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not what word to propose in its place. The sentiment Rowe seems to have made use of, in Jane Shore:

"I thought the gentlest breeze that wakes the spring

"Too rough to breathe on her."

41. "By what it fed on: And yet, within a month."

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"And" should be omitted here, as useless to the sense, and burthensome to the metre. And again, the next line,

"Let me not think on't; Frailty, thy name is

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"Let me not think;-Frailty, thy name is

woman."

42. "Horatio,-or I do forget myself."

I am not certain whether the latter part of this line is spoken familiarly" I forget myself," for I forget-or emphatically, with compliment to Horatio; whom the speaker would say he valued as himself. "This surely is my friend Horatio, or I have lost the knowledge even of myself."

I'll change that name with you."

Dr. Johnson's explanation may be right; but perhaps Hamlet means to say, that between Họratio and himself the name of friend shall be current-Do not call yourself my servant-you are my friend-so I shall call you, and so I would have you call me. If this be the sense, the, line

should be pointed thus:

Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name

with you."

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

Hamlet would intimate that drunkenness was the only thing that could be learned at the usurper's court.

45.

man,

"He was a man, take him for all in all,
"I shall not look upon his like again."

This, I believe, is not rightly pointed. I take it to be a thought twice broken or interrupted, Horatio had called Hamlet's father "a goodly king. "—"O!" exclaims the prince, "he was a "but not knowing which excellence to prefer in describing him, he breaks off with the general remark-" take him for all in all-" yet here again, not knowing adequate terms of applause, he concludes abruptly-" I shall not look his like again." upon

"Saw! who?"

This is a common ellipsis, rather than wrong grammar.

i. e. "Who (was it whom you saw ?)" "In the dead waist and middle of the night."

The quarto of 1637 reads "vast," and that, perhaps, is right; but the folio has "wast," which appears more naturally, and with better sense, than "waist" affords, to suggest waste." Milton has an expression somewhat similar:

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Parad. Lost.

A modern actor of great merit, while he keeps caprice in the rear of good sense, endeavours, in this scene, to impress a meaning which I suppose could never have occurred to any body but himself-a distinction as to the persons he is addressing:

"Did you not speak to it ?"

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This conceit, no doubt, arises from a passage in Horatio's description, where he says, of Marcellus and Bernardo, that they stood dumb; but it is a petty distinction, unworthy of the actor I allude to, and incompatible with the spirit of the scene, which prompts Hamlet to ask merely the question,-if they had not drawn the ghost into conversation? Hamlet did not care who it was that spoke; all he wanted was, that the ghost should have been spoken to. From this question, there is no inference that what had been said about the silence of Bernardo and Marcellus, was unattended to by Hamlet; his words, on the contrary, refer to that very remark; as if he had said,

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"What! and did ye not speak to it?"

"Did you not speak to it ?"

This censure (in which Mr. Steevens also concurs) of the emphasis lately introduced in de ivering this passage on the stage, is very justly called forth. The desire of novelty, and the atfectation of superior acuteness, frequently betrays the actor alluded to into egregious errors.

What Bishop Hurd says of writers, may (mutatis mutandis) be applied to this actor's performances. "When a writer, who (as we have seen) is driven by so many powerful motives to

the imitation of preceding models, revolts against them all, and determines, at any rate, to be original, nothing can be expected but an awkward straining in every thing; improper method, forced conceits, and affected expression, are the certain issue of such obstinacy: the business is to be unlike; and this he may very possibly be, but at the expence of graceful ease and true beauty; for he puts himself, at best, into a forced, unnatural state; and it is well if he be not forced, beside his purpose, to leave common sense, as well as good models, behind him, like one who would break loose from an impediment which holds him fast; the very endeavour to get clear throws him into uneasy attitudes and violent contortions; and if he gain his liberty at last, it is by an effort which carries him much further than the point he would wish to stop at.

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Discourse on Poetic Imitation, Hurd's Horace, Vol. 3, P. 107, 4th Ed. 1766. This gentleman's first wish seems to have been to avoid the imputation of being the servile imitator of Mr. Garrick; but from all I have been able to learn of that great actor, whom I had not the felicity of seeing more than once, I am persuaded, that

"To copy nature, were to copy him." LORD CHEDWORTH.

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48. Indeed, indeed, sirs," &c.

The repetition of "indeed" incumbers the verse, and is not in the quarto, which runs thus:

"To let you know of it."

Ham."

Indeed, sirs, but

"This troubles me

hold you the watch

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And again:

My lord, from head to foot."

The words " my lord" only load the mea

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Very like."

This repetition of "very like," which encumbers the line, is not in the quarto. We should, perhaps, read:

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you."

Ham. "

Hor. σε

Very like:

"D
"Did it stay long?"

While one with moderate haste

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I cannot understand this otherwise than as the eruption of a mind in part distracted; it is something between a remark and a question; I would point it thus: " His beard-was-grizzled-no." 50. "Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell."

This line is deficient by a foot-we might easily repair it:

"Your loves, as mine to

you: So fare

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