Afeard is from to fear, by the old form of the language, as an hungred, from to hunger. So adry, for thirsty. (1773)
III.i.117 (52,1) [O Bottom! thou art chang'd! what do I see on thee?] It is plain by Bottom's answer, that Snout mentioned an ass's head. Therefore we should read,
Snout. O Bottom, thou art changed! what do I see on thee? An ass's head?
III.i.141 (53,3) [Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note,]
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue's force
(perforce) [doth move me, On the first view to say, to swear I love thee]
These lines are in one quarto of 1600, the first folio of 1623, the second of 1632, and the third of 1664, &c. ranged in the following order:
Mine ear is much enamour'd of thy note.
On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape,
And thy fair virtue's force (perforce) [doth move me.
This reading I have inserted, not that it can suggest any thing better than the order to which the lines have been restored by Mr. Theobald from another quarto, but to shew that some liberty of conjecture must be allowed in the revisal of works so inaccurately printed, and so long neglected.
III.i.173 (55,6) [the fiery glow-worm's eyes] I know not how Shakespeare,who commonly derived his knowledge of nature from his own observation, happened to place the glow-worm's light in his eyes, which is only in his tail.