If, as Mr. Steevens observes, the advocates for Shakspeare's learning, on a presumption that he might have been acquainted with the Roman _flammeum_, or seen the celebrated gem of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, had applauded the choice of his epithet, it is certain they would have shown very little skill or critical judgment on the occasion. By _wimpled_, Shakspeare means no more than that Cupid was hood-winked, alluding to the usual representation in paintings where he is exhibited with a bandage over his eyes. It may be observed here that the blindness of the God of love is not warranted by the authority of any ancient classic author, but appears to have been the invention of some writer of the middle ages; not improbably Boccaccio, who in his _Genealogy of the Gods_ gives the following account: "Oculos autem illi fascia tegunt, ut advertamus amantes ignorare quo tendant; nulla eorum esse indicia, nullæ rerum distinctiones, sed sola passione duci."--Lib. ix. c. 4. The oldest English writer who has noticed the blindness of love is Chaucer, in his translation of the _Roman de la rose_: "The God of love, _blind as stone_." But this line is not in the French original. Shakspeare himself has well accounted for Cupid's blindness: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind." _M. N. Dream_, Act I. Scene 1. SCENE 1. Page 240. BIRON. And I to be a corporal of the field. Dr. Farmer's quotation of the line from Ben Jonson, "As corporal of the field, maestro del campo," has the appearance, without perhaps the intention, of suggesting that these officers were the same: this, however, was not the fact. In Styward's _Pathway to martiall discipline_, 1581, 4to, there is a chapter on the office of _maister of the campe_, and another on _the electing and office of the foure corporalls of the fields_; from which it appears that "two of the latter were appointed for placing and ordering of shot, and the other two for embattailing of the pikes and billes, who according to their worthinesse, if death hapneth, are to succeede the great sergeant or sergeant major." SCENE 1. Page 241. BIRON. ... like a _German clock_. Such part of Mr. Steevens's note as relates to the invention of clocks may, in a future edition, be rendered more correct by consulting Beckman's _History of inventions_. It is certain that we had clocks in England before the reign of Elizabeth; but they were not in general use till that time, when most, if not all, of them were imported from Germany. These clocks resembled what are still made for the use of the lower classes of people by several ingenious Germans established in London. SCENE 1. Page 242. BIRON. Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.