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ness of the fact, has told us that this poor lady's death was accidental-from the breaking-down of an "envious sliver" of a tree on which she was sporting.

SCENE II.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

343. "So much for this," &c.

This account by Hamlet of his adventures is out of place: Horatio had a right to expect it at the first interview after the prince's return.

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Rashly,

"(And prais'd be rashness for it -Let us know,)" &c.

I think the parenthesis should begin with the words" let us know," and that the passage ought to be pointed thus:

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Rashly,

"And prais'd be rashness for it,-(Let us know."

346. "Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well,

"When our deep plots do pall."

"Pall," I believe, is right. When our deeplaid schemes and contrivances miscarry, surfeitslain with policy. Thus, in Measure for Measure, we find,

"His purpose surfeiting."

i. e. His purpose pall'd by enjoyment.

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."

With an office resembling this of the deity, we find the poet dignified in A Midsummer Night's Dream:

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As imagination bodies forth "The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen, "Turns them to shapes.'

See Note on this passage, Act 5, Scene 1, Midsummer Night's Dream.

350. "And many such like as's of great charge."

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I have no doubt of the quibble, which Doctor Johnson remarks, being intended here. We had it before in Coriolanus; "the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables.”

351. "That, on the view and knowing of these

contents."

The preposition" of" is both impertinent to the sense and injurious to the metre.

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"He should the bearers put to sudden death, "Not shriving time allow'd."

Another proof, exclaims Mr. Steevens, of Hamlet's Christian-like disposition. The injunction, indeed, is not conformable to the principles professed by Christians; but Hamlet is exhibited, not as a pattern of Christian orthodoxy, but as a young man, frail and passionate; and though, in defending the general reprobation with which the ingenious commentator had laboured to brand the character of Hamlet, he is certainly warranted in rejecting any contra evidence unconnected with the drama itself; yet a jury of candid poets, I believe, would acquit the hero of this play, at least in the present instance, upon his own words and conduct. He shews in his first interview

with these men, that he considers them as mere spies; and since they do nothing to obviate that imputation, and are at length the convicted agents of the most atrocious treachery, I believe a generous critic will not scruple to give full credit to the prince's veracity, when he tells his friend, that he knew these men were not only privy to the king's design, but eager and active in promoting it; and consequently would not violently condemn the stratagem adopted for their destruction.

352. "Tis dangerous when the baser nature

comes

"Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites."

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It is dangerous for inferior persons to intermeddle in the strife between great and powerful J dent hid Hamlich, would seller fuck an aristocratic sentiment This canker of our nature."

antagonists.

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Hotspur calls K. Henry the Fourth, "This canker, Bolingbroke.”

353.

A man's life no more than to

say, one."

A man may die, or be killed, as soon and as easily as we can tell one.

357. "Is't not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do't, sir, really.”

I believe the meaning is this:-Is it not possible to discover the speaker's drift in a language never heard before? I really think, sir, that you would do it, since you have so aptly answered the jargon of this fellow.

361, "The king, sir, hath laid," &c.

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Dr. Johnson says, he does not understand this wager; and Mr. Steevens chooses to consign the terms of it to the acuteness and sagacity of the Jockey Club: but surely there is no necessity for intruding on the serious and important avocations of those gentlemen in the present case.

"The king hath laid, that in a dozen passes between yourself and Laertes, he shall not exceed you three hits; he shall not hit you three times oftener than you will hit him; if in the dozen passes Hamlet shall be hit seven times, and Laertes only three, the king will lose the wager.'

Sir, I will walk here in the hall: If it please his majesty, it is the breathing time of the day with me," &c.

Would not this arrangement and pointing be better?-Sir, I will walk here in the hall: It is the breathing time of day with me—if it please his majesty, let the foils be brought or elseSir, I will walk here in the hall, if it please his majesty: It is the breathing time of day with

me."

It was Hamlet's customary breathing time, whether his majesty pleased or not.

362. "This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head."

He is prematurely busy; his actions do not wait for the judgment that ought to guide them. 366. "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow."

This seems to be taken from St. Luke, 12, 6, 7:

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your father." LORD CHEDWORTH.

367.

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You must needs have heard, "How I am punish'd with a sore distrac

tion."

I cannot believe that Shakspeare would ever have departed so far from decorum and consistency of character, as to make Hamlet utter this ignoble falshood. I am persuaded that all which has been inserted between " pardon it, as you are a gentlemen," and "let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil," &c. is interpolated. What follows is not false.

368. "Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil," &c.

Hamlet certainly did not intend to kill Polonius; and though he considered that courtier to have merited his death by his intrusion, he repents the act of killing him.

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374. [They change Rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes.]"

This exchange of weapons, as we see it exhibited on the stage, is, indeed, a very clumsy device; but there is no need of such absurd improbability it is common, in the exercise of the sword, for one combatant to disarm the other, by throwing, with a quick and strong parry, the foil out of his hand; and Hamlet, having done this, might, agreeably to the urbanity of his nature, have presented his own foil to Laertes, while he stooped to take up that of his adversary; and Laertes, who was only half a villain, could not have hesitated to accept the perilous accommodation, and, indeed, had not time allowed him to avoid it.

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