I.i.110 (8,2) [spotted] As _spotless_ is innocent, so _spotted_ is wicked. (1773) I.i.131 (9,3) [Beteem them] give them, bestow upon then. The word is used by Spenser. I.i.157 (10,8) [I have a widow aunt, a dowager] These lines perhaps might more properly be regulated thus: _I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child, And she respects me as her only son; Her house from Athens is remov'd seven leagues, There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee, And to that place--_ I.i.169-178 (11,1) [Warburton had reassigned speeches here] This emendation is judicious, but not necessary. I have therefore given the note without altering the text. The censure of men, as oftner perjured than women, seems to make that line more proper for the lady. I.i.183 (12,3) [Your eyes are lode-stars] This was a complement not unfrequent among the old poets. The lode star is the _leading_ or guiding star, that is, the pole-star. The magnet is, for the same reason, called the _lode-stone_, either became it leads iron, or because it guides the sailor. Milton has the same thought in L'Allegro: _Tow'rs and battlements he sees Bosom'd high in tufted trees, Where perhaps some beauty lies, The_ Cynosure _of neighb'ring eyes._ Davies calls Elizabeth, _lode-stone_ to hearts, and _lode-stone_ to all eyes, (see 1765, 1,97,9) I.i.204 (13,6) [Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens like a paradise to me] Perhaps every reader may not discover the propriety of these lines. Hermia is willing to comfort Helena, and to avoid all appearance of triumph over her. She therefore bids her not to consider the power of pleasing, as an advantage to be much envied or much desired, since Hermia, whom she considers as possessing it in the supreme degree, has found no other effect of it than the loss of happiness. I.i.232 (15,8) [Things base and vile, holding no quantity] _quality_ seems a word more suitable to the sense than quantity, but either may serve. (1773) I.i.240 (15,9) [in game] _Game_ here signifies not contentious play, but _sport, jest_. So Spenser, _'Twixt earnest and 'twixt_ game. I.ii (16,2) [_Enter Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner. Bottom the weaver. Flute the bellows-mender. Snout the tinker, and Starveling the taylor_] In this scene Shakespeare takes advantage of his knowledge of the theatre, to ridicule the prejudices and competitions of the players. Bottom, who is generally acknowledged the principal actor, declares his inclination to be for a tyrant, for a part of fury, tumult, and noise, such as every young man pants to perform when he first steps upon the stage. The same Bottom, who seems bred in a tiring-room, has another histrionical passion. He is for engrossing every part, and would exclude his inferiors from all possibility of distinction. He is therefore desirous to play Pyramus, Thisbe, and the Lyon at the same time.