To follow this fair corse unto her grave: [Exeunt CAP. Lady CAP. PAR. and Friar. 1 Mus. 'Faith, we may put up our pipes, and be gone. Nurse. Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up; For, well you know, this is a pitiful case.4 [Exit Nurse. 1 Mus. Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended. Enter PETER. Pet. Musicians, O, musicians, Heart's ease, heart's ease; O, an you will have me live, play-heart's ease. 1 Mus. Why heart's ease? Pet. O, musicians, because my heart itself playsMy heart is full of woe: O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.5 4 ―a pitiful case.] If this speech was designed to be metrical, we should read-piteous. Steevens. 50, play me some merry dump, to comfort me.] A dump anciently signified some kind of dance, as well as sorrow. So, in Hu• mour out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1607: "He loves nothing but an Italian dump, "Or a French brawl." But on this occasion it means a mournful song. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, after the shepherds have sung an elegiac hymn over the hearse of Colin, Venus says to Paris: How cheers my lovely boy after this dump of woe? "Paris. Such dumps, sweet lady, as bin these, are deadly dumps to prove." Steevens. Dumps were heavy mournful tunes; possibly indeed any sort of movements were once so called, as we sometimes meet with a merry dump. Hence doleful dumps, deep sorrow, or grievous affliction, as in the next page but one, and in the less ancient ballad of Chevy Chase. It is still said of a person uncommonly sad, that he is in the dumps. In a MS. of Henry the Eighth's time, now among the King's Collection in the Museum, is a tune for the cittern, or guitar, entitled, "My lady Careys dompe;" there is also "The Duke of Somersettes dompe;" as we now say, "Lady Coventry's minuet," &c. "If thou wert not some blockish and senseless dolt, thou wouldest never laugh when I sung a heavy mixt-Lydian tune, or a note to a dumpe or dolefull dittie." Plutarch's Morals, by Holland, 1602, p. 61. Ritson. At the end of The Secretaries Studie, by Thomas Gainsford, Esq. 4to. 1616, is a long poem of forty-seven stanzas, and called A Dumpe or Passion. It begins in this manner: 2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now. Pet. You will not then? Mus. No. Pet. I will then give it you soundly. 1 Mus. What will you give us? Pet. No money, on my faith; but the gleek: I will give you the minstrel." 1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature. Pet. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on "I cannot sing; for neither have I voyce, "Fashions and I were never friends at all: "I write and credit that I see and knowe, "And mean plain troth; would every one did so." the gleek:] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream: Reed. To gleek is to scoff. The term is taken from an ancient game at cards called gleek. So, in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Dido to Eneas: "By manly mart to purchase prayse, "And give his foes the gleeke" Again, in the argument to the same translator's version of Hermione to Orestes: "Orestes gave Achylles' sonne the gleeke." Steevens. The use of this cant term is no where explained; and in all probability cannot, at this distance of time, be recovered. To gleek however signified to put a joke or trick upon a person, perhaps to jest according to the coarse humour of that age. See A Midsummer Night's Dream, above quoted. Ritson. 7 No money, on my faith; but the gleek; I will give you the minstrel.] Shakspeare's pun has here remained unnoticed. A Gleekman or Gligman, as Dr. Percy has shown, signified a minstrel. See his Essay on the ancient English Minstrels, p. 55. The word gleek here signifies scorn, as Mr. Steevens has already observed: and is as he says, borrowed from the old game so called, the method of playing which may be seen in Skinner's Etymologicon, in voce, and also in The Compleat Gamester, 2d edit. 1676, p. 90. Douce. -the minstrel.] From the following entry on the books of the Stationers' Company, in the year 1560, it appears that the hire of a parson was cheaper than that of a minstrel or a cook. "Item, payd to the preacher vi s. iid. "Item, payd to the minstrell xii s. XV s." Steevens. your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, you; Do you note me? I'll fa 1 Mus. An you re us, and fa us, you note us. 2 Mus. Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit. Pet. Then have at you with my wit; I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger :-Answer me like men: When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress,** 8 When griping grief &c.] The epithet griping was by no means likely to excite laughter at the time it was written. Lord Surrey, in his translation of the second Book of Virgil's Æneid, makes the hero say: "New gripes of dred then pearse our trembling brestes." Dr. Percy thinks that the questions of Peter are designed as a ridicule on the forced and unnatural explanations too often given by us painful editors of ancient authors. Steevens. IN COMMENDATION OF MUSICKE "Where griping grief ye hart would woūd, (& dolful domps ye mind oppresse, "There musick with her silver sound, is wont with spede to geue redresse; "Of troubled minds for every sore, swete musick