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We should therefore read,

And what poor duty cannot do, Noble respect takes not in might, but merit.

V.i.147 (95,4) [Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade] Mr. Upton rightly observes, that Shakespeare in this line ridicules the affectation of beginning many words with the same letter. He night have remarked the same of

The raging rocks and shivering shocks.

Gascoigne, contemporary with our poet, remarks and blames the same affectation.

V.i.199 (97,6) [And like Limander am I trusty still] Limander and

Helen, are spoken by the blundering player, for Leander and Hero.

Shafalus and Procrus, for Cephalus and Procris.

V.i.254 (99,1) [in snuff] An equivocation. Snuff signifies both the cinder of a caudle, and hasty anger.

V.i.379 (104,2) [And the wolf beholds the moon] [W: behowls] The alteration is better than the original reading; but perhaps the author meant only to say, that the wolf gazes at the moon, (see 1765, I,173,2)

V.i.396 (105,4)

[I am sent, with broom, before,

To sweep the dust behind the door]

Cleanliness is always necessary to invite the residence and the favour of Fairies.

These make our girls their slutt'ry rue,

By pinching them both black and blue.

And put a penny in their shoe

The house for cleanly sweeping. Drayton.

V.i.398 (105,5) [Through this house give glimmering light] Milton perhaps had this picture in his thought:

Glowing cabers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom. Il Penseroso.

So Drayton:

Hence shadows seeming idle shapes

Of little frisking elves and apes,

To earth do make their wanton 'scapes

As hope of pastime hastes them.

I think it should be read,

Through this house in glimmering light.

V.i.408 (106,6) [Now, until the break of day] This speech, which both the old quartos give to Oberon, is in the edition of 1623, and in all the following, printed as the song. I have restored it to Oberon, as it apparently contains not the blessing which he intends to bestow on the bed, but his declaration that he will bless it, and his orders to the fairies how to perform the necessary rites. But where then is the song?—I am afraid it is gone after many other things of greater value. The truth is that two songs are lost. The series of the scene is this; after the speech of Puck, Oberon enters, and calls his fairies to a song, which song is apparently wanting in all the copies. Next Titania leads another song, which is indeed lost like the former, tho' the editors have endeavoured to find it. Then Oberon dismisses his fairies to the dispatch of the ceremonies.

The songs, I suppose, were lost, because they were not inserted in the players parts, from which the drama was printed.

V.i.440 (107,8) [Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue] That is, If we be dismiss'd without hisses.

V.i.444 (107,9) [Give me your hands] That is, Clap your hands. Give us your applause.

(107,8) General Observation. Of this play there are two editions in quarto; one printed for Thomas Fisher, the other for James Roberts, both in 1600. I have used the copy of Roberts, very carefully collated, as it seems, with that of Fisher. Neither of the editions approach to exactness. Fisher is sometimes preferable, but Roberts was followed, though not without some variations, by Hemings and Condel, and they by all the folios that succeeded them.

Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author designed. Fairies in his time were much in fashion; common tradition had made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

I.i.9 (112,2) [Argosies] [a ship from Argo. Pope.] Whether it be derived from Argo I am in doubt. It was a name given in our author's time to ships of great burthen, probably galleons, such as the Spaniards now use in their East India trade. [An Argosie meant originally a ship from Ragusa, a city and territory on the gulph of Venice, tributary to the Porte. Steevens.]

I.i.18 (112,3)