1. CLO. How can that be, unless fhe drown'd herself in her own defence?

2. CLO. Why, 'tis found fo.

1. CLO. It must be fe offendendo; it cannot be elfe. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform:" Argal, the drown'd herself wittingly.

2. CLO. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1. CLO. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here ftands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himfelf: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, fhortens not his own life.

2. CLO. But is this law?

1. CLO. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law.'

Again, in Hamlet, A& III. fc. iv :

Pol. He will come ftraight."

Again, in The Lover's Progrefs, by Beaumont and Fletcher: "Lif. Do you fight straight?

"Clar. Yes, presently.'

Again, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

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we'll come and dress you ftraight,"

Again, in Othello:

"Farewell, my Defdemona, I will come to thee ftraight."

Again, in Troilus and Creffida:

"Let us make ready ftraight." MALONE.

STEEVENS.

an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to per form:] Ridicule on fcholaftick divifions without distinction; and of diftinctions without difference. WARBURTON,

5 crowner's queft-lar.] I ftrongly fufpect that this is a ridicule on the cafe of Dame Hales, reported by Piowden in his commentaries, as determined in 3 Eliz.

It seems, her husband fir James Hales had drowned himself in a river; and the question was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a

2. CLO. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, fhe should have been bury'd out of chriftian burial.

1. CLO. Why, there thou fay'ft: And the more pity; that great folks should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even chriftian." Come; my fpade. There

leafe from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which he was poffeffed of, did not accrue to the crown: an inquifition was found before the coroner, which found him felo de fe. The legal and logical fubtilties, arifing in the courfe of the argument of this cafe, gave a very fair opportunity for a fneer at crowner's queft-law. The expreffion, a little before, that an act hath three branches, &c. is fo pointed an allufion to the cafe I mention, that I cannot doubt but that Shakspeare was acquainted with, and meant to laugh at it.

It may be added, that on this occafion a great deal of fubtilty was used, to ascertain whether fir James was the agent or the patient; or, in other words, whether he went to the water, or the water came to him. The cause of fir James's madness was the circumftance of his having been the judge who condemned lady Jane Gray. SIR J. HAWKINS.

If Shakspeare meant to allude to the cafe of Dame Hales, (which indeed feems not improbable,) he must have heard of that cafe in converfation; for it was determined before he was born, and Plowden's Commentaries, in which it is reported, were not tranflated into English till a few years ago. Our author's study was probably not much encumbered with old French Reports.

MALONE. 6their even chriftian.] So, all the old books, and rightly. An old English expreffion for fellow-chriftian. THIRLBY.

So, in Chaucer's Jack Upland: "If freres cannot or mow not excufe 'hem of thefe queftions afked of 'hem, it feemeth that they be horrible giltie against God, and ther even chriftian;" &c. Again, in Gower, De Confeffione Amantis, Lib. V. fol. 102:

"Of beautie fighe he never hir even.”

Again, Chaucer's Perfones Tale: " — - of his neighbour, that is to fayn, of his even criften," &c. This phrafe also occurs frequently in the Pafton Letters. See Vol. III. p. 421, &c. &c. "That is to fay, in relieving and fuftenance of your even chriften," &c.-Again, to difpofe and help your even chriften."

STEEVENS.

So, King Henry Eighth, in his anfwer to parliament in 1546:

is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profeffion. 2. CLO. Was he a gentleman?

1. CLO. He was the firft that ever bore arms. 2. CLO. Why, he had none.

1. CLO. What, art a heathen? How doft thou understand the fcripture? The fcripture fays, Adam digg'd; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answer'ft me not to the purpose, confess thyself—8

2. CLO. Go to.

1. CLO. What is he, that builds ftronger than either the mason, the fhipwright, or the carpenter? 2. CLO. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1. CLO. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to thofe that do ill: now thou doft ill, to fay, the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again;

come.

2. CLO. Who builds' ftronger than a mafon, a fhipwright, or a carpenter?

you might fay that I, beyng put in fo fpeciall a truft as I am in this cafe, were no truftie frende to you, nor charitable man to mine even chriftian,-." Hall's Chronicle, fol. 261.

MALONE.

72. Clo.] This fpeech, and the next as far as-without arms, is not in the quartos. STEEVENS.

8confefs thyfelf-] and be hang'd, the Clown, I fuppofe, would have faid, if he had not been interrupted. This was a common proverbial fentence. See Othello, Act IV. fc. i.-He might, however, have intended to fay, confefs thyself an afs.

MALONE. 9 Who builds &c.] The inquifitive reader may meet with an af

1. CLO. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke." 2. CLO. Marry, now I can tell.

1. CLO. To't.

2. CLO. Mafs, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1. CLO. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull afs will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are afk'd this question next, fay, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, laft till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a ftoup of liquor. [Exit 2. Clown.

femblage of fuch queries (which perhaps compofed the chief festivity of our ancestors by an evening fire) in a volume of very fcarce tracts, preferved in the University Library at Cambridge, D. 5. 2.. The innocence of thefe Demaundes Joyous may deferve a praise which is not always due to their delicacy. STEEVENS.

Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.] If it be not fufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that this phrafe might be taken from hufbandry, without much depth of reading, we may produce it from a dittie of the workmen of Dover, preferved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546:

"My bow is broke, I would unyoke,

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My foot is fore, I can worke no more." FARMER. Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, at the end of Song I:

"Here I'll unyoke a while and turne my steeds to meat.” Again, in P. Holland's tranflation of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, P. 593: in the evening, and when thou dost unyoke.” STEEVENS.

3 Cudgel thy brains no more about it;] So, in The Maydes Metamorphofis, by Lyly, 1600:

"In vain, I fear, I beat my brains about,

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Proving by fearch to find my mistreffe out." MALONE.

He digs, and fings.

In youth when I did love, did love,+
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

4 In youth when I did love, &c.] The three ftanzas, fung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a flight variation, from a little poem, called The aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who flourished in the reign of king Henry VIII. and who was beheaded 1547, on a strained accufation of treafon. THEOBALD.

5 To contra&, 0, the time, for, ah, my behove

O, methought, there was nothing meet.] This paffage, as it ftands, is abfolute nonfenfe; but if we read" for aye," instead of "for ab" it will have fome kind of fenfe, as it may mean " that it was not meet, though he was in love, to contract himself for ever." M. MASON.

Dr. Percy is of opinion that the different corruptions in these ftanzas, might have been "defigned by the poet himself, the better to paint the character of an illiterate clown."

Behove is intereft, convenience. So, in the 4th Book of Phaer's verfion of the Eneid:

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wilt for thyne own behove." STEEVENS.

nothing meet.] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1604, reads: O me thought there a was nothing a meet. MALONE. The original poem from which this ftanza is taken, like the other fucceeding ones, is preferved among lord Surrey's poems; though, as Dr. Percy has obferved, it is attributed to lord Vaux by George Gafcoigne. See an epiftle prefixed to one of his poems, printed with the rest of his works, 1575. By others it is fupposed to have been written by fir Thomas Wyatt:

"I lothe that I did love;

"In youth that I thought fwete: "As time requires for my behove,

"Methinks they are not mete."

All these difficulties however (fays the Rev. Thomas Warton, Hiftory of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 45,) are at once adjusted by MS. Harl. 1703, 25, in the British Museum, in which we have a copy of Vaux's poem, beginning, I lathe that I did love, with the