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the quality no longer than they can fing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is moft like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong,' to make them exclaim against their own fucceffion?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both fides; and the nation holds it no fin, to tarre them on to controverfy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAM. Is it poffible?

9 Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can fing?] Will they follow the profeffion of players no longer than they keep the voices of boys, and fing in the choir? So afterwards he fays to the player, Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate Speech. JOHNSON.

So, in the players' Dedication, prefixed to the firft edition of Fletcher's plays in folio, 1647: "directed by the example of fome who once fteered in our quality, and fo fortunately afpired to chufe your honour, joined with your now glorified brother, patrons to the flowing compofitions of the then expired fweet fwan of Avon, Shak fpeare." Again, in Goffon's School of Abuse, 1579: "I fpeak not of this, as though every one [of the players] that profeffeth the qualitie, so abused himself,—.”

"Than they can fing," does not merely mean," than they keep the voices of boys," but is to be understood literally. He is fpeaking of the choir-boys of St. Paul's. MALONE.

2 —most like,] The old copy reads-like moft. STEEVENS. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE.

3

their writers do them wrong, &c.] I fhould have been very much furprifed if I had not found Ben Jonfon among the writers here alluded to. STEEVENS.

4

to tarre them on to controversy:] To provoke any animal to rage, is to tarre him. The word is faid to come from the Greek T. JOHNSON. παράσσων

So, already in King John:

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Like a dog, that is compell'd to fight,
"Snatch at his mafter that doth tarre him on."

STEEVENS.

GUIL. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAM. Do the boys carry it away?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.']

HAM. It is not very strange: for my uncle is king of Denmark; and thofe, that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little.' 'Sblood, there is fomething in this more than natural, if philofophy could find it out. [Flourish of trumpets within.

GUIL.. There are the players.

5 Hercules and his load too.] i. e. they not only carry away the world, but the world-bearer too: alluding to the story of Hercules's relieving Atlas. This is humorous.

WARBURTON.

The allufion may be to the Globe playhouse on the Bankside, the fign of which was Hercules carrying the Globe. STEEVENS. I suppose Shakspeare meant, that the boys drew greater audiences than the elder players of the Globe theatre. MALONE.

6 It is not very frange: for my uncle-] I do not wonder that the new players have fo fuddenly rifen to reputation, my uncle fupplies another example of the facility with which honour is conferred upon new claimants. JOHNSON.

It is not very ftrange: &c. was originally Hamlet's observation, on being informed that the old tragedians of the city were not fo followed as they ufed to be: [fee p. 124, n. 5.] but Dr. Johnson's explanation is certainly juft, and this paffage connects fufficiently well with that which now immediately precedes it. MALONE. 7 in little.] i. e. in miniature. So, in The Noble Soldier, 1634:

"The perfection of all Spaniards, Mars in little.” Again, in Drayton's Shepherd's Sirena:

"Paradife in little done.”

Again, in Maffinger's New Way to pay old Debts:
"His father's picture in little." STEEVENS.

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HAM. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elfinore. Your hands. Come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb; left my extent to the players, which, I tell you, muft fhow fairly outward, fhould more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father, and auntmother, are deceived.

GUIL. In what, my dear lord?

HAM. I am but mad north-north weft: when the wind is foutherly, I know a hawk from a handfaw.*

8 -let me comply &c.] Sir T. Hanmer reads,―let me compliment with you. JOHNSON.

To comply is again apparently used in the fenfe of-to compliment, in Act V: " He did comply with his dug, before he fuck'd it.”

STEEVENS.

9 — when the wind is foutherly, &c.] So, in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

2

"But I perceive now, either the winde is at the fouth,
"Or else your tunge cleaveth to the rooffe of your mouth."
STEEVENS.

I know a hawk from a handfaw.] This was a common proverbial fpeech. The Oxford editor alters it to,-I know a hawk from an hernfhaw, as if the other had been a corruption of the players; whereas the poet found the proverb thus corrupted in the mouths of the people: fo that the critick's alteration only serves to fhew us the original of the expreffion. WARBURTON.

