Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/303

[ 287 ] whole piece, the more exalted characters are ubenrvient to the interets of thoe beneath them. We laugh with Bottom and his fellows, but is a ingle paSS undefinedion agitated by the faint and childih ollicitudes of Hermia and Demetrius, of Helena and Lyander, thoe hadows of each other?—That a drama, of which the principal peronages are thus inignificant, and the fable thus meagre and unintereting, was one of our author’s earliet compoitions, does not, therefore, eem a very improbable conjecture; nor are the beauties with which it is embellihed, inconitent with this uppoition; for the genius of Shakpeare, even in its minority, could embroider the coaret materials with the brightet and mot lating colours. A Midummer Night’s Dream was not entered at Stationers’ hall till Oct. 8, 1600, in which year it was printed; but is mentioned by Meres in 1598. From the comedy of Dr. Dodipoll Mr. Steevens has quoted a line, which the author eems to have borrowed from Shakpeare: “ ’Twas I that led you through the painted meads, “ Where the light fairies danc’d upon the flowers, “ Hanging in ev’ry leaf an orient pear.” So, in A Midummer Night’s Dream, “ And hang a pearl in ev’ry cowflip’s ear.” Again, “ And that ame dew, which ometimes on the buds “ Was wont to well, like round and orient pearls, “ Stood now within the pretty flouret’s eyes, “ Like tears,” &c.— There is no earlier edition of the anonymous play in which the foregoing lines are found, than that in 1600; but Dr. Dodipowle is mentioned by Nahe, in his preface to Gabriel Harvey’s Hunt is up, printed in 1596. This, therefore, is another circumtance, that in ome meaure authories the date here aSS undefinedigned to A Midummer Night’s Dream. The paSS undefinedage in the fifth act, which, with ome probabili-