Behind the arras hearing fomething ftir,
Whips out his rapier, cries, A rat! a rat!
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unfeen good old man.

KING.

O heavy deed!

It had been fo with us, had we been there:

His liberty is full of threats to all;

To you yourself, to us, to every one.

Alas! how fhall this bloody deed be anfwer'd?
It will be laid to us, whofe providence

Should have kept fhort, reftrain'd, and out of

haunt,"

This mad young man: but, fo much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
QUEEN. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
O'er whom his very madness, like fome ore,*

cut of haunt,] I would rather read,—out of harm.

JOHNSON.

Out of haunt, means out of company. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"Dido and her Sichæus fhall want troops,
"And all the haunt be ours."

Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, Book V. ch. xxvi:
“And from the fmith of heaven's wife allure the amorous

baunt."

The place where men affemble, is often poetically called the haunt of men. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

2

"We talk here in the publick haunt of men." STEEVENS.

like fome ore,] Shakspeare feems to think ore to be or, that is, gold. ́ ́ Bafe metals have ore no less than precious.

JOHNSON.

Shakspeare uses the general word ore to exprefs gold, because it was the most excellent of ores.-I fuppofe we fhould read " of metal bafe" instead of metals, which much improves the construction of the paffage. M. MASON.

Among a mineral of metals base,

Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
KING. O, Gertrude, come away!

The fun no fooner fhall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
We muft, with all our majefty and skill,
Both countenance and excufe.-Ho! Guildenstern!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Friends both, go join you with fome further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius flain,
And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
Go, feek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, hafte in this.

Exeunt Ros. and GUIL. Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wifeft friends; And let them know, both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done: fo, haply, flander,'

He has perhaps ufed ore in the fame fenfe in his Rape of Lucrece: "When beauty boafted blushes, in despite

« Virtue would stain that ore with filver white."

A mineral Minfheu defines in his Dictionary, 1617, "Any thing that grows in mines, and contains metals." Shakspeare seems to have used the word in this fenfe, for a rude mass of metals. In Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo, 1616, Mineral is defined, "mettall, or any thing digged out of the earth." MALONE.

Minerals are mines. So, in The Golden Remains of Hales of Eton, 1693, p. 34: "Controverfies of the times, like fpirits in the minerals, with all their labour, nothing is done."

Again, in Hall's Virgidemiarum, Lib. VI:

2

66

Shall it not be a wild fig in a wall,

"Or fired brimftone in a minerall?"

STEEVENS.

-fo, haply, flander, &c.] Neither these words, nor the fol lowing three lines and an half, are in the folio. In the quarto, 1604, and all the fubfequent quartos, the paffage ftands thus: --And what's untimely done.

"Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter," &c.

the compofitor having omitted the latter part of the first line, as in

Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,'

Transports his poifon'd fhot,-may mifs our name,
And hit the woundless air.+-O, come away!
My foul is full of discord, and difmay. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Another Room in the fame.

Enter HAMLET.

HAM.- Safely ftow'd,-[Ros. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet!] But foft,'-what noise? who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

a former scene, (see p. 190, n. 2,) a circumftance which gives additional ftrength to an obfervation made in Vol. XII. p. 644, n. 4. Mr. Theobald fupplied the lacuna by reading,-For haply flander, &c. So appears to me to fuit the context better; for thefe lines are rather in appofition with thofe immediately preceding, than an illation from them. Mr. M. Mafon, I find, has made the fame obfervation,

Shakspeare, as Theobald has obferved, again expatiates on the diffufive power of flander, in Cymbeline:

No, 'tis flander;

"Whofe edge is sharper than the fword, whofe tongue
"Out-venoms all the worms of Nile, whofe breath
"Rides on the posting winds, and doth bely

"All corners of the world.” MALONE.

Mr. Malone reads-So viperous flander. STEEVENS. 3 —cannon to his blank,] The blank was the white mark at which fhot or arrows were directed. So, in King Lear:

5

66

- let me ftill remain

"The true blank of thine eye." STEEVENS.

the woundless air.] So, in a former scene:

"It is as the air invulnerable." MALONE.

- But foft,] I have added these two words from the quarto, 1604, STEEVENS,

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAM. Compounded it with duft," whereto 'tis

kin.

Ros. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

HAM. Do not believe it.

Ros. Believe what?

HAM. That I can keep your counfel, and not mine own. Befides, to be demanded of a fpunge! -what replication fhould be made by the fon of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a spunge, my lord?

HAM. Ay, fir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But fuch officers do the king best service in the end: He keeps

The folio reads:

"Ham. Safely ftow'd.

"Rof. &c. within. Hamlet! lord Hamlet.
"Ham. What noife," &c.

In the quarto, 1604, the fpeech ftands thus:

"Ham. Safely ftow'd; but foft, what noife? who calls on Hamlet?" &c.

I have therefore printed Hamlet's fpeech unbroken, and inferted that of Rofencrantz, &c. from the folio, before the words, but foft, &c. In the modern editions Hamlet is made to take notice of the noife made by the courtiers, before he has heard it. MALONE. 6 Compounded it with duft,] So, in King Henry IV. Part II: Only compound me with forgotten duft.”

Again, in our poet's 71ft Sonnet:

"When I perhaps compounded am with clay."

MALONE.

them, like an ape," in the corner of his jaw; first mouth'd, to be laft fwallow'd: When he needs what you have glean'd, it is but fqueezing you, and, fpunge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord.

-like an ape,] The quarto has apple, which is generally followed. The folio has ape, which Sir T. Hanmer has received, and illuftrated with the following note:

"It is the way of monkeys in eating, to throw that part of their food, which they take up firft, into a pouch they are provided with on each fide of their jaw, and there they keep it, till they have done with the reft." JOHNSON.

Surely this fhould be " like an ape, an apple." FARMER.

The reading of the folio, like an ape, I believe to be the true one, because Shakspeare has the fame phrafeology in many other places. The word ape refers to the king, not to his courtiers. He keeps them like an ape, in the corner of his jaw, &c. means, he keeps them, as an ape keeps food, in the corner of his jaw, &c. So, in King Henry IV. Part I: your chamber-lie breeds fleas like a loach;" i. e. as faft as a loach breeds loaches. Again, in King Lear: "They flatter'd me like a dog;" i. e. as a dog farns upon and flatters his mafter.

That the particular food in Shakspeare's contemplation was an apple, may be inferred from the following paffage in The Captain, by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"And lie, and kifs my hand unto my mistress,

"As often as an ape does for an apple.”

I cannot approve of Dr. Farmer's reading. Had our poet meant to introduce both the ape and the apple, he would, I think, have written not like, but " as an ape an apple."

The two inftances above quoted thew that any emendation is unneceffary. The reading of the quarto is, however, defenfible. MALONE.

Apple in the quarto is a mere typographical error. So, in Peele's Araygnement of Paris, 1584:

66

you wot it very well

"All that be Dian's maides are vowed to halter apples in

hell."

The meaning, however, is clearly" as an ape does an apple."

RITSON.