may prove
More fond on her, than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
Puck. Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

270

[Exeunt.

SCENE 111.

Another Part of the Wood. Enter the Queen of Fairies,

with her Train.

Queen. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song ; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence: Some, to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds; Some, war with rear-mice for their leathern wings, To make my small elves coats; and some, keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots, and wonders At our quaint spirits: Sing me now asleep; Then to your offices, and let me rest,

First Fairy.

You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedge-hogs, be not seen;

D

280

Newts,