Be buried quick with her, and fo will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

word is ufed by Chaucer, and Skelton, and by Sir Thomas More, Works, p. 21, edit. 1557:

with fowre pocion

"If thou paine thy taft, remember therewithal
"How Chrift for thee tafted eifil and gall."

The word is alfo found in Minfheu's Dictionary, 1617, and in Coles' Latin Dictionary, 1679.

Our poet, as Dr. Farmer has obferved, has again employed the fame word in his 111th Sonnet:

like a willing patient I will drink

"Potions of eyfell 'gainst my ftrong infection;
"No bitterness that I will bitter think,

"Nor double penance, to correct correction."

Mr. Steevens fuppofes, that a river was meant, either the rel, or Oefil, or Weifel, a confiderable river which falls into the Baltick ocean. The words, drink up, he confiders as favourable to his notion. "Had Shakspeare, (he observes,) meant to make Hamlet fay, Wilt thou drink vinegar? he probably would not have used the term drink up, which means, totally to exhauft. In King Richard II. Act II. fc. ii. (he adds) a thought in part the fame occurs: 66 -the task he undertakes,

"Is numb'ring fands, and drinking oceans dry."

But I must remark, in that paffage evidently impoffibilities are pointed out. Hamlet is only talking of difficult or painful exertions. Every man can weep, fight, faft, tear himself, drink a potion of vinegar, and eat a piece of a diffected crocodile, however difagreeable; for I have no doubt that the poet ufes the words eat a crocodile, for eat of a crocodile. We yet use the same phraseology in familiar language.

On the phrafe drink up no ftrefs can be laid, for our poet has employed the fame expreffion in his 114th Sonnet, without any idea of entirely exhaufting, and merely as fynonymous to drink: "Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, "Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?" Again, in the fame Sonnet:

'tis flattery in my feeing,

"And my great mind moft kingly drinks it up.” Again, in Timon of Athens:

"And how his filence drinks up his applaufe."

In Shakspeare's time, as at prefent, to drink up, often meant no more than fimply to drink. So, in Florio's Italian Dict. 1598: Serbire, to fip or fup up any drink.” In like manner we fome

Millions of acres on us; till our ground, Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Offa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth, I'll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN.

This is mere madness:*

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,3
His filence will fit drooping.

times say, “when you have swallow'd down this potion," though we mean no more than—“ when you have swallow'd this potion." MALONE.

Mr. Malone's ftrictures are undoubtedly acute, and though not, in my own opinion, decifive, may ftill be juft. Yet as I cannot reconcile my felf to the idea of a prince's challenging a nobleman to drink what Mrs. Quickly has called "a mefs of vinegar," I have neither changed our former text, nor withdrawn my original remarks on it, notwithstanding they are almoft recapitulated in those of my opponent. On the fcore of fuch redundancy, however, I both need and folicit the indulgence of the reader. STEEVENS.

This is mere madnefs:] This fpeech in the first folio is given to the king. MALONE.

3 When that her golden couplets are difclos'd,] To disclose was anciently used for to hatch. So, in The Booke of Huntynge, Hawkyng, Fyfyng, &c. bl. 1. no date: "Firft they ben eges; and after they ben difelfed, haukes; and commonly goshaukes ben difclofed as fone as the choughes." To exclude is the technical term at prefent. During three days after the pigeon has batched her couplets, (for the lays no more than two eggs,) the never quits her neft, except for a few moments in queft of a little food for herfelf; as all her young require in that early state, is to be kept warm, an office which the never entrufts to the male. STEEVENS.

The young neftlings of the pigeon, when firft difclofed, are callow, only covered with a yellow down: and for that reafon stand in need of being cherished by the warmth of the hen, to protect them from the chillnefs of the ambient air, for a confiderable time after they are hatched. HEATH.

The word difclofe has already occurred in a sense nearly allied to batch, in this play:

"And I do doubt, the hatch and the difclje

"Will be fome danger." MALONE.

Нам.

Hear you, fir;
What is the reason that you ufe me thus?
I lov'd you ever: But it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

[Exit.

KING. I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon

him.

[Exit HORATIO. Strengthen your patience in our last night's fpeech;

[To LAERTES. We'll put the matter to the present push.— Good Gertrude, fet fome watch over your fon.This grave shall have a living monument: An hour of quiet fhortly fhall we fee; Till then, in patience our proceeding be. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Hall in the Cafle.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO.

HAM. So much for this, fir: now shall you fee the other;

You do remember all the circumstance?

HOR. Remember it, my lord!

