The sense of this passage, as it now stands, if it has any sense, is this: _What the inability of duty cannot perform, regardful generosity receives as an act of ability, though not of merit._ The contrary is rather true: _What dutifulness tries to perform without ability, regardful generosity receives as having the merit, though not the power, of complete performance._ We should therefore read, _And what poor duty cannot do, Noble respect takes not in might, but merit._ V.i.147 (95,4) [Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade] Mr. Upton rightly observes, that Shakespeare in this line ridicules the affectation of beginning many words with the same letter. He night have remarked the same of _The raging rocks and shivering shocks._ Gascoigne, contemporary with our poet, remarks and blames the same affectation. V.i.199 (97,6) [And like Limander am I trusty still] Limander and Helen, are spoken by the blundering player, for Leander and Hero. Shafalus and Procrus, for Cephalus and Procris. V.i.254 (99,1) [in snuff] An equivocation. _Snuff_ signifies both the cinder of a caudle, and hasty anger. V.i.379 (104,2) [And the wolf beholds the moon] [W: behowls] The alteration is better than the original reading; but perhaps the author meant only to say, that the wolf _gazes at_ the moon, (see 1765, I,173,2) V.i.396 (105,4) [I am sent, with broom, before, To sweep the dust behind the door] Cleanliness is always necessary to invite the residence and the favour of Fairies. _These make our girls their slutt'ry rue, By pinching them both black and blue. And put a penny in their shoe The house for cleanly sweeping._ Drayton. V.i.398 (105,5) [Through this house give glimmering light] Milton perhaps had this picture in his thought: _Glowing cabers through the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom._ Il Penseroso. So Drayton: _Hence shadows seeming idle shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton 'scapes As hope of pastime hastes them._ I think it should be read, _Through this house_ in _glimmering light_. V.i.408 (106,6) [Now, until the break of day] This speech, which both the old quartos give to Oberon, is in the edition of 1623, and in all the following, printed as the song. I have restored it to Oberon, as it apparently contains not the blessing which he intends to bestow on the bed, but his declaration that he will bless it, and his orders to the fairies how to perform the necessary rites. But where then is the song?--I am afraid it is gone after many other things of greater value. The truth is that two songs are lost. The series of the scene is this; after the speech of Puck, Oberon enters, and calls his fairies to a song, which song is apparently wanting in all the copies. Next Titania leads another song, which is indeed lost like the former, tho' the editors have endeavoured to find it. Then Oberon dismisses his fairies to the dispatch of the ceremonies.