I. THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY. The earliest known reference to A Midsummer-Night's Dream is in the Palladis Tamia of Francis Meres, published in 1598.* It is the opinion of the best critics that it was *The passage is as follows: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage: for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labors Lost, his Love Labours Wonne, his Midsummers Night Dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for tragedy, his Richard the 2., Richard the 3., Henry the 4., King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet." written some years before that date, perhaps as early as 1594. Probably in ii. 1. 88-117 there is an allusion to the unseasonable weather of that summer, which is thus described in the MS. Diary of Dr. Simon Forman :* "Ther was moch sicknes but lyttle death, moch fruit and many plombs of all sorts this yeare and small nuts, but fewe walnuts this monethes of June and July wer very wet and wonderfull cold like winter, that the 10. dae of Julii many did syt by the fyer, yt was so cold; and soe was yt in Maye and June; and scant too faire dais together all that tyme, but yt rayned every day more or lesse: yf yt did not raine, then was yt cold and cloudye: there were many gret fludes this sommer, and about Michelmas, thorowe the abundaunce of raine that fell sodeinly, the brige of Ware was broken downe, and at Stratford Bowe, the water was never sine so byg as yt was; and in the lattere end of October, the waters burste downe the bridg at Cambridge, and in Barkshire wer many gret waters, wherwith was moch harm done sodenly."† * See our Richard II. p. 13. We give the passage as it appears in Halliwell's folio ed. of Shakespeare. † Stowe, in his Chronicle (quoted by Halliwell), says of the same year: "This year, in the month of May, fell many great showers of rain, but in the months of June and July much more; for it commonly rained every day or night till St. James' day, and two days after together most extremely; all which notwithstanding, in the month of August, there followed a fair harvest, but in the month of September fell great rains, which raised high waters, such as stayed the carriages, and broke down bridges at Cambridge, Ware, and elsewhere in many places." Churchyard, in his Charitie, published in 1595, refers to the preceding year as follows: "A colder time in world was never seene: The skies do lowre, the sun and moone wax dim; Nature thinks scorne to do hir dutie right, Another passage which has been supposed to have a temporary allusion is v. 1. 52: "The thrice three Muses mourning for the death Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary." Some make this refer to Spenser's Teares of the Muses, 1591; others to Spenser's death (in which case, as that event did not occur until January, 1598–99, the lines must have been an addition to the original text); and others to the death of Robert Greene, in 1592. It is doubtful, however, whether the passage is anything more than an allusion to the general neglect of learning in that day. A Midsummer-Night's Dream was first printed in 1600. The following entry appears on the Register of the Stationers' Company: "8 Oct. 1600 Tho. Fysher] A booke called a Mydsomer nights Dreame." Fisher then brought it out in quarto form, with the following title-page : 66 A Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times publickely acted, by the Right honoura|ble, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. Imprinted at London, for Thomas Fisher, and are to be soulde at his shoppe, at the Signe of the White Hart, in Fleetestreete. 1600." In the same year another quarto edition appeared with this title: "A Midsommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times publikely acted, by the Right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | VVritten by VVilliam Shakespeare. | Printed by Iames Roberts, 1600." This edition appears, from internal evidence, to be a re It is curious that Churchyard, in the preface to his volume, remarks: "A great nobleman told me this last wet sommer, the weather was too colde for poets." Shakespeare did not find it so, if he wrote this play at that time. print of the other, perhaps for the use of the players. It was the edition followed when the play was reprinted in the folio of 1623, some of its obvious misprints being copied there. The folio, however, contains some new readings, and White believes that "it was printed from a copy which had been corrected in Shakespeare's own theatre, and probably under his own eye, if not by his own hand." This view is hardly sustained by a careful comparison of the folio readings with those of Fisher's quarto, the latter (as we have pointed out in the notes) being often preferred to the former by most of the modern editors. Fortunately the variations are for the most part unimportant, and there are only one or two passages which furnish any real difficulty. In the folio of 1623 the play occupies pages 145-162 in the division of "Comedies," and is divided into acts, but not into scenes. There are few early notices of the representation of this play.* According to a manuscript at Lambeth Palace, it was performed at the Bishop of Lincoln's house on Sunday night, September 27th, 1631; but the name of the play is a forgery. in a later hand. Archbishop Laud exerted his influence to punish this profanation of the Sabbath; and the following order is taken from a decree made at the time by a self-constituted court among the Puritans: "Likewise wee doe order, that Mr. Wilson, because hee was a speciall plotter and contriver of this business, and did in such a brutishe manner acte the same with an asses head, and therefore hee shall, uppon Tuisday next, from six of the clocke in the morning till six of the clocke at night, sitt in *There is, however, reason to believe that the play was popular. In 1622, the year before it was reprinted in the Ist folio, Taylor, the WaterPoet, thus refers to it in his Sir Gregory Nonsense, v. I: “I say, as it is applausfully written, and commended to posterity, in the MidsummerNight's Dream:-if we offend, it is with our good will: we came with no intent but to offend, and show our simple skill.” the Porter's Lodge at my Lords Bishopps House, with his feete in the stocks, and attyred with his asse head, and a bottle of hay sett before him, and this subscription on his breast: Good people I have played the beast, I was a man, but thus have made Bottom seems then to have been considered the chief character in the play; and "The merry conceited humors of Bottom the Weaver" were made into a farce or droll,* which was frequently played in private after the suppression of the theatres. “When the publique theatres were shut up," says Kirkman,† “and the actors forbidden to present us with any of their tragedies, because we had enough of that in ernest; and comedies, because the vices of the age were too lively and smartly represented; then all that we could divert ourselves with were these humours and pieces of plays, which passing under the name of a merry conceited fellow called Bottom the Weaver, Simpleton the Smith, John Swabber, or some such title, were only allowed us, and that but by stealth too, and under the pretence of rope dancing and the like." Pepys saw the play performed, September 29th, 1662, and thus records the fact in his Diary: "To the King's Theatre, where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's dream,' which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life." In 1692 the play was changed into an opera under the title of The Fairy Queen, and performed in London on a very "The merry conceited humors of Bottom the Weaver, as it hath been often publikely acted by some of his Majesties comedians, and lately privately presented by several apprentices for their harmless recreation, with great applause." 4to. London, 1661. t The Wus, 4to, London, 1673 (quoted by Halliwell). |