HAM. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fight

ing,

That would not let me fleep; methought, I lay

Mortly] The first quarto erroneously reads-thirty. The fecond and third-thereby. The folio-fhortly. STEEVENS. 5 Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

That would not let me fleep; &c.] So, in Troilus and Creffida: "Within my foul there doth commence a fight,

"Of this strange nature," &c.

Worfe than the mutines in the bilboes." Rafhly,

The Hyftorie of Hamblet, bl. let. furnished our author with the fcheme of fending the Prince to England, and with most of the circumftances defcribed in this fcene:

[After the death of Polonius]" Fengon [the king in the prefent play] could not content himfelfe, but ftill his mind gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him fome trick of legerdemaine. And in that conceit, seeking to bee rid of him, determined to find the meanes to doe it by the aid of a ftranger, making the king of England minifter of his maffacrous refolution; to whom he purpofed to fend him, and by letters defire him to put him to death.

"Now to beare him company, were affigned two of Fengon's faithful minifters, bearing letters ingraved in wood, that contained Hamlet's death, in fuch fort as he had advertised the king of England. But the fubtil Danish prince, (being at fea,) whilft his companions flept, having read the letters, and knowing his uncle's great treafon, with the wicked and villainous mindes of the two courtiers that led him to the flaughter, raced out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, with commiffion to the king of England to hang his two companions; and not content to turn the death they had devifed against him, upon their own neckes, wrote further, that king Fengon willed him to give his daughter to Hamblet in marriage." Hyft. of Hamblet, fignat. G 2.

From this narrative it appears that the faithful minifters of Fengon were not unacquainted with the import of the letters they bore. Shakspeare, who has followed the ftory pretty closely, probably meant to defcribe their reprefentatives, Rofencrantz and Guildenftern, as equally guilty; as confederating with the king to deprive Hamlet of his life. So that his procuring their execution, though certainly not abfolutely neceffary to his own safety, does not appear to have been a wanton and unprovoked cruelty, as Mr. Steevens has fuppofed in his very ingenious obfervations on the general character and conduct of the prince throughout this piece.

In the conclufion of his drama the poet has entirely deviated from the fabulous hiftory, which in other places he has frequently followed.

After Hamblet's arrival in England, (for no fea-fight is mentioned,) “ the king, (fays The Hyftory of Hamblet) admiring the young prince, gave him his daughter in marriage, according to the counterfeit letters by him devifed; and the next day canfed the two fervants of Fengon to be executed, to fatisfy, as he thought, the king's defire." Hyf. of Hamb. Ibid.

And prais'd be rashness for it,-Let us know,

Hamlet, however, returned to Denmark, without marrying the king of England's daughter, who, it fhould feem, had only been betrothed to him. When he arrived in his native country, he made the courtiers drunk, and having burnt them to death, by fetting fire to the banqueting-room wherein they fat, he went into Fengon's chamber, and killed him, "giving him (fays the relater) fuch a violent blowe upon the chine of the neck, that he cut his head clean from the shoulders." Ibid. fignat. F 3.

He is afterwards faid to have been crowned king of Denmark. MALONE.

I apprehend that a critick and a juryman are bound to form their opinions on what they fee and hear in the caufe before them, and not to be influenced by extraneous particulars unfupported by legal evidence in open court. I perfift in obferving that from Shakfpeare's drama no proofs of the guilt of Rofencrantz and Guildenftern can be collected. They may be convicted by the black letter history; but if the tragedy forbears to criminate, it has no right to fentence them. This is fufficient for the commentator's purpofe. It is not his office to interpret the plays of Shakspeare according to the novels on which they are founded, novels which the poet fometimes followed, but as often materially deferted. Perhaps he never confined himself ftrictly to the plan of any one of his originals. His negligence of poetick juftice is notorious; nor can we expect that he who was content to facrifice the pious Ophelia, fhould have been more fcrupulous about the worthlefs lives of Rofencrantz and Guildenstern. Therefore, I ftill affert that, in the tragedy before us, their deaths appear both wanton and unprovoked; and the critick, like Bayes, muft have recourse to somewhat long before the beginning of this play, to juftify the conduct of its hero. STEEVENS,

6

mutines in the bilboes.] Mutines, the French word for feditious or difobedient fellows in the army or fleet. Bilboes, the Ship's prison. JOHNSON.

To mutine was formerly used for to mutiny. See p. 229, n. 5. So mutine, for mutiner, or mutineer: "un homme mutin," Fr. a mutinous or feditious perfon. In The Misfortunes of Arthur, a tragedy, 1587, the adjective is ufed:

"Suppreffeth mutin force, and practicke fraud."

MALONE.

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or diforderly failors were anciently linked together. The