99. The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud;] In that part of Warwickshire where Shakspere was edu, cated, and the neighbouring parts of Northamptonshire, the shepherds and other boys dig up the turf with their knives, to represent a sort of imperfect chess-board. It consists of a square, sometimes only a foot diameter, sometimes three or four yards. Within this is another square, every side of which is parallel to the external square; and these squares are joined by lines drawn from each corner of both squares, and the middle of each line. One party, or player, has wooden pegs, the other stones, which they move in such a manner as to take up each other's men as they are called, and the area of the inner square is called the Pound, in which the men taken up are impounded. These figures are by the country people called Nine Men's Morris, or Merrils, and are so called, because each party has nine men. These figures are always cut upon the green turf or leys, as they are called, or upon the grass at the end of ploughed lands, and in rainy seasons never fail to be choked up with mud.

JAMES. See Peck on Milton's Masque, 115, Vol. I. p. 135.

STEEVENS.

Nine men's morris is a game still play'd by the shepherds, cowkeepers, &c. in the midland counties, as follows:

A figure is made on the ground (like this which I have drawn) by cutting out the turf; and two persons take each nine stones, which they place by turns

in the angles, and afterwards more alternately, as at chess or drafts. He who can place three in a strait line, may then take off any one of his adversary's where he pleases, till one, having lost all his men, loses the game.

ALCHQRNE.

In Cotgrave's Dictionary, under the articles Merelles, is the following explanation. "Le Jeu des Merelles. The boyish game called Merils, or fivepenny morris ; played here most commonly with stones, but in France with pawns, or men made on purpose, and termed merelles." The pawns or figures of men used in the game might originally be black, and hence called morris, or merelles, as we yet term a black cherry a

morello,

morello, and a small black cherry a merry, perhaps from Maurus a Moor, or rather from morum a mulberry. TOLLET.

102. The human mortals- -] Shakspere might have employed this epithet, which, at first sight, appears redundant, to mark the difference between men and fairies. Fairies were not human, but they were yet subject to mortality. STEEVENS,

See their genealogy in Spenser's Faery Queen, B. II, c. 10, or has it has been epitomized by Mr. Warton in his Observations on Spenser, Vol. I. p. 55,

REED.

It should seem, however, by what follows, that Shakspere considered Fairies as immortal: for Titania, speaking of her henchman's mother, remarks to Oberon :

"But she, being mortal, of that boy did die." If this observation be founded, the sense of the epithet is obvious. HENLEY. 102. The human mortals want their winter HERE,] Dr Warburton, under the idea that winter is an evil which human mortals would gladly be exempt from, proposes to read:

"The human mortals want their winter HERY ED" that is, praised, celebrated; and considers this alteration as confirmed by the line that follows,

According to a news-paper critick, cited by Mr. Reed, the human mortals, mean the distressed Amazons whom Theseus had conquered; whilst here is to be understood of Hippolita their princess, who was carried

Diij

carried captive by Theseus to Athens: it being an old word from the Teutonick HERR, Belgic, HEER, Do, minus; and both from the Latin HERUS, a lord or

master.

The human mortals want their winter here,

i. e." their princess, the encourager of their winter revels." For the use of the word here he refers to Douglas's Virgil, fol. 258. 1. 49, &c. &c.

Dr. Johnson, after all the endeavours of preceding editors, considers the passage as still unintelligible, and therefore proposes not only to read for winter here, WONTED YEAR; but also to dislocate in two instances the arrangement of the passage; for which he, however, confesses, that he neither gives himself credit, nor expects it from the reader.

Sir T. Hanmer proposed to read cheer, and with him concur Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone, the latter remarking that the first folio reads heere.

To me, however, the sense of the passage appears unembarrassed. That cheer could not have been the true reading seems obvious; as the evils complained of were not felt universally, but confined to those ONLY who inhabited the immediate district of the Fairies' haunt- -The human mortals want their winter here.

The reason that

No night is now with hymn or carol blest : abundantly appears from the prevailing distemperature of the seasons (the 'mazed world not knowing which is which), and the evils resulting from them.

These

1

These evils-which not only render the face of the earth unpleasant, but destroy also the hopes of the coming year, cut off the flocks, infect the human constitution with diseases, and preclude the customary festivities of the time-the wholesome severities of a dry winter are ever effectual to remove.

HENLEY.

The repeated adverb, therefore, throughout this speech, I suppose to have constant reference to the first time when it is used.-All these irregularities of season, happened in consequence of the disagreement between the king and queen of the fairies, and not in consequence of each other.-Ideas crowded fast on Shakspere; and as he committed them to paper, he did not attend to the distance of the leading object from which they took their rise.-Mr. Malone concurs with me on this occasion.

That the festivity and hospitality attending Christmas, decreased, was the subject of complaint to many of our ludicrous writers.-Among the rest to Nash, whose comedy, called Summer's Last Will and Testament, made its first appearance in the same year with this play, viz. 1600. There Christmas is introduced, and Summer says to him:

"Christmas, how chance thou com'st not as the

rest

"Accompanied with some musick or some song? "A merry carrol would have grac'd thee well, Thy ancestors have us'd it heretofore."

Christmas.