MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. ACT I.

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Scene 1. Page 6.

Ege. Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke.

This is in reality no "misapplication of a modern title," as Mr. Steevens conceived, but a legitimate use of the word in its primitive Latin sense of leader; and so it is often used in the Bible. Not so the instance adduced of sheriffs of the provinces, which might have been avoided in our printed bibles. Wicliffe had most properly used prefectis. Shakspeare might have found Duke Theseus in the book of Troy, or in Turbervile's Ovid's Epistles. See the argument to that of PhÆdra to Hippolytus.

Scene 1. Page 9.

The. You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd.

The threatening to make a nun of poor Hermia is as whimsical an anachronism as any in Shakspeare.

Scene 1. Page 13.

Lys. Making it momentany as a sound.

Momentany and momentary were indiscriminately used in Shakspeare's time. The former corresponds with the French momentaine.

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 30.

Fai. And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.

Mr. Steevens in the happy and elegant remark at the end of his note on the last line, has made a slight mistake in substituting Puck for the fairy. When the damsels of old gathered the May dew on the grass, and which they made use of to improve their complexions, they left undisturbed such of it as they perceived on the fairy-rings; apprehensive that the fairies should in revenge destroy their beauty. Nor was it reckoned safe to put the foot within the rings, lest they should be liable to the fairies' power.

Scene 1. Page 32.

Puck. But they do square.

Dr. Johnson has very justly observed that to square here is to quarrel. In investigating the reason, we must previously take it for granted that our verb to quarrel is from the French quereller, or perhaps both from the common source, the Latin querela. Blackstone has remarked that the glaziers use the words square and quarrel as synonymous terms for a pane of glass, and he might have added for the instrument with which they cut it. This, he says, is somewhat whimsical; but had he been acquainted with the reason, he might have been disposed to waive his opinion, at least on the present occasion. The glazier's instrument is a diamond, usually cut into such a square form as the supposed diamonds on the French and English cards, in the former of which it is still properly called carreau, from its original. This was the square iron head of the arrow used for the cross-bow. In English it was called a quarrel, and hence the glazier's diamond and the pane of glass have received their names of square and quarrel. Now we may suppose without straining the point very violently, that these words being evidently synonymous in one sense, have corruptedly become so in another; and that the verb to square, which correctly and metaphorically, even at this time, signifies to agree or accord, has been carelessly and ignorantly wrested from its true sense, and from frequent use become a legitimate word. The French have avoided this error, and to express a meaning very similar to that of to quarrel or dispute, make use of the word contrecarrer.

Scene 1. Page 37.

Puck. The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down-topples she.

The celebrated duchess of Newcastle, in a poem of some fancy, entitled The queen of fairies, makes Puck or hobgoblin the queen of fairies' fool, and alludes to the above prank in the following lines:

"The goodwife sad squats down upon a stool,
Not at all thinking it was Hob the fool,
And frowning sits, then Hob gives her a slip,
And down she falls, whereby she hurts her hip."

The above dame is a farmer's wife who has been scolding because she was unable to procure any butter or cheese, and at Puck's holding up the hens' rumps to prevent their laying eggs too fast.

With respect to the word aunt, it has been usually derived from the French tante; but the original Norman term is ante. See examples in Carpentier Suppl. ad Ducang. v. avuncula. So the author of the old and excellent farce of Maistre Patelin,

"Vostre belle ante, mourut-elle?"

Scene 2. Page 39.

Enter Oberon and Titania.

Mr. Tyrwhitt's remark that the Pluto and Proserpine of Chaucer were the true progenitors of Oberon and Titania, may be perfectly true; but the name of Oberon as king of the fairies, must have been exceedingly well known from the romance of Huon of Bourdeaux, in which this Oberon makes a very conspicuous figure.

Scene 2. Page 41.

Tita. Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain.

Milton, doubtless, had these lines in recollection when he wrote,

"To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade."
Par. lost, b. v. l. 203.

Scene 2. Page 41.

Tita. To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind.

An allusion to what the country people call fairy rings, which they suppose to be the tracks of the dances of those diminutive beings.

Scene 2. Page 43.

Tita. The nine mens morris is fill'd up with mud.

