Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;"
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;7
Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

more common usage, and that which he has preferred, I have corrected the former word. Malone.

6 Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;] The sense of these lines is confused. Are not you he, (says the fairy,) that fright the country girls, that skim milk, work in the handmill, and make the tired dairy-woman churn without effect? The mention of the mill seems out of place, for she is not now telling the good, but the evil that he does. I would regulate the lines thus:

And sometimes make the breathless housewife churn
Skim milk, and bootless labour in the quern.

Or, by a simple transposition of the lines:

And bootless make the breathless housewife churn Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern. Yet there is no necessity of alteration. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson thinks the mention of the mill out of place, as the fairy is not now telling the good, but the evil he does. The observation will apply, with equal force, to his skimming the milk, which, if it were done at a proper time, and the cream preserved, would be a piece of service. But we must understand both to be mischievous pranks. He skims the milk, when it ought not to be skimmed:

(So, in Grim the Collier of Croydon:

"But woe betide the silly dairy-maids,

"For I shall fleet their cream-bowls night by night.") and grinds the corn, when it is not wanted; at the same time, perhaps, throwing the flour about the house.

Ritson.

A Quern is a hand-mill, kuerna, mola. Islandic. So, in Chaucer's Monkes Tale:

"Wheras they made him at the querne grinde." Again, 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."

Again, in the old Song of Robin Goodfellow, printed in the 3d volume of Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry:

"I grind at mill,

"Their malt up still," &c. Steevens.

7-no barm;] Barme is a name for yeast, yet used in our midland counties, and universally in Ireland. So, in Mother Bombie, a comedy, 1594: "It behoveth my wits to work like barme, alias yeast." Again, in The Humorous Lieutenant, of Beaumont and Fletcher:

"I think my brains will work yet, without barm" Steevens.

8

Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:

8 Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,

You do their work,] To those traditionary 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 frier's lanthorn led;
"Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
"To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

"When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
"His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn,
"That 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

66

"Hobgoblin, and on him doth fall.

"This Puck seems but a dreaming dolt,

"Still walking like a ragged colt,
"And oft out of a bush doth bolt,

"Of purpose to deceive us;

"And leading us, makes us to stray,
"Long winter's 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 Drayton'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 Shakspeare wrote first, I cannot discover. Johnson.

Gervase of Tilbury, speaking of the Portunus, a species of dæmon, says: Cum inter ambiguas noctis tenebras Angli solitarii equitant, Portunus nonnunquam invisus equitanti se copulat, et cum diutius comitatur euntem, tandem loris arreptis equum in lutum ad manum ducit, in quo dum infixus volutatur, Portunus exiens cachinnum facit, & sic hujuscemodi ludibrio humanam simplicitatem deridet." See also Mr. Tyrwhitt, on v. 6441, of the Cant. Tales of Chaucer.

The same learned editor supposes Drayton to have been the follower of Shakspeare; for, says he, Don Quixote (which was not published till 1605) is cited in the Nymphidia, whereas we have an edition of A 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:

Are not you he?

"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, Tyrwhitt's edit. v. i, 11,179, &c.

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

"But, lord, thise grisly fendly rockes blake," &c. &c.

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

If Drayton wrote The Nymphidia after A Midsummer Night's Dream had been acted, he could with very little propriety say: "Then since no muse hath been 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."

Holt White.

Don Quixote, though published in Spain, in 1605, was probably little known in England, till Skelton's translation appeared, in 1612. Drayton's poem was, I have no doubt, subsequent to that year. The earliest edition of it, that I have seen, was printed in 1619. Malone.

sweet Puck,] The epithet is by no means superfluous; 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. lxxxx, B. V, penult. See also, fol. lxvii, v. 15: " none helle powke."

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 Marquis of Lansdowne, I likewise met with this appellation of a fiend:

"Puckes, puckerels, hob howlard, by gorn and Robin Goodfelow."

Again, in The Scourge of Venus, or the wanton Lady, with the rare Birth of Adonis, 1615:

"Their bed doth shake and quaver as they lie,

"As if it groan'd to bear the weight of sinne ;
"The fatal night-crowes at their windowes flee,
"And cry out at the shame they do live in:
"And that they may perceive the heavens frown,
"The poukes and goblins pul the coverings down."

Puck.

Thou speak'st aright;"

I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing, in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;1

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither'd dew-lap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,

Again, in Spenser's Epithalamion, 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,

"Ne let hobgoblins," &c.

Again, in the ninth Book of Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, edit. 1587, p. 126:

66

and the country where Chymæra, that same pooke, "Hath goatish bodie," &c. Steevens.

9 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 Shakspeare, 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.

1 — a roasted crab;] i. e. a wild apple of that name. So, in the anonymous play of King Henry V, &c.

"Yet we will have in store a crab in the fire,

"With nut-brown ale," &c.

Again, in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

"And sit down in my chaire by my wife fair Alison,
"And turne a crabbe in the fire," &c.

So, in the old ballad:

"I love no rost, but a nut-brown toast
"And a crab laid in the fire,

"And little bread shall do me stead;

"Much bread I nought desire."

In Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600, Christmas is de

scribed as

66

sitting in a corner, turning crabs,

"Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale." Steevens.

And tailor cries,2 and falls into a cough;

And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;3
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.-

But room, Faery,5 here comes Oberon.

Fai. And here my mistress:-'Would that he were gone!

2 And tailor cries,] The custom of crying tailor, at a sudden fall backwards, I think I remember to have observed. He that slips beside his chair, falls as a tailor squats upon his board. The Oxford editor, and Dr. Warburton after him, read-and rails or cries, plausibly, but I believe not rightly. Besides, the trick of the fairy is represented as producing rather merriment than anger. Johnson.

"Be

This phrase perhaps originated in a pun. Your tail is now on the ground. See Camden's Remaines, 1614, PROVERBS. tween two stools the tayle goeth to the ground." Malone. hold their hips, and loffe;] So, in Milton's L'Allegro; "And laughter holding both his sides." Steevens.

3

4 And waxen-] And encrease, as the moon waxes. Johnson. A feeble sense may be extracted from the foregoing words as they stand; but Dr. Farmer observes to me, that waxen is probably corrupted from yoxen, or yexen. Yoxe Saxon, to hiccup. Yyxyn. Singultio. Prompt. Parv.

Thus, in Chaucer's Reve's Tale, v. 4149:

"He yoxeth, and he speaketh thurgh the nose." Again, in the preface to XII. mery Festes of the Wyddow Edyth. 1575:

"Beside the cough, a bloudy flyx,

"And cuir among a deadly yex."

Again, in Philemon Holland's translation of the 27th Book of Pliny, chap v: "-and also they do stay the excessive yex or hocket."

That yex, however, was a familiar word, so late as the time of Ainsworth the lexicographer, is clear from his having produced it as a translation of the Latin substantive-singultus.

The meaning of the passage before us will then be, that the objects of Puck's waggery laughed till their laughter ended in a yex or hiccup.

It should be remembered, in support of this conjecture, that Puck is at present speaking, with an affectation of ancient phraseology. Steevens.

5 But room, Faery,] Thus the old copies. Some of our modern editors read" But make room, Fairy," The word Fairy, or Faery, was sometimes of three syllables, as often in Spenser.