He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving-time allowed.

In the last clause there is another outrage on every just and proper feeling, though it is not necessary to suppose with Steevens that Hamlet means without allowing them time for repentance. It was a term in common use for any short period. All he meant was, that they should be put to instant death.

The phrase would be more GERMAN to the matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides.

In the quarto of 1603 it is cousin-german. Chaucer, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, writes

Eke Plato sayth, whoso can hym rede,

The wordes mote ben cosyn to the dede.

Here is the word or phrase in its pristine state. Shakespeare adds "german," and at length "german" entirely supplants "cousin," and becomes part of our current language.

It is thus in all the earlier editions, but in the folios the word is mother. The change might be made by Shakespeare after he retired to Stratford, the passage as it originally stood coming too near to an incident which had recently occurred in the family of Greville in that neighbourhood, where one of them had by misadventure killed his brother with an

arrow.

The apposite quotation from Sylvester loses its effect through an oversight in the transcriber. It ought to be

And Death, dread serjeant of th' eternal judge

Comes very late to his sole-seated lodge.

It occurs in the Third Day of the First Week. Sylvester is the earlier writer, but Shakespeare's substitution of "fell" for "dread" shews a master hand.

As

V. 2. FORTINERAS.

let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage.

may be seen in the monument in Westminster Abbey of Sir Francis Vere, a soldier, who died in 1608. This was no doubt at that time the accustomed mode of burial of a soldier of rank.

It is a remarkable peculiarity of Hamlet, that whoever approaches these plays with the intention of commenting upon them, whatever may be the leading character of his annotations, finds more passages on which to remark in this than in any other.

KING LEAR.

DR. HARSNET must have been the terror of all those who, either in sincere belief of the efficacy of the means they used, or with a view to strengthen a religious party by the exhibition of powers apparently more than human, practised the arts of exorcism. We have shewn, when speaking of Twelfth Night, how he attacked the Puritans. He had no sooner completed his exposure of some attempts by them of the kind in question than he turned to the Papists, and with equal force of reason and power of ridicule exposed similar pretensions of theirs: thus vindicating for himself his right to the position which, in his last will, he claims for himself, as one who "renounced all modern Popish superstitions as well as all novelties of Geneva."

It is remarkable that in both instances the Poet whose works we are considering fights by his side.

Dr. Harsnet's book has the following title :-A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, to withdraw the hearts of his Majesty's subjects from their allegiance, and from the truth of Christian Religion, under the pretence of casting out devils: practised by Edmunds, alias Weston, and divers Roman Priests, his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the

copies of the confessions and examinations of the parties themselves, which were pretended to be possessed and dispossessed, taken upon oath before his Majesty's Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical.

The affair had occurred several years before, namely, in 1585 or 1586; but Harsnet's book was not printed till 1603. There is a second edition in 1605.

In this case six persons were supposed to be possessed,

namely, Marwood, who was a servant of Babington, the conspirator; Robert Maynie, a young gentleman; one manand three maid-servants of Mr. Edmund Peckham, son of Sir George Peckham, of Denton, in Buckinghamshire. There were not fewer than twelve priests engaged beside Edmunds the Jesuit, among whom was Cornelius, the priest to whom the ghost of Lord Stourton appeared at the altar. An account of the affair was drawn up by some of the priests. This fell into the hands of Harsnet, and from this and the confessions and examinations of some of the persons exorcised he compiled his exposure of the whole business.

Not the least curious part of the transaction is that the possessed had given names to the devils who infested them, and the names themselves. The list is very remarkable, as connected with the popular superstitions of England. Here they are :—

Pippin, Philpot, Maho, Modu, Soforce, Hilco, Smolken, Hillio, Hiaclito, Lusty Huffcap, Cliton, Bernon, Hilo, Motubizanto, Killico, Hob, Portiriccio, Frateretto, Flibberdigibet, Hoberdidance, Tocobatto, Lusty Jollie Jenkin, Delicat, Puff, Purr, Lusty Dick, Corner'dcap, Nurri, Malkin, Wilkin, Helemodion, Killicocam, Hoberdicut, Pudding of Thame, Pour-dieu, Bonions. Of these some were master devils, some subordinates. The masters were Pippin, Philpot, Maho, Modu, and Soforce.

It is a curious point whence such fantastical words were derived. We see several which are plain English words or phrases. The most remarkable of these, Pudding of Thame. Sarah Williams, one of the possessed, states in her confession that she had often heard such a being spoken of jestingly when she was a child. Hoberdidance she referred to "a merry tale of Hoberdidance, that used his cunning to make

a lady laugh," which her mistress used to tell when they were at work. Maho came into her mind because she had read a tale of Maho in a book; and as to many of the rest she accounts for them in a very natural way, thinking that she must have got them from a number of very strange names that were written "upon the walls in Sir George Peckham's house under the hangings, which they said were the names of spirits." The hangings were probably tapestry, in which scenes from old romances were wrought, and these the names of the heroes.

Shakespeare fastens upon these names, and, by putting them into the mouth of Edgar when he was acting in his assumed character of a Bedlamite, he casts ridicule on the whole affair, and teaches the people who frequented his theatre to view the whole with the contempt it merited. The means were nearly the same as those which he employed in Twelfth Night to produce a similar result. "Peace, Smolken, peace thou fiend," could not but recall the Smolken of this story. "The prince of darkness is a gentleman: Modo he's called, and Mahu" would be a phrase common in the mouths of the people of London when this play was first exhibited, and "the foul fiend Flibbertigibet" would lose his veritable existence in the minds of even the most credulous, when it was seen how in a case of only assumed madness such names could be used. Hobberdidance and Fraterretto are spirits as well known to him as to Sarah Williams.

It is to 1605, the year of the appearance of the second edition of Harsnet's work, that Mr. Malone refers the composition of this play, which was not printed before 1608.

The names themselves would turn people's attention to the exorcisms in Mr. Peckham's family: but the hint would be given to look there for an event of the time to which