Why to a publick count I might not go,
1s, the great love the general gender bear him:
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Work like the fpring 2 that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; fo that my arrows,
Too flightly timber'd for fo loud a wind3,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim'd them.

Laer. And fo have I a noble father loft;
A fifter driven into defperate terms;

Whofe worth, if praifes may go back again 4,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age

For her perfections:-But my revenge will come. King. Break not your fleeps for that: you must not think,

That we are made of stuff fo flat and dull,

That we can let our beard be fhook with danger 5,
And think it paftime. You shortly fhall hear more :
I lov'd your father, and we love ourself;

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine,-
How now? what news?

Enter a Meffenger..

Me Letters, my lord, from Hamlet":

the general gender-] The common race of the people. JoHNSON. 2 Work like the fpring-] This fimile is neither very feasonable in the deep intereft of this converfation, nor very accurately applied. If the fpring had changed bafe metals to gold, the thought had been more proper. JOHNSON.

The folio, instead of work, reads would. STEEVENS.

3-for fo loud a wind,] Thus the folio. The quarto 1604, hasfor fo loued arm'd: as extraordinary a corruption as any that is found in thefe plays. MALONE.

4-if praifes may go back again,] If I may praife what has been, but is now to be found no more. JOHNSON.

5 That we can let our beard be shook with danger,] It is wonderful that none of the advocates for the learning of Shakipeare have told us that this line is imitated from Perfius, Sat, 2:

Idcirco ftolidam præbet tibi vellere barbam
Jupiter STEEVENS.

6 How now, &c.] Omitted in the quartos. THEOBALD.

7 Letters, &c.] Ómitted in the quartos. STEEVENS.

This to your majefty; this to the queen.

King. From Hamlet! Who brought them?

Me. Sailors, my lord, they fay: I faw them not; They were given me by Claudio, he received them Of him that brought them.

King. Laertes, you shall hear them :

Leave us.

[Exit Meff. [reads.] High and mighty, you shall know, I am fet naked on your kingdom. To-morrow shall I beg leave to fee your kingly eyes: when I fhall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occafion of my fudden and more strange Hamlet. What should this mean? Are all the reft come back? Or is it fome abuse, and no such thing? Laer. Know you the hand?

return.

King. 'Tis Hamlet's character. Naked,And, in a poftfcript here, he fays, alone:

Can you advise me?

Laer. I am loft in it, my lord.

But let him come;

It warms the very fickness in my heart,

That I fhall live and tell him to his teeth,
Thus diddeft thou.

King. If it be fo, Laertes,

As how fhould it be fo?-how otherwise ?—

Will you be rul'd by me?

Laer. Ay, my lord;

So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace.

King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd,— As checking at his voyage, and that he means

8 Of bim that brought them.] I have reftored this hemiftich from the quartos. STEEVENS.

9 As checking at bis voyage,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1604, exhibits a corruption fimilar to that mentioned in n. 3. It reads: As the king at his voyage. MALONE.

The phrafe is from falconry; and may be juftified from the following paffage in Hinde's Eliofte Libidinojo, 1606: "For who knows not, quoth the, that this hawk, which comes now so fair to the fift, may to-morrow check at the lure?"

Again, in G. Whetstone's Caftle of Delight, 1576:
"But as the hawke, to gad which knowes the way,

"Will hardly leave to checke at carren crowes," &C. STEEVENS.

No

No more to undertake it,—I will work him
To an exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he fhall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame fhall breathe;
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice,
And call it, accident.

Laer'. My lord, I will be rul'd;
The rather, if you could devise it so,
That I might be the organ.

King. It falls right.

You have been talk'd of fince your travel much,
And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality
Wherein, they fay, you fhine: your fum of parts
Did not together pluck fuch envy from him,
As did that one; and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthieft fiege 2.

Laer. What part is that, my lord?

King. A very ribband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too; for youth no lefs becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears,
Than fettled age his fables, and his weeds,
Importing health, and gravenefs 3.-Two months fince,
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,-

I have seen myself, and ferv'd against, the French,
And they can well on horfeback: but this gallant
Had witchcraft in't; he grew unto his feat;
And to fuch wond'rous doing brought his horfe,
As he had been incorps'd and demy-natur'd
With the brave beaft: fo far he topp'd my thought,
That I, in forgery of fhapes and tricks+,

Laer.] The next fixteen lines are omitted in the folio. STEEV. 2 Of the unworthiest siege.] Of the lowest rank. Siege, for feat, place. JOHNSON.

