come, or the ale in the fat never would have got
head. But if pater-noster, or an housle egge were
beturned, or a patch of tythe unpaid-then beware
of bull-beggars, spirits," &c. He is mentioned by
Cartwright as a spirit particularly fond of diconcerting
and disturbing domestick peace and oeconomy.
Saint Francis and Saint Benedight

Blesse this house from wicked wight;
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is hight goodfellow Robin.

Keep it, &c.

Cartwright's Ordinary, act iii. sc. i. v. 8. WARTON. Reginald Scot gives the same account of this frolicksome spirit, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, Lond. 1588. 4to. p. 66. "Your grandames, maids, were wont to set a bowl of milk for him, for his pains in grinding of malt and mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight-this white bread and bread and milk, was his standing fee." STEEVENS.

36. Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,—] A Quern is a hand-mili, kuerna, mola. Islandic. So in Stanyhurst's translation of the first book of Virgil, 1582, quern-stones are mill-stones :

"Theyre corne in quern-stoans they do grind," &c.

Again, in The More the Merrier, a collection of epigrams, 1608:

"Which like a querne can grind more in an hour." Ciij

Again,

Again, in the old Song of Robin Goodfellow, printed

in the 3d volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry:

38.

"I grind at mill,

"Their malt up still," &c,

STEEVENS,

nó barm;] Barme is a name for yeast, yet used in our midland counties, and universally in Ire land. STEEVENS. 40. Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,

You do their work.] To those tradition, ary opinions Milton has reference in L'Allegro : “Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,With stories told of many a feat, How Fairy Mab the junkets eat; She was pinch'd and pull'd she said, And he by friar's lanthorn led; Tell how the drudging goblin sweat To earn his cream-bowl duly set, When in one night, ere glimpse of morn, His shadowy flail had thresh'd the corn, Which ten day-labourers could not end; Then lies him down the lubber fiend.

A like account of Puck is given by Drayton, in his
Nymphidia:

He meeteth Puck, which most men call
Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.-
This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,
Still walking like a ragged colt,
And oft out of a bed doth bolt,
Of purpose to deceive us ;

And

And leading us makes us to stray,
Long winters' nights out of the way,
And when we stick in mire and clay,

He doth with laughter leave us.

It will be apparent to him that shall compare Dray. ton'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 Shakspere wrote first, I cannot discover. JOHNSON,

The editor of the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, in 4 vols. 8vo. 1775, has incontrovertibly proved Drayton to have been the follower of Shakspere; for, says he, "Don Quixot (which was not published till 1605.) is cited in the Nymphidia, whereas we have an edition of the 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. In Gay's ballad, inserted in the What d'ye call it, is the following stanza:

"How can they say that nature

"Has nothing made in vain ;

"Why then beneath the water

"Should hideous rocks remain ?" &c. &c. Compare this with a passage in Chaucer's Frankeleines

Tale, late edit. V. I. 11179, &c.

"In idel, as men sain, ye nothing make,

"But, lord, thise grisly fendly rockes blake,"

&c. &c.

And

And Mr. Pope is more indebted to the same author for beauties in his Eloisa to Abelard, than he has been willing to acknowledge. STEEVENS.

If Drayton wrote the Nymphidia after the Midsummer Night's Dream had been acted, he could with very little propriety say,

"Than since no muse hath bin so bold,

"Or of the later or the ould,

"Those elvish secrets to unfold

"Which lye from others reading; "My active muse to light shall bring “The court of that proud fayry king "And tell there of the revelling,

"Jove prosper my proceeding."

T. H. W.

-sweet Puck,] The epithet is by no means superAuous; as Puck alone was far from being an endearing appellation. It signified nothing better than fiend, or devil. So, the author of Pierce Ploughman puts the pouk for the devil, fol. xc. b. v. penult. See also fol. lxvii. v. 15. none helle powke."

66

It seems to have been an old Gothic word, Puke, puken; Sathanas. Gudm. And. Lexicon Island.

TYRWHITT.

In the Bugbears, an ancient MS. comedy in the possession of the Earl of Shelburne, I likewise met with this appellation of a fiend :

"Puckes, puckerels, hob howlard, bygorn and Robin Goodfellow. Again, in The Scourge of Venus, or the Wanton Lady, with the rare Birth of Adonis, 1614;

"Their bed doth shake and quaver as they lie,
"As if it groan'd to beare the weight of sinne ;
"The fatal night-crowes at their windowes flee,
"And crie out at the shame they do live in :
"And that they may perceive the heavens frown,
"The poukes and goblins pul the coverings
down."

Again, in Spenser's Epithal. 1595:

"Ne let house-fyres, nor lightning's helpelesse harms,

"Ne let the pouke, nor other evil spright,

"Ne let mischievous witches with their charmes STEEVENS.

"Ne let hobgobline," &c. 43. Puck. Thou speak'st aright;] I would fill up the verse which I suppose the author left complete:

I am, thou speak'st aright;

It seems that in the Fairy mythology, Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakspere Titania. For in Drayton's Nymphidia, the same fairies are engaged in the same business. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, sends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs opposes him by a spell. JOHNSON. -a roasted crab ;] See the song at the end of STEEVENS.

49.

Love's Labour's Lost.

52. The wisest aunt,-] Aunt is procuress. In Gas. coigne's Glass of Government, 1575, the bawd Panda. rina is always called aunt. "These are aunts of Antwerp,