Page images
PDF
EPUB

83. "Will sate itself," &c.

The quarto reads "sort itself," which, perhaps, is right-suit, match, or accommodate itself.

And prey on garbage."

Here again something has been lost: perhaps, "Then sink to misery, and prey on garbage." 84. " It doth posset,

"And curd, like eager droppings into milk.' This allusion to the acescence of milk occurs in Timon of Athens:

"Has friendship such a pale and milky heart, "It turns in less than two nights!""

Of life, &c. despatch'd."

"Despatch'd" for bereft, says Dr. Warburton. This certainly is sense; but can either of these words take place of the other? or does not the difficulty of explanation lie in the wrong use of the preposition ""of" instead of "from?" a licence not uncommon with the writers of the age of Shakspeare,

86. "A couch for luxury," &c,

[ocr errors]

Luxury" is here lust; thus, in Much Ado About Nothing;

"She knows the heat of a luxurious bed.” 87. "And shall I couple hell?-O fie!-hold, hold my heart!"

The quarto does not repeat "hold." We might read:

"And shall I couple hell? O hold my heart!"

"Bear me stiffly up."

The quarto, sense may be,

"Bear me swiftly up;" and the sinews, be quick to exercise your function, swiftly endue my limbs with their wonted vigour.

Remember thee !"

The sense varies in the repetition of this apostrophe, and requires a variation of emphasis; at first it is, remember thee! ay, so long as memory shall exist; the second time it is, remember thée! yes, and to make that the more sure, I will exclude from my memory, every thing else. 88. My tables," &c.

of

I once doubted the propriety of Hamlet's resorting to his tables; for what is to be noted? all that is proposed is trite and superfluous; that "a man may smile and be a villain," is no more than what every one who ever knew or heard of villany must already be apprised of:—but let us not too hastily condemn the poet; or, proceeding on confined and frigid rules, restrain the liberal scope his genius. The prince, by the sublime conference with his father's ghost, is elevated almost to phrenzy; habituated, as a scholar and philosopher, to note every thing strange and important, he, on this extraordinary occasion, mechanically snatches forth his pocket-book; but, having opened and prepared it, he has nothing to insert, and so concludes carelessly and sarcastically, while his serious thoughts are otherwise employed:

"Meet it is, I set it down," &c.

This is Shakspeare.

90. "There's ne'er a villain, dwelling in all Denmark,

"But he's an arrant knave."

[blocks in formation]

Hamlet, I conceive, begins these words in the ardour of confidence and sincerity; but, suddenly alarmed at the magnitude of the disclosure, he was going to make, and considering that, not his friend Horatio only, but another person was present; he breaks off suddenly:-There's ne'er a villain in all Denmark that can match (perhaps he would have said) my uncle in villany; but recollecting the danger of such a declaration, he pauses for a moment, and then abruptly concludes:-" but he's an arrant knave."

91. "And much offence too."

The quarto:

"And much offence to."

Perhaps it is a broken sentence:

"And much offence to-touching this vision." "Give me one poor request.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

What is't, my lord?

"We will."

The latter part of Horatio's speech is premature with regard to the sense, and a burthen to the metre. The following line, too, requires a slight correction.

66

92. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed, now." Ghost." Swear."

[ocr errors][merged small]

This phrase is used by Beaumont and Fletcher in the Loyal Subject, Act 1:

"Go thy ways old true-penny."

93. Ghost. "Swear."

Some words again are wanting for the metre: we might regulate it thus:

Ham. "Swear by my sword."

Ghost. "

Swear."

[merged small][ocr errors]

Hic et ubique."

"Then we'll shift ground: come hither, gentlemen."

Again we meet, in the lines succeeding, two awkward hemistics that may yet be accommodated in the verse:

Ham. "Swear by my sword, never to speak of this

Ghost.

"That you have heard to-night."

Swear by his sword."

94. "A worthy pioneer !-Once more remove, good friends."

The "good friends," indeed, ought to be removed from the verse.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Interpolation again intrudes to spoil the metre; we should read:

[ocr errors]

But, as before, never so help you mercy," &c. I, perchance, hereafter, shall think

meet

"To put an antick disposition on.”

Hamlet seems to have adopted the expedient of putting on this "antic disposition" from the example of Junius Brutus's assumed fatuity, in order to prevent, until the time of execution, any suspicion, in the usurper's mind, that he was forming a systematic plan of revenge. This revenge, as the judicious remarker quoted by Mr. Malone observes, could not be taken before the poet was prepared to end the play; yet, doubtless, it was a defect, not to exhibit some specious pretext for the delay; and the death of Claudius at last, as Dr. Johnson justly observes,

is produced incidentally, and not by any contrivance of Hamlet himself.

[ocr errors][merged small]

There is no reason for these detached sentences being unmetrical, except the last hemistic, which the interruption will excuse: I would read,

"As well, we know, or we could an we would; "Or if we list to speak, or there be THOSE; "An if they might!

[blocks in formation]

Mr. Henley, whose remarks are, in general, useful, pointed, and ingenious, appears, in this instance at least, to be chargeable with all that oversight which he imputes to Mr. Theobald; and the error of his conception has led him to misstate the text, which is substantially this:swear, as before, that you never shall-what? to note? is this English? Mr. Theobald appears to have restored the author's word, denote.

95. "Rest, rest, perturbed spirit."

This double rest only perturbs the metre: Ghost. "Swear."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

O cursed spite!

"That ever I was born to set it right."

Hamlet does not lament that the disjointed time is to be set right by him, but that he, the son to the criminal queen, and, to the king that must be immolated, though "less than kind a little more than kin," and whose duty it of necessity becomes, to set the time right, should have been bor'n:

« PreviousContinue »