Similarity of found is the fource of many literary corruptions. In Holborn we have ftill the fign of the Bull and Gate, which exhibits but an odd combination of images. It was originally (as I learn from the title-page of an old play) the Boulogne Gate, i. e. one of the gates of Boulogne; defigned perhaps as a compliment to Henry VIII. who took the place in 1544.

The Boulogne mouth, now the Bull and Mouth, had probably the fame origin, i. e. the mouth of the harbour of Boulogne.

STEEVENS.

The Boulogne Gate was not one of the gates of Boulogne, but of Calais; and is frequently mentioned as fuch by Hall and Holinfhed.

RITSON.

Enter POLONIUS.

POL. Well be with you, gentlemen!

HAM. Hark you, Guildenstern ;-and you too ;at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you fee there, is not yet out of his fwadling-clouts.

Ros. Hapily, he's the fecond time come to them; for, they fay, an old man is twice a child. HAM. I will prophecy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.-You fay right, fir: o'monday morning; 'twas then, indeed.

POL. My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAM. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Rofcius was an actor in Rome,

POL. The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAM. Buz, buz!3

3 Buz, buz!] Mere idle talk, the buz of the vulgar.

JOHNSON. Buz, buz! are, I believe, only interjections employed to interrupt Polonius. Ben Jonfon ufes them often for the fame purpofe, as well as Middleton in A Mad World, my Mafters, 1608. STEEVENS. Buz used to be an interjection at Oxford, when any one began a ftory that was generally known before. BLACKSTONE.

Bazzer, in a subsequent scene in this play, is ufed for a busy talker:

"And wants not buzzers, to infect his ear

"With peftilent fpeeches."

Again, in King Lear:

on every dream,

"Each buz, each fancy.

"

Again, in Truffel's Hiftory of England, 1635: "who, inftead of giving redrefs, fufpecting now the truth of the duke of Glocefter's buzz," &c.

It is, therefore, probable from the answer of Polonius, that buz was ufed, as Dr. Johnson supposes, for an idle rumour without any foundation.

POL. Upon my honour,

HAM. Then came each actor on his ass,*

POL. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, hiftorical-paftoral, [tragical-historical,' tragical-comical, historical-paftoral,] scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men."

In Ben Jonfon's Staple of News, the collector of mercantile intelligence is called Emiflary Buz. MALONE.

Whatever may be the origin of this phrafe, or rather of this interjection, it is not unufual, even at this day, to cry buz to any perfon who begins to relate what the company had heard before. M. MASON.

4 Then came &c.] This feems to be a line of a ballad.

5

JOHNSON. tragical-hiftorical, &c.] The words within the crotchets I have recovered from the folio, and fee no reason why they were hitherto omitted. There are many plays of the age, if not of Shakspeare, that anfwer to these descriptions. STEEVENS.

6 Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light.] The tragedies of Seneca were tranflated into English by Thomas Newton, and others, and published first separate, at different times, and afterwards all together in 1581. One comedy of Plautus, viz. the Menæchmi, was likewife tranflated and published in 1 1595.

STEEVENS.

I believe the frequency of plays performed at publick schools, fuggefted to Shakspeare the names of Seneca and Plautus as dramatick authors. T. WARTON.

7 For the law of writ, and the liberty, thefe are the only men.] All the modern editions have,-the law of wit, and the liberty; but both my old copies have-the law of writ, I believe rightly. Writ, for writing, compofition. Wit was not, in our author's time, taken either for imagination, or acuteness, or both together, but for underStanding, for the faculty by which we apprehend and judge. Thofe who wrote of the human mind, diftinguifhed its primary powers into wit and will. Afcham diftinguishes boys of tardy and of active faculties into quick wits and flow wits. JOHNSON.

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