hath a salue in store: "In ioy it maks our mirth abound, in grief it chers our heauy sprights, "The carefull head releef hath found, by musicks pleasant swete delights: "Our senses, what should I saie more, are subject unto musicks lore. "The Gods by musick hath their pray, the soul therein doth ioye, "For as the Romaine poets saie, in seas whom pirats would destroye, “A Dolphin sau'd from death most sharpe, Arion playing on his harp. "Oh heauenly gift that turnes the minde, (like as the sterne doth rule the ship) "Of Musick, whom ye Gods assignde to comfort man, whom cares would nip, "Sith thou both man, & beast doest moue, what wisemā the will thee reprove? From the Paradise of Daintie Deiuses, fol. 31, b. Richard Edwards." Of Richard Edwards and William Hunnis, the authors of sundry poems in this collection, see an account in Wood's Athena Oxon. and also in Tanner's Bibliotheca. Sir John Hawkins. Why, silver sound? why, musick with her silver sound? What say you, Simon Catling? 1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound. Pet. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck?2 2 Mus. I say-silver sound, because musicians sound for silver. Pet. Pretty too!-What say you, James Soundpost? 3 Mus. 'Faith, I know not what to say. Pet. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer: I will say for you. It is—musick with her silver sound, because such fellows as you3 have seldom gold for sounding: Then musick with her silver sound, With speedy help doth lend redress. [Exit, singing. 1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same? 2 Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we 'll in here; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt. Another copy of this song is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Steevens. 9 And doleful dumps the mind oppress.] This line I have recovered from the old copy [1597]. It was wanting to complete the stanza as it is afterwards repeated. Steevens. * Mr. Steevens, in a note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, (See Vol. II, p. 205, n. 6,) gives the music of A Dompe of the Sixteenth Century. Am. Ed. 1 of catgut. Simon Catling?] A catling was a small lute-string made In An historical account of Taxes under all Denominations in the Time of William and Mary, p. 336, is the following article: "For every gross of catlings and lutestring," &c. A. C. 2 Hugh Rebeck?] The fidler is so called from an instrument with three strings, which is mentioned by several of the old writers. Rebec, rebecquin. See Menage, in v. Rebec. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle: " 'Tis present death for these fidlers to tune their rebecks before the great Turk's grace." In England's Helicon, 1600, is The Shepherd Arsilius, his Song to his REBECK, by Bar. Yong. Steevens. It is mentioned by Milton, as an instrument of mirth: "When the merry bells ring round, "And the jocund rebecks sound Malone. 3- because such fellows as you—] Thus the quarto, 1597. The others read-because musicians. I should suspect that a fidler made the alteration. Steevens. death ACT V.4..... SCENE I. Mantua. A Street. Enter ROMEO. Rem. If I may trust the flattering"eye 'of sleep," 4 Act V.] The Acts are here properly enough divided, nor did any better distribution than the editors have already made, occur to me in the perusal of this play; yet it may not be improper to remark, that in the first folio, and I suppose the foregoing editions are in the same state, there is no division of the Acts, and therefore some future editor may try, whether any improvement can be made, by reducing them to a length more equal, or interrupting the action at more proper intervals. Johnson. 5 If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,] Thus the earliest copy, meaning, perhaps, if I may trust to what I saw in my sleep. The folio reads: If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep; which is explained, as follows, by Dr Johnson. Steevens. The sense is, If I may trust the honesty of sleep, which I know however not to be so nice as not often to practise flattery. Johnson. The sense seems rather to be-"If I may repose any confidence in the flattering visions of the night." Whether the former word ought to supercede the modern one, let the reader determine: it appears to me, however, the most intelligible of the two. Steevens. If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,] i. e. If I may confide in those delightful visions which I have seen while asleep. The precise meaning of the word flattering here, is ascertained by a former passage in Act II: 66- all this is but a dream, "Too flattering-sweet to be substantial." By the eye of sleep Shakspeare, I think, rather meant the visual power, which a man asleep is enabled, by the aid of imagination, to exercise, than the eye of the god of sleep. Malone. 6 My bosom's lord-] So, in King Arthur, a Poem, by R. Chester, 1601: "That neither Uter nor his councell knew "How his deepe bosome's lord the dutchess thwarted." The author, in a marginal note, declares, that by bosom's lord, he means-Cupid. Steevens. My bosom's lord-] These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakspeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to show the vanity of trusting to those uncertain and casual ex |