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Muft I remember? why, fhe would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: And yet, within a month,Let me not think on't;-Frailty, thy name is woman!

A little month; or ere thofe fhoes were old,
With which the follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears; -why the, even the,-
O heaven! a beast, that wants difcourfe of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-marry'd with my
uncle,

My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules: Within a month;

Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalaine, &c. by Lewis Wager, 4to. 1567:

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But evermore they were unto me very tender,

They would not fuffer the wynde on me to blowe."

I have therefore replaced the ancient reading, without the flighteft hesitation, in the text.

This note was inferted by me in the Gentleman's Magazine, fome years before Mr. Malone's edition of our author (in which the fame juftification of the old reading-beteeme, occurs,) had made its appearance. STEEVENS.

This paffage ought to be a perpetual memento to all future editors and commentators to proceed with the utmost caution in emendation, and never to discard a word from the text, merely because it is not the language of the prefent day.

Mr. Hughes or Mr. Rowe, fuppofing the text to be unintelligible, for beteem boldly fubftituted permitted. Mr. Theobald, in order to favour his own emendation, ftated untruly that all the old copies which he had feen, read beteene. His emendation appearing uncommonly happy, was adopted by all the fubfequent editors. We find a fentiment fimilar to that before us, in Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1603:

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she had a lord,

Jealous that air fhould ravifh her chafte looks,"

MALONE.

Like Niobe, all tears;] Shakfpeare might have caught this idea. from an ancient ballad intitled The falling out of Lovers is the renewing of Love:

"Now I, like weeping Niobe,

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May wash my handes in teares," &c.

Of this ballad Amantium iræ &c. is the burden. STEEVENS.

Ere yet the falt of moft unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She marry'd :-O moft wicked speed, to post
With fuch dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELLUS.

HOR. Hail to your lordship!

HAM.

I am glad to see you well:

Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HOR. The fame, my lord, and your poor fervant

ever.

HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you.

2

And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?— Marcellus?

MAR. My good lord,

HAM. I am very glad to fee you; good even, fir.3But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

9 — I'll change that name—] I'll be your fervant, you shall be my friend. JOHNSON.

— what make you-] A familiar phrase for what are you doing. JOHNSON.

See Vol. VI. p. 7, n. 5. STEEVENS.

3 good even, fir.] So the copies. Sir Thomas Hanmer and Dr. Warburton put it-good morning. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There is no need of any change. Between the first and eighth scene of this act it is apparent, that a natural day muft pafs, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The king has held a council. It may now as well be evening as morning. JOHNSON.

The change made by Sir T. Hanmer might be juftified by what Marcellus faid of Hamlet at the conclufion of scene i:

"—and I this morning know

"Where we shall find him most convenient." STEEVENS.

HOR. A truant difpofition, good my lord.
HAM. I would not hear your enemy say fo;
Nor fhall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it trufter of your own report
Against yourself: I know, you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elfinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep, ere you depart.

HOR. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral. HAM. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellowftudent;

I think, it was to fee my mother's wedding.

HOR. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon. HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral bak'd meats +

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 'Would I had met my deareft foe in heaven'

4 the funeral bak'd meats-] It was anciently the general cuftom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In diftant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry. See The Tragique Hiftorie of the Faire Valeria of London, 1598: "His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church, and there follemnly enterred, nothing omitted which neceffitie or cuftom could claime; a fermon, a banquet, and like obfervations." Again, in the old romance of Syr Degore, bl. 1. no date:

"A great feafte would he holde

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Upon his quenes mornynge day,

"That was buryed in an abbay." COLLINS.

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See alfo Hayward's Life and Raigne of King Henrie the Fourth, 4to. 1599, p. 135: " Then hee [King Richard II.] was conveyed to Langley Abby in Buckinghamshire, and there obfcurely interred,-without the charge of a dinner for celebrating the funeral." MALONE.

5

dearest foe in heaven —] Deareft for direst, most dreadful, most dangerous. JOHNSON.

Dearest is most immediate, confequential, important. So, in Romeo and Juliet:

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a ring that I must use

"In dear employment."

Or ever I had feen that day, Horatio!-
My father, Methinks, I fee my father.

HOR.

My lord?

HAM. In my mind's eye,' Horatio.

Where,

HOR. I faw him once, he was a goodly king. HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all, I fhall not look upon his like again.

HOR. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. HAM. Saw! who?

HOR. My lord, the king your father.

Again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid in the Mill: "You meet your dearest enemy in love,

"With all his hate about him." STEEVENS.

See Vol. XI. p. 650, n. 7. MALONE,

6 Or ever-] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-ere ever, This is not the only inftance in which a familiar phrafeology has been fubftituted for one more ancient, in that valuable copy.

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MALONE.

In my mind's eye,] This expreffion occurs again in our author's Rape of Lucrece :

himself behind

"Was left unfeen, fave to the eye of mind."

Ben Jonfon has borrowed it in his Mafque called Love's Triumph through Callipolis:

"As only by the mind's eye may be seen.”

Telemachus lamenting the abfence of Ulyffes, is represented in like

manner:

Ὀσσόμενος πατέρ ̓ ἐσθλὸν ἐνὶ φρεσὶν. Οd. L. I. 115. STEEVEN S. This expreffion occurs again in our author's 113th Sonnet :

"Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind." MALONE. 8 I fall not look upon his like again.] Mr. Holt propofes to read from a emendation of Sir Thomas Samwell, Bart. of Upton, near Northampton:

Eye fhall not look upon his like again;

and thinks it is more in the true fpirit of Shak fpeare than the other. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 746: "In the greatest pomp that ever eye behelde." Again, in Sandys's Travels, p. 150: "We went this day through the most pregnant and pleafant valley that ever eye beheld," STEEVENS,

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The king my father!

HOR. Seafon your admiration for a while With an attent ear; till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of
This marvel to you.

HAM.

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these gentlemen,

For God's love, let me hear.

HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waift and middle of the night,'
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point, exactly, cap-à-pé,

Appears before them, and, with folemn march,
Goes flow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their opprefs'd and fear-furprized eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilft they, dif-
till'd

9 Seafon your admiration-] That is, temper it. JOHNSON. 2 With an attent ear;] Spenfer, as well as our poet, uses attent for attentive. MALONE.

3 In the dead waift and middle of the night,] This ftrange phrafeology feems to have been common in the time of Shakspeare. By waift is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet. So, in Marston's Malecontent, 1604:

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""Tis now about the immodeft waist of night." i.e. midnight. Again, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607: "—ere the day be spent to the girdle,"

In the old copies the word is fpelt waft, as it is in the second act, fc. ii: "Then you live about her waft, or in the middle of her favours." The fame fpelling is found in King Lear, A&t IV. fc. vi: "Down from the waft, they are centaurs." See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "Waft, middle, or girdle-steed." We have the fame pleonafm in another line in this play:

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"And given my heart a working mute and dumb.”

All the modern editors read-In the dead waste &c. MALONE. Dead waste may be the true reading. See Vol. I. p. 36, n. 4. STEEVENS.

4 Armed at point,] Thus the quartos. Arm'd at all points. STEEVENS.

The folio:

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