This game was sometimes called the nine mens merrils, from merelles or mereaux, an ancient French word for the jettons or counters, with which it was played. The other term morris is probably a corruption suggested by the sort of dance which in the progress of the game the counters performed. In the French merelles each party had three counters only, which were to be placed in a line in order to win the game. It appears to have been the Tremerel mentioned in an old fabliau. See Le Grand Fabliaux et contes, tom. ii. p. 208.

Dr. Hyde thinks the morris or merrils was known during the time that the Normans continued in possession of England, and that the name was afterwards corrupted into three mens morals, or nine mens morals. If this be true, the conversion of morals into morris, a term so very familiar to the country people, was extremely natural. The doctor adds, that it was likewise called nine-penny, or nine-pin miracle, three-penny morris, five-penny morris, nine-penny morris, or three-pin, five-pin, and nine-pin morris, all corruptions of three-pin, &c. merels. Hyde Hist. Nerdiludii, p. 202.

Scene 2. Page 44.

Tita. The human mortals want their winter here.

In the controversy respecting the immortality of fairies, Mr. Ritson's ingenious and decisive reply in his Quip modest ought on every account to have been introduced. A few pages further Titania evidently alludes to the immortality of fairies, when, speaking of the changeling's mother, she says, "but she, being mortal, of that boy did die." Spenser's fairy system and his pedigree were allegorical, invented by himself, and not coinciding with the popular superstitions on the subject. Human mortals is merely a pleonasm, and neither put in opposition to fairy mortals, according to Mr. Steevens, nor to human immortals, according to Ritson; it is simply the language of a fairy speaking of men.

A posthumous note by Mr. Steevens has not contributed to strengthen his former arguments, as the authors therein mentioned do not, strictly speaking, allude to the sort of fairies in question, but to spirits, devils, and angels. Shakspeare, however, would certainly be more influenced by popular opinion than by the dreams of the casuists. There is a curious instance of the nature of fairies, according to the belief of more ancient times, in the romance of Lancelot of the lake. "En celui temps," (the author is speaking of the days of king Arthur,) "estoient appellees faees toutes selles qui sentremettoient denchantemens et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principalement en la Grande Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des paroles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenues en jeunesse et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses comme elles devisoient." This perpetual youth and beauty cannot well be separated from a state of immortality. Nor would it be difficult to controvert the sentiments of those who have maintained the mortality of devils, by means of authorities as valid as their own. The above interesting romance will furnish one at least that may not be unacceptable. Speaking of the birth of the prophet and enchanter Merlin, it informs us that his mother would not consent to the embraces of any man who should be visible; and therefore it was by some means ordained that a devil should be her lover. When he approached her, to use the words of the romance, "la damoiselle le tasta et sentit quil avoit le corps moult bien fait; non pourtant les dyables n'ont ne corps ne membres que l'en puisse veoir ne toucher, car spirituelle chose ne peut estre touchÉe, et tous diables sont choses spirituelles." The fruit of this amour was Merlin; but he, being born of woman, was but a semi-devil, and subject to mortality. A damsel with whom he had fallen in love, prevailed on him to disclose some of his magical arts to her, by means of which she deceived him, and preserved her chastity by casting him into a deep sleep whenever he importuned her. The romance adds, "si le decevoit ainsi pource qu'il estoit mortel; mais s'il eust este du tout dyable, elle ne l'eust peu decepvoir; car ung dyable ne peut dormir."

Scene 2. Page 45.

Tita. Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
That rheumatic diseases do abound.

Thus in Newton's Direction for the health of magistrates and studentes, 1574, 12mo, we are told that "the moone is ladie of moysture;" and in Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1, she is called "the moist star." In BartholomÆus De propriet. rerum, by Batman, lib. 8. c. 29, the moon is described to be "mother of all humours, minister and lady of the sea." But in Lydgate's prologue to his Storie of Thebes, there are two lines which Shakspeare seems closely to have imitated;

"Of Lucina the moone, moist and pale,
That many showre fro heaven made availe."

The same mode of expression occurs in Parkes's Curtaine drawer of the world, 1612, 4to, p. 48: "the centinels of the season ordained to marke the queen of floods how she lends her borrowed light." This book deserves to be noticed for the good sense which it contains, and the merit of some occasional pieces of poetry.

Scene 2. Page 50.

Obe. I do but beg a little changeling boy
To be my henchman.

