To the fire i' th' blood: be more abstemious,
Or elfe good night, your vow!

Ferdinand's Answer.

I warrant you, Sir;

The white, cold, virgin-snow upon my heart
Abates the ardor of my liver.

Vanity of human Nature.

Prof, Our revels now are ended: these our actors (As I foretold you) were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air : And like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, 'The folemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea all who it inherit, shall diffolve (33): And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack (34) behind! We are such stuff

I do know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the foul
Lends the tongue vows, &c.

And in All's well that ends well, the countess observes,
Nat'ral rebellion done in the blaze of youth,
When oil and fire too strong for reason's force,
O'erbears it, and burns on.

As

(33) Shall diffolve.] "This," says Upton," is exactly from scripture," 2 Peter iii. 11, 12. "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, &c. the heavens being on fire shall be diffolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." And Ifaiah xxxiv. 4. "And all the host of heaven shall be diffolved." See Obfervations on Shakespear, p. 224.

(34) A rack.] i. e. No track or path. See Upton's Obfervations, p. 212. "The winds," says Lord Bacon, "which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, and are not perceived below, pass without noise."

As dreams are made of; and our little life (35) Is rounded with a fleep.

Drunkards inchanted by Ariel.

Ariel. I told you, Sir, they were red-hot with

drinking;

So full of valour, that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces: beat the ground
For kissing of their feet: yet always bending
Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor;
At which, like unback'd colts, they prickt their ears,
Advanc'd (36) their eye-lids, lifted up their noses,
As they smelt mufic: so I charm'd their ears,
That, calf-like, they my lowing follow'd through
Tooth'd briars, sharp furzes, pricking goss and thorns,
Which enter'd their frail skins: at last I left 'em

I' th'

(35) See Anthony and Cleopatra, Act 4.
(36) Advanc'd, &c.] So, a little before, we have,

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance. Act 1. Drayton, in his Court of Fairie, of Hobgoblin caught in a Spell, has these lines,

But once the circle got within
The charms to work do straight begin,
And he was caught as in a gin.
For as he thus was bufy,
A pain he in his head-piece feels,
Against a stubbed tree he reels,
And up went poor Hobgoblin's heels:

Alas, his brain was dizzy.
At length upon his feet he gets,
Hobgoblin fumes, Hobgoblin frets,
And as again he forward fets,

And through the bushes scrambles,
A stump doth hit him in his pace,
Down comes poor Hob upon his face,
And lamentably tore his cafe

Among the briars and brambles.

I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
There dancing up to the chins.

Caliban.

Prof. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature

Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, are all loft, quite loft;
And as, with age, his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers.

Light of Foot.

Pray (37) you, tread softly, that the blind mole

may not

Hear a foot fall.

Conceited Governor.

Trin. Do, do: we steal by line and level, and't like your grace.

Ste. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment for't: wit shall not go unrewarded, while I am king of this country : "Steal by line and level," is an excellent pass of pate: there's another garment for 't,

ACT V. SCENE I.

Fine Sentiment, of Humanity on Repentance.

Ariel.

The king,

His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brim full of forrow and dismay; but chiefly

Him that you term'd the good old lord Gonzalo,

His

(37) Pray, &c.] -Thou found and frm-fet earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my where-about.

Macbeth, Act 2. Sc. 2. See the whole passage.

His tears run down his beard, like winter drops
From eaves of reeds; your charm so strongly works 'em,
That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Prof. Do'st thou think so, spirit?

Ari. Mine would, Sir, were I human.
Prof. And mine shall.

Haft thou, who art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Paffion (38) as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
Tho' with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,
Yet with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury
(39) Do I take part; the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent
The fole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown farther.

Fairies and Magic.

(40) Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and

groves

(38) Paffion] is a verb in S. " I feel every thing with the fame quick sensibility, and am moved by the fam paffrons as they are." So in the Gentlemen of Verona,

Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
For Theseus, &c.

Again in his Venus and Adonis,

St.

Dumbly she passions, franticly she doateth. (39) See Measure for Measure, Act 2. Sc. 7. &ι, (40) S. is in nothing confessedly more inimitable than in his fairies and magic, of which, this play and the Midfummer Night's Dream are striking proofs. How inferior is Ovid to him, when he makes Medea, the most celebrated forcerefs, speak thus,

Stantia concutio cantu freta, nubila pello,
Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque vocoque

D3

Vipereafque

Vipereasque rumpo verbis & carmine fauces;
Vivaque faxa fua convulfaque robora terra,
Et filvas moveo, jubeoque tremefcere montes,
Et mugire folum, manesque exire fepulchris.

Oft by your aid swift currents I have led
Thro' wand'ring banks back to their fountain-head:
Transform'd the profpect of the briny deep,
Made fleeping billows rave, and raving billows sleep:
Made clouds or fun-shine; tempests rise or fall,
And stubborn lawless winds obey my call:
With mutter'd words difarm'd the viper's jaw;
Up by the roots vast oaks and rocks I'd draw :
Make forests dance, and trembling mountains come
Like malefactors to receive their doom;

}

Earth groan, and frighted ghosts forsake their tomb..

Tate.

Viva faxa, & mugire folum, are as ftrong as graves wak'd their fleepers in our author, which every true reader of S. will immediately acknowledge the genuine reading; it is indeed extremely bold, and for that reason, the more likely to be his: yet it may be justified by the usage of other poets, as Theobald has obferved. Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Bonduca, speak of the power of Fame, as waking graves;

Wakens the ruin'd monument, and there
Where nothing but eternal death and fleep is,
Informs again the dead bones.

And Virgil speaking of Rome, as a city, says, It furrounded its feven hills with a wall.

Scilicet & rerum facta eft pulcherrima Roma,
Septemque una fibi muro circundedit arces.

Great Rome became the mistress of the world,
And fingle with her walls seven hills inclos'd.

Trapp, G. 2. at the end.

But the reader will find, in Measure for Meafure, an expreffion of S's, equally bold with this in question. See p. 137. and n. 46.

The reader is defired to turn back to the 234th page, MidSummer Night's Dream.

And