So grace and mercy at your most need help you! HAM. Reft, reft, perturbed fpirit! -So, gentle men, folded arms or shaking of your head intimate that a fecret is lodgea in your breafts; and by no ambiguous phrafes denote that you know aught of me. Shakspeare has in many other places begun to conftruct a fentence in one form, and ended it another. So, in All's well that ends well: "I would the cutting of my garments would ferve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to Jay it was in ftratagem." Again in the fame play: "No more of this, Helena;-lest it be rather thought you affect a forrow, than to have:" where he ought to have written than that you have: or, left you rather be thought to affect a forrow, than to have. Again, ibidem: "I bade her-if her fortunes ever stood Again, in The Tempeft: "I have with fuch provifion in mine art See alfo Vol. III. p. 12, n. 2; and Vol. VII. p. 60, n. 7; and p. 181, n. 3. Having ufed the word never in the preceding part of the fentence, [that you never fhall-] the poet confidered the negative implied in what follows; and hence he wrote-" or to note," inftead of MALONE. 7 This do you fwear, &c.] The folio reads,—this not to do, fwear, &c. STEEVENS. Swear is ufed here as in many other places, as a diffyllable. MALONE. Here again my untutored ears revolt from a new diffyllable; nor have I ferupled, like my predeceffors, to fupply the pronoun you, which muft accidentally have dropped out of a line that is imperfect without it. STEEVENS. 8 Reft, reft, perturbed spirit!] The skill difplayed in Shakspeare's management of his Ghost, is too confiderable to be overlooked. He has rivetted our attention to it by a fucceffion of forcible circumstances:-by the previous report of the terrified centinels,-by the folemnity of the hour at which the phantom walks,-by its With all my love I do commend me to you: May do, to exprefs his love and friending to you, The time is out of joint;-O curfed fpite! [Exeunt, martial ftride and difcriminating armour, vifible only per incertam lunam, by the glimpses of the moon,-by its long taciturnity,by its preparation to fpeak, when interrupted by the morning cock, by its myfterious reserve throughout its firft scene with Hamlet, by his refolute departure with it, and the fubfequent anxiety of his attendants,-by its conducting him to a folitary angle of the platform,-by its voice from beneath the earth,—and by its unexpected burst on us in the closet. Hamlet's late interview with the fpectre, muft in particular be regarded as a ftroke of dramatick artifice. The phantom might bave told his story in the prefence of the officers and Horatio, and yet have rendered itself as inaudible to them, as afterwards to the Queen. But fufpenfe was our poet's object; and never was it more effectually created, than in the prefent inftance. Six times has the royal femblance appeared, but till now has been withheld from fpeaking. For this event we have waited with impatient curiofity, unaccompanied by laffitude, or remitted attention. The Ghoft in this tragedy, is allowed to be the genuine product of Shakspeare's ftrong imagination. When he afterwards avails himfelf of traditional phantoms, as in Julius Cæfar, and King Richard III. they are but inefficacious pageants; nay, the apparition of Banquo is a mute exhibitor. Perhaps our poet despaired to equal the vigour of his early conceptions on the fubject of preternatural beings, and therefore allotted them no further eminence in his dramas; or was unwilling to diminish the power of his principal fhade, by an injudicious repetition of congenial images, STEEVENS. The verb perturb is ufed by Holinfhed, and by Bacon in his Elay on Superftition: “ therefore atheism did never perturb ftates." MALONE. ACT II. SCENE I. A Room in Polonius's Houfe. Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO." POL. Give him this money, and these notes, Reynaldo. Rer. I will, my lord. POL. You fhall do marvellous wifely, good Rey naldo, Before you visit him, to make inquiry Of his behaviour. REY. My lord, I did intend it. POL. Marry, well faid: very well faid. Look you, fir, Inquire me first what Danskers' are in Paris; keep, What company, at what expence; and finding, ? Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.] The quartos read-Enter old Polonius with his man or two. STEEVENS. 2 -well faid: very well faid.] Thus alfo, the weak and tedious Shallow fays to Bardolph, in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Act III. fc. ii: "It is well faid, fir; and it is well faid indeed too." STEEVENS. 3 Danskers-] Danske (in Warner's Albion's England) is the ancient name of Denmark. STEEVENS. come you more nearer Than your particular demands will touch it:] The late editions read, and point, thus: Take you, as 'twere, fome diftant knowledge of him; As thus, I know his father, and his friends, And, in part, him ;-Do you mark this, Reynaldo? REY. Ay, very well, my lord. POL. And, in part, him ;-but, you may fay,-not well: But, if't be be I mean, he's very wild; As Addicted fo and fo;—and there put on him REY. As gaming, my lord. Poz. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,' quar、 relling, Drabbing:-You may go fo far. Rer. My lord, that would dishonour him. POL. 'Faith, no; as you may season it in the charge," come you more nearer; Then your particular demands will touch it: Throughout the old copies the word which we now write-than, is conftantly written-ihen. I have therefore printed—than, which the context feems to me to require, though the old copies have then. There is no point after the word nearer, either in the original quarto, 1604, or the folio. MALONE. s—drinking, fencing, fearing,] I fuppofe, by fencing is meant a too diligent frequentation of the fencing-school, a refort of violent and lawless young men. JOHNSON. Fencing, I fuppofe, means, piquing himself on his skill in the use of the fword, and quarrelling and brawling, in confequence of that kill. "The cunning of fencers, fays Goffon in his Schoole of Abufe, 1579, is now applied to quarreling: they thinke themselves no men, if for ftirring of a straw, they prove not their valure uppon fome bodies fleihe." MALONE. " 'Faith, no; as you may season it &c.] The quarto reads→→ Faith, as you may feafon it in the charge. MALONE. You must not put another scandal on him,' That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults fo quaintly, That they may seem the taints of liberty: The flash and out-break of a fiery mind; 9 A favageness in unreclaimed blood, Of general affault," POL. Marry, fir, here's my drift; Your party in converse, him you would found, 7 —another scandal on bim,] Thus the old editions. Mr. Theobald reads,—an utter. JOHNSON. another Scandal-] i. e. a very different and more fcandalous failing, namely habitual incontinency. Mr. Theobald in his Shakspeare Reftored proposed to read—an utter scandal on him; but did not admit the emendation into his edition. MALONE. 8 That's not my meaning:] That is not what I mean, when I permit you to accúfe him of drabbing. M. MASON. 9 A favageness-] Savageness, for wildness. WARBURton. Of general affault.] i. e. fuch as youth in general is liable to. 2 WARBURTON. 3 And, I believe, it is a fetch of warrant:] So, the folio. The quarto reads,—a fetch of wit. STEEVENS. 4 prenominate crimes,] i. e, crimes already nared. STEEVENS. |