Of all the opinions concerning the origin of this word, that of Sir William Spelman alone can be maintained. If instead of deriving it from the German, he had stated that it came to us through the Saxon Hen?e??, a horse, his information had been more correct. Although in more modern times the pages or henchmen might have walked on foot, it is very certain that they were originally horsemen, according to the term. Thus in Chaucer's Floure and the leafe:

"And every knight had after him riding
Three henshmen, on him awaiting."

If the old orthography henxmen had not been unfortunately disturbed, we should have heard nothing of the conjectures about haunch and haunch-men.

Scene 2. Page 58.

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him.

However forward and indecorous the conduct of Helena in pursuing Demetrius may appear to modern readers, such examples are very frequent in old romances of chivalry, wherein Shakspeare was undoubtedly well read. The beautiful ballad of the Nut-brown maid might have been more immediately in his recollection, many parts of this scene having a very strong resemblance to it.

Scene 2. Page 61.

Hel. I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell.

Imitated by Milton:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heaven."
Par. lost, b. i. l. 254.

Scene 2. Page 62.

Obe. Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine.

See what has been already said on this word in p. 8; the meaning is the same as there. Theobald's amendment from luscious was probably in conformity with that passage; and the printers of the old editions not comprehending the meaning of lush, which even in their time was an antiquated word, ignorantly, as well as unharmoniously, substituted luscious.

Scene 3. Page 68.

Her. ... in human modesty
Such separation, as, may well be said,
Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid.

That is, "let there be such separation," &c. A comma should be placed after modesty.

ACT III.

Scene 1. Page 77.

Quin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake.

It is submitted that brake cannot in this instance signify a large extent of ground, overgrown with furze, but merely the hawthorn bush or tyring-house as Quince had already called it.

Scene 1. Page 83.

Bot. Nay I can gleek upon occasion.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV. Scene 5:

"1. Mus. What will you give us?
Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek."

On which consult Mr. Steevens's posthumous note in Mr. Reed's last edition.

Mr. Pope had justly remarked that to gleek is to scoff. In some of the notes on this word it has been supposed to be connected with the card game of gleek; but it was not recollected that the Saxon language supplied the term Gl??, ludibrium, and doubtless a corresponding verb. Thus glee signifies mirth and jocularity; and gleeman or gligman, a minstrel or joculator. Gleek was therefore used to express a stronger sort of joke, a scoffing. It does not appear that the phrase to give the gleek was ever introduced in the above game, which was borrowed by us from the French, and derived from an original of very different import from the word in question.

Scene 1. Page 84.

Tita. And light them at the fiery glow-worms eyes.

Dr. Johnson's objection to the word eyes, has been very skilfully removed by Mr. Monck Mason; but this gentleman appears to have misconceived the meaning of Shakspeare's most appropriate epithet of ineffectual, in the passage from Hamlet. The glow-worm's fire was ineffectual only at the approach of morn, in like manner as the light of a candle would be at mid-day.

Scene 1. Page 88.

Obe. What night-rule now about this haunted grove?

Mr. Steevens has properly explained night-rule. Rule in this word has the same meaning as in the Christmas lord of mis-rule, and is a corruption of revel, formerly written reuel.

Scene 2. Page 89.

Puck. An ass's nowl I fixed on his head.

The receipt for making a man resemble an ass, already given in a former note, must give place to the following in Scot's Discoverie of witchcraft, b. 13. c. xix. "Cutt off the head of a horsse or an asse (before they be dead), otherwise the vertue or strength thereof will be the lesse effectuall, and make an earthern vessell of fit capacitie to conteine the same, and let it be filled with the oile and fat thereof; cover it close, and dawbe it over with lome: let it boile over a soft fier three daies continuallie, that the flesh boiled may run into oile, so as the bare bones may be seene: beate the haire into powder, and mingle the same with the oile; and annoint the heads of the standers by, and they shall seem to have horsses or asses heads."

Scene 2. Page 95.

Obe. All fancy-sick she is, and pale of cheer.

Mr. Steevens deduces this word from the Italian cara; but it is from the old French chere, face. Lydgate finishes the prologue to his Storie of Thebes with these lines:

"And as I coud, with a pale cheare,
My tale I gan anone, as ye shall heare."

Scene 2. Page 103.

