MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

BOTTOM, the weaver, wishing to play the lion, promises that, in order not to frighten the ladies, he "will roar you as gently as any sucking-dove;" adding, "I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale." (Act i. sc. 2.)

The expression in italics is so utterly nonsensical that it is marvellous how it has escaped criticism and condemnation. So far from suffering such a fate, it continues to be quoted as if it were some felicitous phrase.

The plea can scarcely be set up that it is humorous, for the humour of the passage lies in Bottom's undertaking to roar gently and musically, although acting the part of a lion, and is not at all dependent on the incongruity of representing a dove as sucking.

The blunder, which is whimsical enough, may be rectified by the smallest of alterations-by striking out a single letter from dove, leaving the clause, "I will roar you as gently as any sucking doe."

probably be satisfied by a few lines from another

play:

"Our kinsman Gloster is as innocent

From meaning treason to our royal person
As is the sucking lamb, or harmless dove."

Henry VI. Part II. act iii. sc. 4.

It may possibly be alleged that, since the nightingale is joined with the sucking animal, the latter ought to be a bird also. This, however, is shown by the last extract not to be at all required, and would certainly add no force to the passage. On another occasion the poet couples a bird and a quadruped: "worse than a struck fawn, or a hurt wild-duck."*

In the first volume of the present work, an expression occurring in this drama was set aside, and another proposed in its stead. Demetrius eulogises the white hand of Helena in some bombastic lines ending with:

"This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss"

Act iii. sc. 2

* "Henry IV." Part I. act iv. sc. 2. The old copies read "struck fowl," but are evidently wrong, as I have shown in the proper place. It is rather extraordinary that two analogous blunders should have been made, consisting in the substitution of a bird for a deer.

quintessence of white;" but considering that the passage was intended to be a nonsensical rhapsody, I am not sure that a simpler alteration would not be better-namely, putting white into the plural, making the line into:

This princess of pure whites, this seal of bliss :

in support of which (although the reading must still remain doubtful) I shall offer the single remark that Shakespeare was in the habit of using many words in the plural number which we now limit to the singular.*

I refer to the passage here chiefly for the purpose of remarking on the curious fact that almost all poets praise the hands (to say nothing of the bosoms) of their mistresses as transcendently white. If they confined themselves to the simple use of the epithet, it might be regarded merely as a convenient synonyme for flesh-coloured or fair; but they do not permit this interpretation, or rather they render it impossible, by the comparisons they institute: they extol the whiteness of the female hand as beyond that of the purest snow, or of the most unsullied swan's down.

* In "Troilus and Cressida" the plural actually occurs in speaking of the hand:

"her hand,

In whose comparison all whites are ink."

Act i. sc. 1.

unnatural, diseased, or monstrous.

One of our modern minstrels has said that "song is but the eloquence of truth;" whether this is accurate or not, doubtless poetry ought to be strictly faithful in designating and describing the actual qualities of all objects which it presents to our conception. The poet may invest them with what charms he pleases; that is, he may pourtray the effects which they have on his own feelings, but he must not falsify the properties they really possess.

It is one of the personal characteristics of Shakespeare to be gathered from his writings that he was a great admirer of a beautiful hand, and he almost invariably exalts its colour over that of the whitest substances in existence. In so doing he certainly is not true to nature, although he may be faithful to tradition.

An expression is put into the mouth of Helena which the length of the comments upon it shows not to be aptly placed where it is found. says:

"Can you not hate me, as I know you do,

But you must join, in souls, to mock me too?"

She

Act iii. sc. 2.

The emendations proposed as substitutes for in

have to suggest that a better substitute for the faulty phrase would be in sooth:

But you must join, in sooth, to mock me too?

Helena had already used the word sooth in connexion, too, with "flouting" or "mocking":

"Is't not enough, young man,

That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?

Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth you

do." Act ii. sc. 3.

And again, in reply to Hermia's question, "Do you not jest?" she says:

66

Yes, sooth; and so do you."

Act iii. sc. 2.

If these instances serve no other purpose, they show, at least, that in sooth would not be lower in tone than Helena's conversation in other places.

Theseus says, speaking of the rustic performers about to appear before him and Hippolyta :

"Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do,"

Noble respect takes it in might, not merit."

Act v. sc. 1.

Here, I think, the simple meaning of the last line is that noble respect (according to the common