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, The courfe of true love never did run smooth; Swift as a fhadow, fhort as any dream, That in a fpleen unfolds both heaven and earth, 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; Your eyes are load-ftars †, and your tongue's sweet air Spleen, for a fudden or hafty fit. †The polar far, by which mariners are guided in their courfe. 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, And Helena, afterwards, carries on the fame idea, in the following lines: Things bafe and vile, holding no quantity, Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; 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. ર 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, 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, 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 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. 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, * Swift... Thefeus Thefeus. I will hear that play: For never any thing can be amifs, Hippolita alfo makes the fame objection, but from a motive of humanity, only. I love not to fee wretchedness o'ercharged, Thefeus. Why, gentle sweet, you shall fee no such thing. Noble refpect takes not in might, but merit. I read as much, as from the rattling tongue 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. |