274.

Market of his time.”

This, I believe, means, his prime of life, the time at which he ought to exert his faculties to the best advantage and profit.

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Rightly to be great,

"Is, not to stir without great argument; "But greatly to find quarrel in a straw." i. e. Magnanimously to find quarrel, &c. A kindred sentiment we find in the First Part of K. Henry IV. where Hotspur says,

275.

I'd give thrice so much land,

"To any well-deserving friend;
"But, in the way of bargain,

"I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair."
Trick of fame."

i. e. A fit of ambition.

276. "

SCENE V.

I will not speak with her."

To this, I suppose, Horatio added:

178.

Beseech you, madam."

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
"It spills itself in fearing to be spilt."

So unskilfully suspicious is guilt that its plans of defence are generally the source of discomfiture

to itself.

301. "That I must call't in question."

Insomuch that I must call't, &c. The ellipsis has often been noted.

304.

SCENE VII.

As the star moves not but in his

sphere."

'Sphere," as in other places, for orbit.

My arrows,

"Too slightly timber'd for so loud a wind.” Here is a false epithet introduced into the folio a strong wind may be loud, but loudness has no power to resist the force of the arrows; indeed, there is nothing in the preceding words to which "wind," or "so loud a wind" can at all apply. "Loved arm'd," the reading of the first quarto, is certainly a strange expression; but, as the speaker is describing Hamlet as being fortified in the people's affection, perhaps "loved-arm'd” is the true reading.

305. "Stood challenger on mount of all the age "For her perfections."

Might stand upon the summit of conscious excellence, and challenge the age or times to a com petition with her.

"I lov'd your father, and we love ourself."

The king, in the beginning of this speech, seems to have forgotten the pompous dignity of his plural distinction.

307. "

Uncharge the practice."

"Practice" is device, stratagem, as in other places; and "uncharge the practice," I believe, implies, unload it of suspicion, with reference to the charging and uncharging a gun; or, per

I believe we should read " betime," and that the king's meaning is, love begins at an early period of life, and takes unqualified possession of the mind; but, as our understandings ripen and expand, this affection suffers abatement.

"Dies in his own too-much."

In his own superfluity or excess.

That we would do,

"We should do when we would; for this would changes."

i. e. What we are desirous to do we should do at once, as inclination is fluctuating and uncertain. Perhaps the expression would be better by a slight change:

i. e. What we ought to do; we should do when we would, i. e. while inclination serves, for, &c. 314. " Your cunnings."

"How now, sweet queen?"

This hemistic is not in the quarto, and I take it to be interpolated.

"There is a willow."

As the queen seems to give this description

from ocular knowledge, it may be asked, why, apprised as she was, of Ophelia's distraction, she did not take steps to prevent the fatal catastrophe of this amiable young woman, especially when there was so fair an opportunity of saving her while she was, by her cloaths, borne "mermaidlike-up," and the queen was at leisure to hear her chaunting old tunes.'

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318. "

When these are gone,

"The woman will be out."

When these tears shall have been shed the woman's disposition will have left me, and I shall be at leisure to think of my revenge.

This probably is, as Mr. Malone supposes, an interrupted sentence; but it may be interpreted, conclusively the speaker had called his colloquist a heathen, and reproached him with not having a sufficient acquaintance with the Scriptures. I'll try you, says he, once more, and if not answer my question, it will be necessary for you to go to the priest, and make confession of your heathenish ignorance, and of your culpable negligence in not having attained orthodoxy.

you can

That shall be the end of your task, I shall then unharness your stupidity from the labour of endeavouring to find out my meaning.

This would seem to imply that a coffin appeared; but I believe by "this box" is only meant the earthy enclosure, the grave itself.

329. "I think it be thine."

Instead of "is" thine.

330. "The age is grown so picked."

The people at large are become so polished and refined. In this sense the word is used in King John:

My picked man of countries."

333. "Not one now, to mock your own grinning ?"

The mark of interrogation annexed here, I think, with Mr. Malone, is improper; the sense appears to be affirmative-there is not now one left, and you are quite chap-fallen.

"Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam: And why of that loam, whereto he was converted," &c.

This is false logic though loam is made of earth, all earth does not become loam: we should read, "and why of this earth, whereto he was converted-" or else," and why of this loam, to which he may have been converted," &c.

334. "The corse, they follow, did with desperate hand

"Fordo its own life."-

But the queen, who seems to have been a wit