a bleffing; but as your daughter may conceive,friend, look to't. meaning can be drawn from what Hamlet fays; but that this is what he was thinking of; for " this wonderful man (Shakspeare) had an art not only of acquainting the audience with what his actors fay, but with what they think!" Hamlet's obfervation is, I think, fimply this. He has juft remarked that honefty is very rare in the world. To this Polonius affents. The prince then adds, that fince there is fo little virtue in the world, fince corruption abounds every where, and maggots are bred by the fun, even in a dead dog, Polonius ought to take care to prevent his daughter from walking in the sun, lest she fhould prove a breeder of finners;" for though conception in general be a bleffing, yet as Ophelia (whom Hamlet fuppofes to be as frail as the rest of the world,) might chance to conceive, it might be a calamity. The maggots breeding in a dead dog, feem to have beca mentioned merely to introduce the word conception; on which word, as Mr. Steevens has obferved, Shakspeare has play'd in King Lear : and probably a fimilar quibble was intended here. The word, however, may have been ufed in its ordinary fenfe, for pregnancy, without any double meaning. The flight connection between this and the preceding paffage, and Hamlet's abrupt queftion,-Have you a daughter? were manifeftly intended more strongly to impress Polonius with the belief of the prince's madness. Perhaps this paffage ought rather to be regulated thus:"being a god-killing carrion;" i. e. a carrion that kiffes the fun. The participle being naturally refers to the laft antecedent, dog. Had Shakspeare intended that it should be referred to sun, he would probably have written-" be being a god," &c. We have many fimilar compound epithets in thefe plays. Thus, in King Lear, Act II. fc. i. Kent fpeaks of "ear-killing arguments." Again, more appofitely in the play before us: "New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill." Again, in The Rape of Lucrece: "Threatning cloud-kiffing Ilion with annoy." However, the inftance quoted from Cymbeline by Dr. Warburton, -common-kiffing Titan," feems in favour of the regulation that has been hitherto made; for here we find the poet confidered the fun as kiffing the carrion, not the carrion as kiffing the fun. So, alfo in King Henry IV. Part I: "Did'ft thou never see Titan kifs a difh of butter?" The following lines alfo in the hiftorical play of King Edward III. 1596, which Shakspeare had certainly VOL. XV. I POL. How fay you by that? [Afide.] Still harping on my daughter:-yet he knew me not at first; he faid, I was a fifhmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly, in my youth I fuffer'd much extremity for love; very near this. I'll fpeak to him again. What do you read, my lord? HAM. Words, words, words! POL. What is the matter, my lord? POL. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. feen, are, it must be acknowledged, adverse to the regulation I Lave fuggefted: "The fresheft fummer's day doth fooneft taint "The loathed carrion, that it seems to kiss." In juftice to Dr. Johnson, I fhould add, that the high elogium which he has pronounced on Dr. Warburton's emendation, was founded on the comment which accompanied it; of which, however, I think, his judgement must have condemned the reasoning, though his goodness and piety approved its moral tendency. MALONE. As a doubt, at least, may be entertained on this fubject, I have not ventured to expunge a note written by a great critick, and applauded by a greater. STEEVENS. 2 conception is a bleffing; &c.] Thus the quarto. The folio reads thus: " conception is a bleffing; but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to t." The meaning feems to be, conception (i. e. understanding) is a bleffing; but as your daughter may conceive (i. e. be pregnant,) friend look to't, i. e. have a care of that. The fame quibble occurs in the firit scene of King Lear: "Kent. I cannot conceive you, fir. "Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could." STEEVENS. The word not, I have no doubt, was inferted by the editor of the folio, in confequence of his not understanding the paffage. A little lower we find a fimilar interpolation in fome of the copies, probably from the fame caufe: "You cannot, fir, take from me any thing that I will not more willingly part withal, except my life." MALONE. HAM. Slanders, fir: for the fatirical rogue fays here, that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: All which, fir, though I moft powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus fet down; for yourself, fir, fhall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward. POL. Though this be madness, yet there's me 2 Slanders, fir: for the fatirical rogue fays here, that old men &c.] By the fatirical rogue he means Juvenal in his roth Satire: "Da fpatium vitæ, multos da Jupiter annos: Nothing could be finer imagined for Hamlet, in his circumftances, than the bringing him in reading a defcription of the evils of long life. WARBURTON. and Had Shakspeare read Juvenal in the original, he had met with "De temone Britanno, Excidet Arviragus" Uxorem, Pofthume, ducis?" We fhould not then have had continually in Cymbeline, Arviragus, and Pofthamus. Should it be faid that the quantity in the former word might be forgotten, it is clear from the mistake in the latter, that Shakspeare could not poffibly have read any one of the Roman poets. There was a translation of the roth Satire of Juvenal by Sir John Beaumont, the elder brother of the famous Francis: but I cannot tell whether it was printed in Shak fpeare's time. In that age of quotation, every claffick might be picked up by piece-meal. I forgot to mention in its proper place, that another description of Old Age in As you like it, has been called a parody on a paffage in a French poem of Garnier. It is trifling to fay any thing about this, after the observation I made in Macbeth: but one may remark once for all, that Shakspeare wrote for the people; and could not have been so abfurd as to bring forward any allufion, which had not been familiarized by fome accident or other. FARMER. thod in it. [Afide.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAM. Into my grave? POL. Indeed, that is out o'the air.-How pregnant fometimes his replies are!' a happiness that often madness hits on, which reafon and fanity could not fo profperously be deliver'd of. I will leave him, and fuddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.-My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. HAM. You cannot, fir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life. POL. Fare you well, my lord. Enter ROSENCRANTZ' and GUILDENSTERN. POL. You go to feek the lord Hamlet; there he is. Ros. God fave you, fir! GUIL. My honour'd lord! Ros. My moft dear lord!— [To POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS. HAM. My excellent good friends! How doft thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rofencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both? 3 How pregnant &c.] Pregnant is ready, dexterous, apt. So, in Twelfth Night: 66 a wickedness "Wherein the pregnant enemy doth much." STEEVENS. and fuddenly &c.] This, and the greatest part of the two following lines, are omitted in the quartos. STEEVENS. Rofencrantz-] There was an embassador of that name in England about the time when this play was written. STEEVENS. Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. GUIL. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. HAM. Nor the foles of her shoe? Ros. Neither, my lord. HAM. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? GUIL. 'Faith, her privates we. HAM. In the fecret parts of fortune? O, moft true; she is a ftrumpet. What news? Ros. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honeft. HAM. Then is doomsday near: But your news is not true. [Let me queftion more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deferved at the hands of fortune, that fhe fends you to prifon hither? GUIL. Prifon, my lord! HAM. Denmark's a prison. HAM. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst. Ros. We think not fo, my lord. HAM. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it fo: to me it is a prison. Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind. HAM. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, 6 [Let me &c.] All within the crotchets is wanting in the quartos. STEEVENS. |