Page images
PDF
EPUB

with other fitness of circumftances, are feldom found to meet together, fo as to compleat an happy

union.

Lyfander. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear, by tale or hiftory,

The courfe of true love never did run smooth;
But either it was different in blood-
Or elfe mifgrafted in refpect of years-
Or else it flood upon the choice of friends-
Or if there were a fympathy in choice,
War, Death, or Sickness did lay fiege to it;
Making it momentary as a found,

Swift as a fhadow, fhort as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,

That in a fpleen unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to fay, Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confufion!

[blocks in formation]

In this fcene we are charmed with that mildness, modefty, and generous eulogium, with which the fond and unhappy Helena accofts a rival beauty, and woo'd by the man she loves.

Hermia. God fpeed, fair Helena! whither away?

Helena. Call you me fair? that fair again unfay;
Demetrius loves you, fair-O happy fair!

Your eyes are load-ftars †, and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to fhepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching-Oh! were favour so!
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
My ear fhould catch your voice; my eye your eye;
My tongue fhould catch your tongue's fweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being 'bated,
The reft I'd give to be to you tranflated-
O teach me how you look, and with what art
You fway the motion of Demetrius' heart!

Spleen, for a fudden or hafty fit.

†The polar far, by which mariners are guided in their courfe.

[blocks in formation]

Hermia had used no arts, no coquetry, to allure her lover from her; for, as fhe expreffes it, just after, in the same dialogue,

His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

She had, indeed, happened to have done her an injury, but no wrong; and therefore the forfaken maid fhews her juftice in plaining her own ill fortune, only, without expreffing the leaft manner of refentment against her unoffending rival.

Hermia, in the fame fcene, alludes to the magic power of love, which concenters all our ideas in one, making us prefer a cottage to a palace, and a defert to a grove, according to the fituation or circumstances of the object of our affections. After having declared the purpofe of flying her country with her lover, fhe adds,

Before the time I did Lyfander fee,
Seemed Athens like a Paradife to me.
O then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turned a heaven into hell?

And Helena, afterwards, carries on the fame idea, in the following lines:

Things bafe and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can tranfpofe to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind;
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste:
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy hafte,
And therefore is love faid to be a child,
Because in choice he is fo oft beguiled.

Thefeus too, in a paffage of his fpeech, in the first Scene of the Fifth Act of this Play, accords with the above fentiinent:

While the lover all as frantic

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

And Shakespeare has hinted a moral, on this latter fubject, with regard to irregular or ill-placed affection, as Dr. Warburton has juftly obferved, " by "as fine a metamorphofis as any in Ovid," in the laft line of the following fpeech, in the fecond Scene

of

of Act the Second; the whole of which I fhall transcribe here, in order to fhew how juftly and poetically he has pointed to the different effects of paffion upon bufy and contemplative minds, as well as on idle and diffipated ones.

Oberon to Puck.

That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took
At a fair veftal, throned by the Weft *,
And loofed his love-fhaft fmartly from his bow,
As it fhould pierce a hundred thousand hearts.
But I might fee young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chafte beams of the watʼry moon,
And the imperial votress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell;

It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milk-white, now purple with Love's wound,
And maidens call it Love in idleness.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The deceptions of an enthusiastic or over-heated fancy, with the vain terrors of a dejected mind, are well defcribed in part of the following fpeech; in which our author claffes the lunatic, the lover, and the poet, together; and might have taken in the fanatic too, along with them, under the defcription of those, who, as he fays, in the firft part of the fame Speech,

Have fuch feething brains,

Such fhaping fantafies, that apprehend
More than cool reafon ever comprehends.
Thefeus. Such tricks hath ftrong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend fome joy,
It comprehends fome bringer of that joy;
Or in the night imagining fome fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear?

Among the brief of sports, as it is called, to be exhibited before Thefeus, on his wedding-day, this is the title of one:

• This is meant as a compliment to Queen Elizabeth.
C 2

The

The thrice three Mufes mourning for the death

Of Learning, late deceafed in beggary.

Mr. Warton imagines this paffage to have alluded to a poem of Spenfer's, ftiled The Tears of the Muses, on the Neglect and Contempt of Learning, sin his time. Though this was not properly a complaint of that age, only; it has been fo much the grievance of all times, that it has, long fince, obtained into a proverb, As poor as a poet.

The cafe of fuch unfortunate perfons,

"Of thofe whom Phoebus, in his ire,

"Hath blafted with poetic fire

is certainly very hard. Perfons who apply their minds to letters, muft unavoidably neglect their temporal concerns; and thofe who employ their time in the reformation or entertainment of the world, fhould be fupported by it-Not by merely accidental and precarious emoluments, but upon fome more permanent foundation; like the Clergy, who have had a provifion made for them, for the fame reafon as above; and the name of Clerk, tho' now appropriated to the latter, was formerly the common appellation of both. The honour of fuch an establishinent would be confiderable to a State, and the expence but fmall-for the numbers are but few..

Thefeus expreffes a juft fentiment in a prince, when Philoftrate, the Mafter of his Revels, objects to his being prefent at a play, which the affections of the loweft rank of the Athenian citizens had framed for the celebration of his nuptials.

Philoftrate. No, my noble Lord,

It is not for you. I have heard it over,
And it is nothing; nothing in the world;
Unless you can find fport in their intents,
Extremely fretched, and conned with cruel pain,
To do you fervice.

* Swift...

Thefeus

Thefeus. I will hear that play:

For never any thing can be amifs,
When fimpleness and duty tender it.

Hippolita alfo makes the fame objection, but from a motive of humanity, only.

I love not to fee wretchedness o'ercharged,
And duty in his service perishing.

Thefeus. Why, gentle sweet, you shall fee no such thing.
Hippelita. He fays, they can do nothing in this kind.
Thefeus: The kinder ave, to give them thanks for nothing,
Our fport fhall be, to take what they mistake;
And what poor duty cannet de,

Noble refpect takes not in might, but merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have feen them fhiver, and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of fentences,
Throttle their practised accent in their fears,
And, in conclufion, dumbly have broke off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, Sweet,
Out of their filence yet I picked a welcome;
And in the modefty of fearful duty,

I read as much, as from the rattling tongue
Of faucy and audacious eloquence.
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied fimplicity,
In leaft freaks mof, to my capacity.

I muft here conclude my obfervations on this Play, with the above beautiful paffage, as there does not appear to me to be any thing elfe, in the remainder of it, worthy to fupply a reflection relative to the purposed scope or defign of this Work.

POSTSCRIPT.

This Play is perfectly picturefque, and resembles fome rich landscape, where palaces and cottages, huntsmen and hufbandmen, princes and peasants, appear in the fame fcene together.

« PreviousContinue »