Hel. So with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

It may be doubted whether this passage has been rightly explained, and whether the commentators have not given Shakspeare credit for more skill in heraldry than he really possessed, or at least than he intended to exhibit on the present occasion. Helen says, "we had two seeming bodies, but only one heart." She then exemplifies her position by a simile—"we had two of the first, i. e. bodies, like the double coats in heraldry that belong to man and wife as one person, but which, like our single heart, have but one crest."

Scene 2. Page 112.

Puck. And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,
At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to church-yards.

Aurora's harbinger is Lucifer, the morning star.

"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East——"[11]

It was the popular belief that ghosts retired at the approach of day. Thus the spirit of Hamlet's father exclaims,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air."

In further illustration see a subsequent note on Hamlet, Act I. Scene 1.

Scene 2. Page 117.

Hel. And, sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye.

Again, in Macbeth:

"Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care."

ACT V.

Scene 1. Page 145.

Philost. ... I have heard it over,
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
Extremely stretch'd, and conn'd with cruel pain,
To do you service.

Dr. Johnson suspects a line to be lost, as he "knows not what it is to stretch and con an intent;" but it is surely not intents that are stretch'd and conn'd but the play, of which Philostrate is speaking. If the line

"Unless you can find sport, &c."

were printed in a parenthesis, all would be right. Mr. Steevens, not perceiving this, has endeavoured to wrest from the word intents, its plain and usual meaning, and would unnecessarily convert it to attention, which might undoubtedly be stretch'd, but could not well be conn'd.

Scene 1. Page 148.

Philost. The prologue is addrest.

We have borrowed this sense of the word (ready) from the French adressÉ.

Scene 1. Page 157.

Moon. This lantern doth the horned moon present.

But why horned? He evidently refers to the materials of which the lantern was made.

Scene 2. Page 168.

Puck. By the triple Hecat's team.

By this team is meant the chariot of the moon, said to be drawn by two horses, the one black, the other white. It is probable that Shakspeare might have consulted some translation of Boccaccio's Genealogy of the gods, which, as has been already remarked, appears to have occasionally supplied him with his mythological information. As this is the first time we meet with the name of Hecate in our author, it may be proper to notice the error he has committed in making it a word of two syllables, which he has done in several other places, though in one (viz. I. Henry Sixth, if he wrote that play) it is rightly made a trisyllable:

"I speak not to that railing Hecate."
Act III. Scene 2.

His contemporaries have usually given it properly. Thus Spenser in the Fairy queen,

"As Hecate, in whose almighty hand."
B. vii. Canto 6.

Ben Jonson has, of course, always been correct. Mr. Malone observes, in a note on Macbeth, Act III. Scene 5, that Marlowe, though a scholar, has used the word Hecate as a dissyllable. It may be added that Middelton and Golding have done the same; the latter in his translation of Ovid, book vii. has used it in both ways.

Scene 2. Page 168.

Puck. I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.

In confirmation of Dr. Johnson's remark that fairies delight in cleanliness, two other poems shall be quoted. The first is the Fairy queen, printed in Percy's Ancient Ballads, iii. 207, edit. 1775.

"But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid," &c.

The other is the Fairies farewell, by Bishop Corbet, printed also in Percy's collection, iii. 210, from his Poetica stromata, 1648, 18mo. It is also in a preceding edition of the bishop's poems, 1647, 18mo.

"Farewell rewards and fairies!
Good housewives now may say;
For now foule sluts in dairies
Doe fare as well as they:
And though they sweepe their hearths no less
Than mayds were wont to doe,
Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixepence in her shoe?"

Scene 2. Page 170.

Obe. To the best bride bed will we,
Which by us shall blessed be.

