was a strange Italian device, which is thus described in Raymond's Mercurio Italiano. London, 1647. "The Ladies have found out a devise very different from all other European Dresses. They weare their owne, or a counterfeit haire below the shoulders, trim'd with gemmes and Flowers, their coats halfe too long for their bodies, being mounted on their Chippeens, (which are as high as a man's leg.) They walke between two handmaids, majestically deliberating of every step they take. This fashion was invented, and appropriated to the Noble Venetians wives, to be constant to distinguish them from the Courtesans, who goe covered in a vaile of White Taffety." p. 202.

See the Introduction to Othello for a figure of an Italian Courtesan mounted on cioppini :- for Raymond is in error as to a distinction having been made by this singular article of dress.

crack'd within the ring":- The thin coins of past centuries were liable to be cracked; and if the crack extended beyond the second ring, within which was the hideous effigies of the monarch under whom the coin was struck, it became uncurrent.

"What speech, my lord? lord."

The 4tos., "my good.

'twas caviare to the general":

All my readers

may not know that caviare is a preparation of dried fishroe, first made in Russia, where it is still a favorite dish. It was a foreign luxury, a taste for which was acquired only by the few, not by the general.

[as wholesome," &c. :-The folio omits this clause, and in the next sentence has, "One chief speech," erroneously, without a doubt.

[So proceed you]":- The folio omits these words, which are found in the 4to. of 1604. That of 1603 has "So goe on."

the mobbled Queen : 'Mobbled' means muffled about the head. Hecuba is described as having a clout upon her head. Mob,' in this sense, is still in use in the compound 'mob-cap.' The folio has, in all three instances,innobled queene —a misprint surely.

"With bisson rheum": — i. e., with blinding rheum. than their ill report while you live": So all the 4tos.; the folio, "while you lived," which, although the slight variation produces a considerable difference in the purport of the sentence, I incline to regard as a misprint.

“God's bodykins, man, better": -- The 4tos., "God's bodkin man, much better."

“Ay, so, God b' wi̇ ye” : the 4tos., "God by to you."

The folio, "God buy' ye;"

So the 4tos.; the

all his visage wann'd

folio, "his visage warm'd," which possibly, though not probably, is the genuine reading.

in's aspect": Here aspect is to be accented on the last syllable.

the very faculties of eyes and ears": The folio only, "the very faculty," &c.

"But I am pigeon liver'd, and lack gall":—It was supposed that pigeons and doves owed their gentleness of disposition to the absence of gall.

"A Milk-white Doue upon her hand shee brought,
So tame 'twould goe returning at her call,

About whose Necke was in a Choller wrought

'Only like me my Mistress hath no gall.'

Drayton's Ninth Eclogue.

Bloody, bawdy villain

"bloudy: a Bawdie

villaine," is the unimportant misprint of the folio.

"That I, the son of the dear murthered" :- A fine form of speech, which needs no support; and which we have had before in this play. "Bear 't-that the opposed may beware of thee." Act I. Sc. 3. This, the reading of the folio and of the 4to. of 1604, is set aside by some editors in favor of the inferior line (inferior both in thought and in rhythm) found in a subsequent 4to., 1611:

"That I the son of a deare father murthered."

p. 80.

p. 81.

ACT THIRD.

SCENE I.

by no drift of circumstance” : —- The 4tos. have the less significant reading, "drift of conference.” “We o'er-raught": — i. e., we over-reached, or overtook.

• Affront Ophelia": — i. e., meet, encounter her. See the Note on "Affront his eye," The Winter's Tale, Act V. Sc. 1.

p. 82.

VOL. XI.

we do sugar o'er":

L

The misprint of the folio,

"surge o'er," would have been obvious without the help of the 4tos.

the proud man's contumely":- The folio, "the poore man's," &c.

"The pangs of despis'd love": "of dispriz'd love"

sophistication.

So the 4tos. The folio, a misprint, or, more probably, a

who'd these fardels bear": So the folio; with the trifling variation of "who would" for for who'ld.” This reading has been almost universally set aside in favor of that of the 4tos., "Who would fardels bear? although the latter loses, with the pronoun, the essential thought, - that the crosses which Hamlet has just enumerated are the fardels, the burthens, under which men would refuse to grunt and sweat, if it were not for the uncertainty of the future beyond the grave. -'Grunt' is one of the many words which have been degraded since Shakespeare wrote.

their currents turn awry away," and perhaps correctly.

The folio, "turn

So the 4tos. The folio, "No no,"

corruptly, without a doubt.

their perfume lost": - The folio has the manifest misprints, "then perfume left."

have better commerce than with honesty". The folio misprints "your honesty," for "with honesty" of the 4tos.

