OPH. Belike, this show imports the argument of

the play.

Enter Prologue.

HAM. We fhall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counfel; they'll tell all.

OPH. Will he tell us what this fhow meant?

Dr. Warburton is right in his explanation of the word miching. So, in The Raging Turk, 1631:

66

-wilt thou, envious dotard,

Strangle my greatness in a miching hole?"

Again, in Stanyhurst's Virgil, 1582:

66

wherefore thus vainely in land Lybye mitche you?" The quarto reads-munching Mallico. STEEVENS.

The word miching is daily used in the Weft of England for playing truant, or fculking about in private for fome finifter purpose; and malicho, inaccurately written for malheco, fignifies mifchief; fo that miching malicho is mifchief on the watch for opportunity. When Ophelia afks Hamlet-" What means this?" fhe applies to him for an explanation of what she had not feen in the show; and not, as Dr. Warburton would have it, the purpose for which the show was contrived. Befides, malhechor no more fignifies a poisoner, than a perpetrator of any other crime. HENLEY.

· miching mallecho;] A fecret and wicked contrivance; a concealed wickedness. To mich is a provincial word, and was probably once general, fignifying to lie hid, or play the truant. In Norfolk michers fignify pilferers. The fignification of miching in the prefent paffage may be afcertained by a paffage in Decker's Wonderful Yeare, 4to. 1603: " Those that could shift for a time,went most bitterly miching and muffled, up and downe, with ruc and wormwood ftuft into their ears and noftrills."

See alfo Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, in v. Acciapinare. "To miche, to shrug or sneak in fome corner, and with powting and lips to fhew fome anger." In a fubfequent paffage we find that the murderer before he poifons the king makes damnable faces.

Where our poet met with the word mallecho, which in Minfheu's Spanish Dictionary, 1617, is defined malefa&tum, I am unable to afcertain. In the folio, the word is fpelt malicho. Mallico [in the quarto] is printed in a distinct character, as a proper name.

MALONE.

HAM. Ay, or any fhow that you'll fhow him: Be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPH. You are naught, you are naught; I'll mark the play.

PRO. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here ftooping to your clemency,

We beg your bearing patiently.

HAM. Is this a prologue, or the pofy of a ring? OPH. 'Tis brief, my lord.

HAM. As woman's love.

Enter a King and a Queen.

P. KING. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart? gone round

8

Neptune's falt wash, and Tellus' orbed ground; And thirty dozen moons, with borrow'd theen, About the world have times twelve thirties been; Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands, Unite commutual in most facred bands.

6 Be not you ashamed to show, &c.] The converfation of Hamlet with Ophelia, which cannot fail to difguft every modern reader, is probably fuch as was peculiar to the young and fashionable of the age of Shakspeare, which was, by no means, an age of delicacy. The poet is, however, blameable; for extravagance of thought, not indecency of expreffion, is the characteristick of madness, at least of such madness as should be represented on the fcene. STEEVENS.

cart-] A chariot was anciently fo called. Thus, Chaucer, in The Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. ver. 2024: "The carter overridden with his cart." STEEVENS.

® — orbed ground;] So, alfo in our author's Lover's Complaint:

"Sometimes diverted, their poor balls are tied
"To the orbed earth.' STEEVENS.

9-been,] Splendor, luftre. JOHNSON,

P. QUEEN. So many journeys may the fun and

moon

Make us again count o'er, ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are fo fick of late,
So far from cheer, and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, even as they love;1

2

even as they love;] Here feems to have been a line loft, which should have rhymed to love. JOHNSON.

This line is omitted in the folio. Perhaps a triplet was defigned, and then instead of love, we should read luft. The folio gives the next line thus:

"For women's fear and love holds quantity.”

STEEVENS.

There is, I believe, no inftance of a triplet being used in our author's time. Some trace of the loft line is found in the quartos, which read:

Either none in neither aught, &c.

Perhaps the words omitted might have been of this import:
Either none they feel, or an excess approve;

In neither aught, or in extremity.

In two preceding paffages in the quarto, half a line was inadvertently omitted by the compofitor. See p. 142," then fenfeless Ilium, feeming," &c. and p. 163, "thus confcience does make cowards of us all:"-the words in Italick characters are not found in the quarto. MALONE.

Every critick, before he controverts the affertions of his predeceffor, ought to adopt the refolution of Othello:

"I'll fee, before I doubt; what I doubt, prove."

In Phaer and Twine's Virgil, 1584, the triplets are fo frequent, that in two oppofite pages of the tenth book, not lefs than feven are to be met with. They are likewife as unfparingly employed in Golding's Ovid, 1587. Mr. Malone, in a note on The Tempest, Vol. III. p. 140, has quoted a paffage from this very work, containing one inftance of them. In Chapman's Homer they are also used, &c. &c. &c. In The Tempeft, A& IV. fc. i. Many other examples of them occur in Love's Labour's Loft, A&t III. fc. i. as well as in the Comedy of Errors, Act II. and III. &c. &c.—and, yet more unluckily for my opponent, the Prologue to the Mock Tragedy, now under confideration, confifts of a triplet, which in

And women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; And as my love is fiz'd, my fear is fo.3

Where love is great, the littleft doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

P. KING, 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and

shortly too;

My operant powers' their functions leave to do: And thou shalt live in this fair world behind, Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind For husband fhalt thou——————

P. QUEEN.
O, confound the rest!
Such love muft needs be treason in my breast:
In fecond husband let me be accurft!

None wed the second, but who kill'd the first.
HAM. That's wormwood.

P. QUEEN. The instances, that second marriage move,

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love;

our laft edition ftood at the top of the fame page in which he fuppofed "no inftance of a triplet being used in our author's time.” STEEVENS.

3 And as my love is fiz'd, my fear is fo.] Cleopatra expreffes herfelf much in the fame manner, with regard to her grief for the lofs of Antony:

our fize of forrow,

"Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great

"As that which makes it." THEOBALD.

4 Where love &c.] Thefe two lines are omitted in the folio.

STEEVENS.

-operant powers-] Operant is active. Shakspeare gives

it in Timon of Athens as an epithet to poison. Heywood has likewife afed it in his Royal King and Loyal Subject, 1637:

-may my operant parts

"Each one forget their office!"

The word is now obsolete. STEEVENS.

The inftances,] The motives. JOHNSON,

A fecond time I kill my husband dead,
When fecond husband kiffes me in bed.

P. KING. I do believe, you think what now you fpeak;

But, what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the flave to memory;

Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like fruit unripe, fticks on the tree;
But fall, unfhaken, when they mellow be.
Moft neceffary 'tis, that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:"
What to ourselves in paffion we propose,
The paffion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves deftroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on flender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not strange,
That even our loves fhould with our fortunes

change;

For 'tis a queftion left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favourite flies;
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs, shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly feafons him his enemy.

7 what to ourselves is debt:] The performance of a refolution, in which only the refolver is interefted, is a debt only to himfelf, which he may therefore remit at pleasure. JOHNSON.

8 The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves deftroy:] What grief or joy enact or determine in their violence, is revoked in their abatement. Enactures is the word in the quarto; all the modern editions have enactors. JOHNSON.