Mr. Steevens remarks that the ceremony of blessing the bed was observed at the marriage of a princess. It was used at all marriages. This was the form, copied from the Manual for the use of Salisbury. "Nocte vero sequente cum sponsus et sponsa ad lectum pervenerint, accedat sacerdos et benedicat thalamum, dicens: Benedic, Domine, thalamum istum et omnes habitantes in eo; ut in tua pace consistant, et in tua voluntate permaneant: et in amore tuo vivant et senescant et multiplicentur in longitudine dierum. Per Dominum.—Item benedictio super lectum. Benedic, Domine, hoc cubiculum, respice, quinon dormis neque dormitas. Qui custodis Israel, custodi famulos tuos in hoc lecto quiescentes ab omnibus fantasmaticis demonum illusionibus: custodi eos vigilantes ut in preceptis tuis meditentur dormientes, et te per soporem sentiant: ut hic et ubique defensionis tuÆ muniantur auxilio. Per Dominum.—Deinde fiat benedictio super eos in lecto tantum cum Oremus. Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras; et det super vos benedictionem sicut benedixit Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob, Amen.—His peractis aspergat eos aqua benedicta, et sic discedat et dimittat eos in pace." We may observe on this strange ceremony, that the purity of modern times stands not in need of these holy aspersions to lull the senses and dissipate the illusions of the Devil. The married couple would, no doubt, rejoice when the benediction was ended. In the French romance of Melusine, the bishop who marries her to Raymondin blesses the nuptial bed. The ceremony is there represented in a very ancient cut, of which a copy is subjoined. The good prelate is sprinkling the parties with holy water. Sometimes during the benediction the married couple only sat upon the bed; but they generally received a portion of consecrated bread and wine. It is recorded in France, that on frequent occasions the priest was improperly detained till the hour of midnight, whilst the wedding guests rioted in the luxuries of the table, and made use of language that was extremely offensive to the clergy, and injurious to the salvation of the parties. It was therefore, in the year 1577, ordained by Pierre de Gondi, archbishop of Paris, that the ceremony of blessing the nuptial bed should for the future be performed in the day time, or at least before supper, and in the presence only of the bride and bridegroom, and of their nearest relations.

There is a singularity in this cut which may well excuse a short digression. This is the horned head-dress of the bride, a fashion that prevailed in England during the reign of Henry the Sixth, and for a short time afterwards. Lydgate has left us an unpublished ditty, in which he complains of it. As it is, like most of his other poetry, very dull and very tedious, a couple of stanzas may suffice; each concludes with a line to recommend the casting away of these horns.

"Clerkys recorde by gret auctorite,
Hornys were yove to beestys for diffence;
A thyng contrary to femynyte
To be made sturdy of resistence.
But arche wyves egre in ther violence,
Fers as tygre for to make affray,
They have despyt and ageyn conscience
Lyst nat of pryde ther hornys cast away.
Noble pryncessys, this litel shoort ditee
Rewdly compiled lat it be noon offence
To your womanly merciful pitie,
Thouh it be rad in your audience;
Peysed ech thyng in your just advertence,
So it be no displesaunce to your pay,
Undir support of your patience
Yevyth example hornys to cast away."
Harl. MS. No. 2255.

In France, this part of female dress was a frequent subject of clerical reprehension. Nicholas de Claminges, a doctor of the Sorbonne, and contemporary with Lydgate, compares it to the horns of oxen. "Tenduntur hinc et inde mira et inaudita deformitate gemina cornua bipedali prope intervallo À se distantia, majorique latitudine caput foemineum diffundunt quam bubalinum longitudine distenditur. Auro ac gemmis omnia rutilant. Stibio et cerusa pinguntur facies; patent colla; nudantur pectora." Nicolai de Clemangiis opera, Lugd. Batavor. 1613, 4to, p. 144. And again, in his letters, "quid de cornibus et caudis loquar, quas illic jam vulgo matronÆ gestant, qua in re naturam videntur humanam reliquisse, bestialemque sibi ultro adscivisse. Adde quod in effigie cornutÆ foeminÆ Diabolus plerumque pingitur." We cannot but admire the pious writer's ingenuity in the latter declaration, and how well it was calculated to terrify the ladies out of this preposterous fashion.

Scene 2. Page 171.

Obe. With this field-dew consecrate
Every fairy take his gait;
And each several chamber bless,
Through this palace with sweet peace.

Thus in the Merry wives of Windsor, Act V. Scene 5:

"Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out:
Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room."