66 no where but in's own house" : So the 4tos. ; the folio misprinting "no ways," &c.

"I have heard of your paintings too : - The 4tos., paintings; the folio, "pratlings; and below, the former one face;" the latter, the latter, "one pace both misprints on the part of the folio, without a doubt.

and make your wantonness your ignorance": The 4to. of 1604, "and make your wantonnes ignorance." I do not quite apprehend the meaning of this passage; but it seems to imply that the women affected a pretty, innocent ignorance as a mask for their wantonness.

"The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's, eye, tongue, sword": -The folio and the 4to. of 1604 have "The courtiers, soldiers, scholars, eye, tongue sword," thus destroying a correspondence between the two terms of the sentence, which I do not hesitate to restore, having the support of the 4to. of 1603, where the line is

"The Courtier Schollar, Souldier all in him."

p. 85.

p. 86.

p. 87.

"Love! his affections do not that way tend": - Here 'affection' is used in a sense which it has now almost entirely lost. It has no relation to love or preference, but refers to the manner in which Hamlet's mind is affected, which affection, or affecting, does not, as the King says, tend toward love.

which to prevent" : — So the folio. The 4to. of 1604-the passage is not in the earlier 4to.-has, "which for to prevent,' a construction which Shakespeare seems solicitously to have avoided. See the Introduction to this play, p. 11, and the Essay on the Authorship of King Henry the Sixth, Vol. VIII. p. 431.

"Whereon his brain's still beating":-i. e., the continuous beating of his thoughts upon which.

SCENE II.

to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow":Although the 4tos. of 1603 and 1604 both read “to hear,' I am not sure that "to see" of the folio is an error 'See' is the verb most commonly applied to the observation of dramatic performances of all kinds.

for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod”: Termagant, the supposed god of the Mohammedans, and Herod, the slayer of the innocents, were staple characters in our old Miracle Plays. Their chief office was to rave and rant up and down the scaffold, uttering bombast of the most inflated and profane description. In one of the Chester Mysteries, Herod says,

"For I am kynge of all mankinde

I byd, I beate, I loose, I bynde :

I master the moone: take this in mynde
That I am most of mighte.

I am the greatest above degree

That is, that was, or ever shale be;

The sonne it dare not shine on me,

And [i. e., if] I bid him
if] I bid him go down."

In one of the Coventry Mysteries he thus modestly holds forth, in verses which unite alliteration and rhyme:

"Of bewte and of boldnesse I ber ever more the belle
Of mayn and of might I master every man

I dynge with my dowtiness the devil down to helle
For both of hevyn and of earth I am kynge certayn."
How difficult it would be to out-herod Herod may be

p. 87.

p. 88.

p. 89.

"

p. 90.

judged from the fact that in one of the plays in which Elia's "much abused monarch" appears, the poet, having exhausted his vocabulary in expressing the Herodian wrath and arrogance, in despair gives the player carte blanche for extemporal fume and fustian by the direction, "Here Herod rages."

nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or Turk": The folio, "Christian, Pagan or Norman," which is absurd, and which is plainly the result of an attempt to correct the yet more absurd reading found in the 4to. of 1604, Christian, pagan nor man; as if Christians and pagans were not men! Yet this reading has been hitherto retained. The 4to. of 1603 gives the very appropriate word in the text. The distinction Christian, Turk, and Pagan was not uncommon. See, for instance, the quotation from Howell in Richardson's Dictionary in v. 'pagan.'

and shews a most pitiful ambition," &c. - Here the 4to. of 1603 has a remarkable passage, which is found in no other edition. It was probably an extemporaneous addition to the text by the actor of Hamlet, and had but a passing application:

"And then you have some agen, that keepes one sute
Of ieasts, as a man is knowne by one sute of
Apparell, and Gentlemen quotes his ieasts downe
In their tables, before they come to the play, as thus:
Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige? and, you owe me
A quarters wages: and, my coate wants a cullison:
And, your beere is sowre: and, blabbering with his lips,
And thus keeping in his cinkapase of ieasts,
When, God knows, the warme Clowne cannot make a iest
Unless by chance, as the blinde man catcheth a hare:
Maisters tell him of it.”

"Where thrift may follow fawning":
the folio, "follow faining."

So the 4tos. ;

the very comment of thy soul”: — So the 4tos. The folio has the common misprint of my' for thy.' I must be idle": - i. e., be foolishly or vacarly employed, in a manner befitting his assumed distraction. I was kill'd th' Capitol":— See the Introduction to Julius Cæsar.

Hamlet."

my good Hamlet":-The 4tos., "my deere - We should now say,

your only jig-maker": — ' only your jig-maker.