-My heart is full of woe: O, play me some merry dump, to comfort me 6.

2 Mus. Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play

now.

5

PET. You will not then?

My heart is full of woe:] This is the burthen of the first stanza of A Pleasant new Ballad of Two Lovers:

-

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Hey hoe! my heart is full of woe." STEEVENS.

So, in

- O, play me some merry DUMP, to comfort me.] A dump anciently signified some kind of dance, as well as sorrow. Humour Out of Breath, a comedy, by John Day, 1607: "He loves nothing but an Italian dump,

"Or a French brawl."

But on this occasion it means a mournful song. So, in The Arraignment of Paris, 1584, after the shepherds have sung an elegiac hymn over the hearse of Colin, Venus says to Paris

66

How cheers my lovely boy after this dump of woe?

Paris. Such dumps, sweet lady, as bin these, are deadly dumps to prove." STEEVENS.

Dumps were heavy mournful tunes; possibly indeed any sort of movements were once so called, as we sometimes meet with a merry dump. Hence doleful dumps, deep sorrow, or grievous affliction, as in the next page but one, and in the less ancient ballad of Chevy Chase. It is still said of a person uncommonly sad, that he is in the dumps.

In a MS. of Henry the Eighth's time, now among the King's Collection in the Museum, is a tune for the cittern, or guitar, entitled, "My lady Careys dompe;" there is also "The duke of Somersettes dompe; 66 as we now say, Lady Coventry's minuet," &c. If thou wert not some blockish and senseless dolt, thou wouldest never laugh when I sung a heavy mixt-Lydian tune, or a note to a dumpe or dolefull dittie." Plutarch's Morals, by Holland, 1602, p. 61. RITSON.

At the end of The Secretaries Studie, by Thomas Gainsford, Esq. 4to. 1616, is a long poem of forty-seven stanzas, and called A Dumpe or Passion. It begins in this manner:

"I cannot sing; for neither have I voyce,

"Nor is my minde nor matter musicall

;

"My barren pen hath neither form nor choyce:
"Nor is my tale or talesman comicall,
"Fashions and I were never friends at all:

"I write and credit that I see and knowe,

"And mean plain troth; would every one did so."

REED.

Mus. No.

PET. I will then give it you soundly.

1 Mus. What will you give us?

PET. No money, on my faith; but the gleek': I will give you the minstrelR.

1 Mus. Then will I give you the serving-creature. PET. Then will I lay the serving-creature's dagger on your pate. I will carry no crotchets: I'll re you, I'll fa you; Do you note me?

i Mus. An you re us, and fa us, you note us. 2 Mus. Pray you, put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

-the GLEEK:] So, in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

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Nay, I can gleek, upon occasion."

To gleek is to scoff. The term is taken from an ancient game at cards called gleek.

So, in Turberville's translation of Ovid's Epistle from Dido to Æneas:

66

By manly mart to purchase prayse, "And give his foes the gleeke."

Again, in the argument to the same translator's version of Hermione to Orestes:

"Orestes gave Achylles' sonne the gleeke." STEEVENS. The use of this cant term is nowhere explained; and in all probability cannot, at this distance of time, be recovered. To gleek however signified to put a joke or trick upon a person, perhaps to jest according to the coarse humour of that age. See A Midsummer Night's Dream, above quoted. RITSON.

9 No money, on my faith; but the GLEEK: I will give you the MINSTREL.] Shakspeare's pun has here remained unnoticed. A Gleekman or Gligman, as Dr. Percy has shown, signified a minstrel. See his Essay on the Antient English Minstrels, p. 55. The word gleek here signifies scorn, as Mr. Steevens has already observed; and is, as he says, borrowed from the old game so called, the method of playing which may be seen in Skinner's Etymologicon, in voce, and also in The Compleat Gamester, 2d edit. 1676, p. 90. DOUCE.

-the minstrel." From the following entry on the books of the Stationers' Company, in the year 1560, it appears, that the hire of a parson was cheaper than that of a minstrel or a cook.

"Item, payd to the preacher

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vi s. ii d.

Item, payd to the minstrell xii s. "Item, payd to the coke

PET. Then have at you with my wit; I will drybeat you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger-Answer me like men:

When griping grief the heart doth wound,

9 When GRIPING grief, &c.] The epithet griping was by no means likely to excite laughter at the time it was written. Lord Surrey, in his translation of the second book of Virgil's Æneid, makes the hero say:

"New gripes of dred then pearse our trembling brestes." Dr. Percy thinks that the questions of Peter are designed as a ridicule on the forced and unnatural explanations too often given by us painful editors of ancient authors. STEEVENS.