In the first line of Oberon's speech there seems to be a covert satire against holy water. Whilst the popular confidence in the power of fairies existed, they had obtained the credit of occasionally performing much good service to mankind; and the great influence which they possessed gave so much offence to the holy monks and friars, that they determined to exert all their power to expel the above imaginary beings from the minds of the people, by taking the office of the fairies' benedictions entirely into their own hands. Of this we have a curious proof in the beginning of Chaucer's admirable tale of the Wife of Bath:

"I speke of many hundred yeres ago;
But now can no man see non elves mo,
For now the grete charitee and prayeres
Of limitoures and other holy freres
That serchen every land and every streme.
As thikke as motes in the sonne beme,
Blissing halles, chambres, kichenes, and boures,
Citees and burghes, castles highe and toures,
Thropes and bernes, shepenes and dairies,
This maketh that ther ben no faeries:
For ther as wont to walken was an elf,
Ther walketh now the limitour himself."

The other quotation from Chaucer, which Mr. Steevens has given, is not to the present purpose. The fairies' blessing was to bring peace upon the house of Theseus; the night-spell in the Miller's tale, is pronounced against the influence of elves, and those demons, or evil spirits, that were supposed to occasion the night-mare, and other nocturnal illusions. As this is a subject that has never been professedly handled, it may be worth while to bring together a few facts that relate to it; to do it ample justice would require an express dissertation.

A belief in the influence of evil spirits has been common to all nations, and in the remotest periods of the human history. The gross superstitions of the middle ages, which even exceeded those in Pagan times, had given birth to a variety of imaginary beings, who were supposed to be perpetually occupied in doing mischief to mankind. The chief of these were the Incubus, or night-mare, and certain fairies of a malignant nature. It therefore became necessary to check and counteract their operations by spells, charms, and invocations to saints. Some of these have been preserved. The lines given to Mad Tom in Lear, beginning

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold,"

is one of them; and in the notes belonging to it, as well as in those by Mr. Tyrwhitt on the Canterbury tales, vol. iv. 242, others have been collected. To these may be added the following in Cartwright's play of The Ordinary, Act III. Scene 1:

"Saint Francis, and Saint Benedight,
Blesse this house from wicked wight,
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is hight good fellow Robin.
Keep it from all evil spirits,
Fayries, weezels, rats and ferrets,
From curfew time
To the next prime."

This indeed may be rather considered as satirical, but it is a parody on those which were genuine. Sinclair, in his Satan's invisible world discovered, informs us that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too."

"Who sains the house the night,
They that sains it ilka night.
Saint Bryde and her brate,
Saint Colme and his hat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep this house from the weir;
From running thief,
And burning thief;
And from an ill Rea,
That be the gate can gae;
And from an ill weight,
That be the gate can light
Nine reeds about the house;
Keep it all the night,
What is that, what I see
So red, so bright, beyond the sea?
'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands,
Through the feet, through the throat,
Through the tongue;
Through the liver and the lung.
Well is them that well may
Fast on Good-friday."

As darkness was supposed to be more immediately adapted to the machinations of these malicious spirits, it was natural that, on retiring to rest, certain prayers should be chosen to deprecate their influence, which was often regarded as of a particular kind. To this Imogen alludes when she exclaims,

"To your protection I commend me, Gods!
From fairies, and the tempters of the night
Guard me, beseech ye!"
Cymbeline, Act II. Scene 2.

So Banquo in Macbeth:

"Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
Gives way to in repose."

An ancient hymn by Saint Ambrose goes to the same point:

"Procul recedant somnia
Et noctium phantasmata:
Hostemque nostrum comprime
Ne polluantur corpora."

The demon who was supposed to have particular influence in these nocturnal illusions, was Asmodeus, the lame devil of whom Mons. Le Sage has made such admirable use. In expelling him, the sign of the cross was most efficacious; a very old practice on similar occasions, as we learn from the following lines in Prudentius:—

"Fac, cum vocante somno
Castum petis cubile
Frontem, locumque cordis
Crucis figura signes.
Crux pellit omne crimen,
Fugunt crucem tenebrÆ:
Tali dicata signo
Mens fluctuare nescit.
Procul, Ô procul vagantum
Portenta somniorum,
Procul esto pervicaci
PrÆstigiator astu."

Relics of saints, images of the holy Virgin, sanctified girdles, and a variety of other amulets were resorted to on the same occasion, exhibiting a lamentable proof of the imbecility of human nature.

Scene 2. Page 172.

Puck. Give me your hands, if we be friends.

Thus in the epilogue to Stubbes's excellent play of Senile odium,

[11] It has not been recollected to what poet these lines belong.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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