So, in Othello:

"I fetch my birth

"From men of royal fiege." STEEVENS.

3 Importing health, and graveness.-] Importing here may be, not inferring by logical confequence, but producing by phyfical effect. A young man regards fhow in his drefs; an old man, bealth. JOHNSON. Importing bealth, I apprehend, means, denoting an attention to bealth. MALONE.

in forgery of shapes and tricks,] I could not contrive fo many proofs of dexterity as he could perform. JOHNSON.

Come

Come fhort of what he did.

Laer. A Norman, was't?
King. A Norman.

Laer. Upon my life, Lamord

King. The very fame.

Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, And gem of all the nation.

King. He made confeffion of you; And gave you fuch a masterly report, For art and exercise in your defences, And for your rapier most especial,

That he cried out, 'twould be a fight indeed,

If one could match you: the ferimers of their nation,
He fwore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you oppos'd them: Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet fo envenom with his envy,

That he could nothing do, but with and beg
Your fudden coming o'er, to play with you.
Now, out of this,-

Laer. What out of this, my lord?

King. Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a forrow,
A face without a heart?

Laer. Why afk you this?

King. Not that I think, you did not love But that I know, love is begun by time'; And that I fee, in paffages of proofs, Time qualifies the fpark and fire of it.

your

father;

-Lamord.] Thus the quarto, 1604. Shakspeare, I fufpect, wrote Lamode. See the next fpeech but one. The folio has-Lamound.

MALONE.

5 - in your defence,] That is, in the fcience of defence. JOHNSON. the ferimers-] The fencers. JOHNSON.

6

From efcrimeur, Fr. a fencer. From here to the word them inclufively, is not in the folio. MALONE.

7

- love is begun by time;] This is obfcure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and co-efiential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from fome external caufe, and being always fubject to the operations of time, fuffers change and diminution. JOHNS. 8-in paffages of proof,] In tranfactions of daily experience. JOHNS.

There

There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or fnuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a plurisy',

Dies in his own too-much: That we would do,

We should do when we would; for this would changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many,

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this should is like a spendthrift figh,

That hurts by eafing 2. But, to the quick o' the ulcer:
Hamlet

9 There lives, &c.] The next ten lines are not in the folio. STEEV. For goodness, growing to a plurify,] I would believe, for the honour of Shakipeare, that he wrote pletbory. But I obferve the dramatic writers of that time frequently call a fulness of blood a pleurify, as if it came, not from λupd, but from plus, pluris. WARBURTON.

I think the word fhould be fpelt-plurify. This paflage is fully explained by one in Mafcal's treatife on cattle, 1662, p. 187. "Against the blood, or plurifie of blood. The difeafe of blood is, fome young horfes will feed, and being fat will increafe blood, and fo grow to a plurifie, and die thereof if he have not foon help." TOLLET.

Dr. Warburton is right. The word is fpelt plurify in the quarto, 1604, and is used in the fame fenfe as here, in The Two Noble Kinsmen that heal'it with blood

"The earth, when it is fick, and cur'ft the world

"Of the plurifie of people."

Again, in 'Tis Pity fhe's a Whore, by Ford, 1633:
"Muft your hot itch and plurifie of luft,

"The hey-day of your luxury, be fed
"Up to a furfeit?" MALONE.

2 And then this should is like a fpendthrift figh,

That burts by eafing.-] A spendthrift fign is a figb that makes an unnecellary wafte of the vital flame. It is a notion very prevalent, that fighs impair the ftrength, and wear out the animal powers. JOHNS. Hence they are call'd, in K. Henry VI.-blood-confuming fighs. Again, in Pericles, 1609:

"Do not confume your blood with forrowing,"

The idea is enlarged upon in Fenton's Tragical Difcourfes, 1579: "Why staye you not in tyme the fource of your fcorching Jigbes, that have already drayned your body of his wholefome humoures, appoynted by nature to gyve fucke to the entrals and inward parts of you ?"

The original quarto, as well as the folio, reads-a fpendthrift's figh; but I have no doubt that it was a corruption, arifing from the first letter of the following word figh, being an s. I have therefore, with the other modern editors, printed-spendthrift figh, following a

late