66 IN COMMENDATION OF MUSICKE.

"Where griping grief ye hart would woud, (& dolful domps ye mind oppresse)

"There musick with her silver sound, is wont with spede to geue redresse ;

"Of troubled minds for every sore, swete musick hath a salue

in store:

"In ioy it maks our mirth abound, in grief it chers our heauy sprights,

"The carefull head releef hath found, by musicks pleasant swete delights:

"Our senses, what should I saie more, are subject unto mu

sicks lore.

"The gods by musick hath their pray, the soul therein doth

ioye,

"For as the Romaine poets saie, in seas whom pirats would

destroye,

"A Dolphin sau'd from death most sharpe, Arion playing on his harp.

"Oh heauenly gift that turnes the minde, (like as the sterne doth rule the ship,)

"Of musick, whom ye gods assignde to comfort man, whom cares would nip,

"Sith thou both man,

and beast doest moue, what wisemā thē

will thee reprove?

From the Paradise of Daintie

Deuises, fol. 31. b.

"Richard Edwards."

Of Richard Edwards and William Hunnis, the authors of sundry poems in this collection, see an account in Wood's Athenæ Oxon. and also in Tanner's Bibliotheca. SIR JOHN HAWKINS. Another copy of this song is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

STEEVENS.

And doleful dumps the mind oppress1,
Then musick, with her silver sound;

Why, silver sound? why, musick with her silver sound?

What say you, Simon Catling2?

1 Mus. Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

PET. Pretty! What say you, Hugh Rebeck3? 2 Mus. I say silver sound, because musicians sound for silver.

PET. Pretty too!-What say you, James Soundpost?

3 Mus. 'Faith, I know not what to say.

PET. O, I cry you mercy! you are the singer : I will say for you. It is musick with her silver sound, because such fellows as you have seldom gold for sounding :

▾ And doleful dumps the mind oppress.] This line I have recovered from the old copy [1597]. It was wanting to complete the stanza as it is afterwards repeated. STEEVENS.

2

Simon CATLING?] A catling was a small lute-string made of catgut. STEEVENS.

In An Historical Account of Taxes under all Denominations in the Time of William and Mary, p. 336, is the following article: "For every gross of catlings and lutestring," &c. A. C.

3 Hugh Rebeck?] The fidler is so called from an instrument with three strings, which is mentioned by several of the old writers. Rebec, rebecquin. See Menage, in v. Rebec. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle : """Tis present death for these fidlers to tune their rebecks before the great Turk's grace." In England's Helicon, 1600, is The Shepherd Arsilius, his Song to his Rebeck, by Bar. Yong. STEEVENS. It is mentioned by Milton, as an instrument of mirth :

"When the merry bells ring round,

"And the jocund rebecks sound

MALONE.

4 - silver sound,] So, in the Return from Parnassus, 1606: Faith, fellow fidlers, here's no silver sound in this place."

Again, in Wily Beguiled, 1606:

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what harmony is this

"With silver sound that glutteth Sophos' ears?

Spenser perhaps is the first author of note who used this phrase:

Then musick with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress.

[Exit, singing.

1 Mus. What a pestilent knave is this same? 2 Mus. Hang him, Jack! Come, we'll in here; tarry for the mourners, and stay dinner. [Exeunt 6.

"A silver sound that heavenly musick seem'd to make.” STEEVENS.

Edwards's song preceded Spenser's poem. MALONE. 5 - because such fellows as you-] Thus the quarto 1597. The others read-because musicians. I should suspect that a fidler made the alteration. STEEVENS.

6 Exeunt.] The quarto of 1597 differs so much from the subsequent copies in this scene, that I have given it entire as it stands in that copy:

"Enter Mother.

"Moth. What, are you busy? do you need my help? "Jul. No, madam; I desire to lie alone,

"For I have many things to think upon.

"Moth. Well, then, good night; be stirring, Juliet,

"The county will be early here to-morrow.

[Exit.

"Jul. Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.

"Ah, I do take a fearful thing in hand.

"What if this potion should not work at all,
"Must I of force be married to the county?
“This shall forbid it. Knife, lie thou there.
"What if the friar should give me this drink
"To poison me, for fear I should disclose
"Our former marriage? Ah, I wrong him much;
"He is a holy and religious man:

"I will not entertain so bad a thought.

"What if I should be stifled in the tomb?

"Awake an hour before the appointed time? "Ah then I fear I shall be lunatick ;

"And playing with my dead forefathers' bones, "Dash out my frantick brains. Methinks I see My cousin Tybalt welt'ring in his blood,

66

66

66

Seeking for Romeo: stay, Tybalt, stay!

Romeo, I come; this do I drink to thee.

[She falls upon her bed within the curtains.

"Enter Nurse with herbs, and Mother.

"Moth. That's well said, Nurse; set all in readiness "The county will be here immediately.