The commentators have passed by this passage in silence. I believe the queen means to say that her heart, by what Hamlet had been saying, was divided between compunction at her misconduct and a sense of her duty; upon which Hamlet bids her renounce her ill habits, and live more purely, in the practice of virtue. "That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat "Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this." Mr. Theobald supposes corruption here, from some conceited tamperer's having put devil into the text instead of evil. But I do not perceive any tampering; if Shakspeare wrote the passage at all he was himself sufficiently conceited to write it as it is the obscurity does not belong to the word devil, but to custom and habit, between which there is no obvious distinction. Mr. Steevens's correction, I think, is judicious, and should be adopted, as not only supplying sense, but improving it. 253. " When you are desirous to be bless'd, "I'll blessing beg of you." The being desirous to be blest will shew contrition, and constitute a state of grace, and consequently will render you fit to bestow a blessing upon me. "I must be cruel, only to be kind.” The Emperor Septimius Severus, having put to death forty-one senators, lamented, that to be mild, it was necessary he should first be cruel. Gibbon's Rom. His. Ch. V. Vol. I. First Ed. Falstaff says he is as melancholy as "a gib cat," which is explained by Mr. Steevens glibbed or gelded cat." а Does Hamlet mean, among the other opprobria, to impute impotency to his uncle? "And break your own neck down." The measure wants regulation: I would pro pose: "And break your own neck down." Queen." Be thou assur'd, "If words be made of breath, and breath of life, "I have no life to breathe when thou hast said "To me." Ham. "I must to England; you know that." Queen. "Alack!" The absense of "alack!" would not be any lack of the sense, and would leave the measure unbroken. This certainly will admit of Dr. Johnson's interpretation, adders, with their fangs or teeth undrawn but I rather think it means, with their poisonous teeth extracted, according to the custom which the Doctor himself adverts to of mountebanks; the prince would trust them only when they were rendered harmless :-thus Hotspur says to his inquisitive wife: "Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know "And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate." 259. ACT IV. SCENE I. Bestow this place on us a little while." This is a very condescending manner of the queen's desiring privacy. "A little while" should be omitted as it burthens the line. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet ?” Some words are wanting; perhaps, "What, Gertrude, hast thou seen? and how does Hamlet?" In his lawless fit, "Behind the arras hearing something stir, "Whips out his rapier, cries, a rat! a rat!" The omission of the pronoun, before "whips," and the false repetition of " a rat," which Hamlet had uttered only once, suggest, I think, pretty clearly, the true reading of this line: "He whips his rapier out, and cries, a rat!" "Among a mineral of metals base." 66 Dr. Johnson appears to be mistaken here: some precious ore is clearly meant, in contradistinction to common ores. Mr. M. Mason proposes metal," instead of " metals ;" but he seems to forget that the preposition "among" requires, indispensibly, for its object, plurality. The poet, indeed, talks of a mineral, but the sense implied is, the metals abounding in that mineral. SCENE II. 265. "When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again." An equivoke is designed here between "to need," require; and to knead, or mix the paste or dough for bread: when he has taken advantage of your gleanings and made the utmost of them, it is but, &c. Thomson has made use of this idea of the spungy favourite, in his poem on Liberty, Part V. 198: "Rich as unsqueez'd favourite.” "A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear." A designing speech will repose securely in the ear of a fool, who cannot understand it. "The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body." Rosencrantz had asked where the body was? meaning Pollonius's body; but Hamlet, under cover of his assumed madness, takes occasion to vent his satire against the king, and replies, "the body is with the king, but the king is not with the body, inferring, that the king possessed only the gross exterior of royalty, while the nobler part, the soul of it, was wanting-this seems to be connected with what follows: Ham. "The king is a thing- VOL II, 269. Ham. " SCENE III. If thou knew'st our purposes." I see a cherub, that sees them.' This may stand; but perhaps it would be better to read, "I see a cherub that knows them." Voluntary homage, proposed by England, as the price of our friendship. Letters conjuring to that effect, "The present death of Hamlet." Vide Homer's Iliad, Book VI. where Ballerophon is sent to Lycia, in the same manner, 272. " SCENE IV. The conveyance of a promis'd march." "Conveyance," here, seems to mean, convoiance, protection during the march. 273. "To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it." Five, even so small a sum as five. "A ranker rate." A more exuberant income. "This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace. A political plethora. In K. Henry IV. we have "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace," |