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That, laps'd in time and paffion, let's go by
Th' important acting of your dread command?
O fay!

Ghoft. Do not forget: this vifitation

Is but to whet thy almoft blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother fits;
O ftep between her and her fighting foul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.

Ham. How is it with you, Lady ?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?

That thus you bend your eye on vacancy,
And with th' incorporal air do hold difcourfe?
Forth at your eyes your fpirits wildly peep,
And, as the fleeping foldiers in th' alarm,
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements, (5)
Start up, and ftand on end. O gentle fon,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

(53) Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,

Sprinkle

Start up and fand on end.] I took notice, in my SHAKESPEARE Reftor'd, that this expreflion as much wanted an explanation, as any the most antiquated word in our Poet wants a glofs. Mr. Hughs, in his impreffion of this play, has left it out: either becaufe he could make nothing of it, or thought it alluded to an image too naufeous. The Poet's meaning is founded on a phyfical determination, that the bair and nails are excrementitious parts of the body (as indeed, they are) without life or fenfation. MACROBIUS, in his Saturnalia, (lib. vii. cap. 9.) not only speaks of thofe parts of the human body which have no fenfation; but likewife affigns the reafons, why they can have none. Offa, dentes, cum unguibus & capillis, nimiâ ficcitate ità denfata funt, ut penetrabilia non fint effectui anime qui fentum miniftrat. Therefore the Poet means to lay, fear and furprize had fuch an effect upon Hamlet, that his hairs, as if there were life in those excrementitious parts, ftarted up and food on end. He has exprefs'd the fame thought more plainly in Macbeth.

-and my fell of hair

Would at a difmal treatise rowz`, and fir,
As life were in't.

That our Poet was acquainted with this notion in phyfics, of the hair being without life, we need no stronger warrant, than that he frequently mentions it as an excrement.

Why is time fuch a niggard of bair, being, as it is, fo plentiful an

excrement?

• Vor. VIII.

1

Comedy of Errors,

How

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

Hom. On him! on him!-look you, how pale he glares!
His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to flones,
Would make them capable. Do not look on me,
1 eft with this piteous action you convert
My ftern effects; then what I have to do,

Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Qeen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham, Do you fee nothing there? [Pointing to the Gb.
Queer. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I fee.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear ?

Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!

My father in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes ev'n now, out at the portal.

[Exit Ghoft. Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain, This bodilefs creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. What ecstasy ?

My pulfe, as yours, doth temp'rately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufick. 'Tis not madness
That I have utter'd; bring me to the teft,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, from love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trefpafs, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place; (54)

How many cowards, whofe hearts are a'l as falfe
As ftairs of fand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules, and frowning Mars;
Who, inward fearch'd, have livers white as milk?
And these affume but valour's excrement

To render them redoubted.

Whilft

Merchant of Venice.

For I must tell thee, it will please his grace (by the world!) fometime to lean upon my poor fhoulder, and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement, with my muftachio. Love's Labour Loft.

&c. &c.

(54) It will but fkin and film the ulcerous place, Whilft rank corruption, running all within, Infects unfeen.] So, our Poet elfewhere fpeaking of the force of power;

Весацие

Whilft rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen. Confefs yourfelf to heav'n;
Repent what's past, avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compot on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For, in the fatness of these purly times,

Virtue itself of vice muft pardon beg,

Yea, courb, and woce, for leave to do it good.

Queen. Oh Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
Han. O, throw away the worfer part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Good night; but go not to mine uncle's bed:
Affume a virtue, if he have it not.

That monfter custom, who all sense doth eat (55)

Because authority, tho' it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself, .
That fkins the vice o'th' top.

Meaf. for Meaf.

But why, in the paffage before us, has Mr. Pope given us a reading that is warranted by none of the copies, and degraded one, that has the countenance of all of them?

Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen.

The Poet defcribes corruption as having a corrofive quality, eating its fecret way, and undermining the parts that are fkin'd over, and feem found to exteriour view. He, in another place, ufes the fimple verb for the compound.

He lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education.

(55) That monfter Cuftom, who all fenfe doth eat,

Of babit's devil, is angel yet

in this;

That to the ufe of actions fair and good

Ile likewife gives a frock, or livery,

As You Like it.

That aptly is put on.] this paflage is left out in the two eller folios: it is certainly corrupt, and the players did the difcreet part ro te what they did not understand. Habit's devil certainly arofe from fome conceited tam perer with the text, who thought it was neceffary, in contrast to angel. The emendation of the text I owe to the fagacity of Dr. Thirlby.

That monfter Cuftom, who all jenje doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel, &c.

i.e. Cuttom, which by inuring us to ill habits, makes us lofe the apprehenfion of the r being really ill, as eafily will reconcile us to the practice of good actions,

I 2

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Of habits evil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of ations fair and good
Ee likewife gives a frock, or livery,
Ihat aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;

And that thall lend a kind of eafinefs

To the next abftinence; the next, more eafy;
For use can almost change the ftamp of Nature,
And mafter e'en the Devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be bleft,

I'll Bleffing beg of you.-For this fame Lord,

[Pointing to Polonius.
I do repent: but heav'n hath pleas'd it fo,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their fcourge and minister.
I will beftow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him; fo, again, good night!
I must be cruel, only to be kind;

Thus bad begins, and worfe remains behind.
Queen. What shall I do ?

Ham. Not this by no means, that ! bid you do.
Let the fond King tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his moufe;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kiffes,

Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I effentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. "Twere good, you let him know.
For who that's but a Queen, fair, fober, wife,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gibbe,

Such dear concernings hide? who would do fo?
No, in defpight of fenfe and fecrefy,

Unpeg the bafket on the houfes' top,

Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclufions, in the basket creep;

And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of Life, I have no life to breathe

What thou haft faid to me.

Ham. I muft to England, you know that?

Queen

Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on.
Ham. There's letters feal'd, and may two fchool-fellows,
(Whom I will truft, as I will adders fang'd ;)
They bear the mandate; they muft fweep' my way,
And marshal me to knavery: let it work.-
For 'tis the fport, to have the engineer

Hoift with his own petard: and't shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis molt fweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet!
This man fhall fit me packing;

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room;
Mother, good-night.-Indeed, this Counsellor
Is now moft ftill, moft fecret, and moft grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, Sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good-night, mother.

[Exit Hamlet, tugging in Felonius.

********

ACT IV.

SCENE, A Royal Apartment.

Enter King and Queer, with Rofincrantz, and

Guildenstern.

KING.

HERE's matter in these fighs; these profound

THE

heaves

You must tranflate; 'tis fit, we understand them.
Where is your fon?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.

[To Rof. and Guild. who go out.

Ah, my good Lord, what have I feen to-night?
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

Queen. Mad as the feas, and wind, when both contend

I 3

Which

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