vour at repairing the various hemistics and the disturbed metre in this crude play: but some words have been lost-perhaps, such as these:

166. "O heavy burden!"

This I take to be interpolation of the actor. 168." A sea of troubles."

Sir Walter Raleigh has this metaphor in the preface to his History of the World:

For the sea of examples hath no bottom." 175. "I humbly thank you; well.".

More deficiency: I suppose there was addedIndifferent well."

66

"I never gave you aught."

More mutilation. I suppose it should be: "You do mistake; I never gave you aught."

But presently the dialogue, as it is exhibited, degenerates into determinate prose.

If you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty."

Every body, I believe, will here remark, in the words of Hamlet, "Nay, that follows not." The reading of the folio is good sense :

"Your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty."

The obscurity is in the expression-" admit no discourse to your beauty" which means allow, supply, afford no discourse;" i. e. your honesty should not enter into any discourse, &c. 176. "I lov'd you not."

As the speaker is now acting the madman, the inference which Mr. Steevens draws from this declaration, in his long note at the end of the play, is unfounded, and will constitute no part of that brutality with which the critic, rather too harshly, I believe, has branded the conduct of Hamlet, in this scene: had the prince been talking in his sane and sober mood, and told Ophelia that he no longer loved her, he would justly incur censure for so unkind and cruel a speech; but if to the language of madness, whether real or factitious, a meaning must be ascribed, it should rather be the reverse of that which the words themselves express; and Hamlet's telling the lady, at this time, that he no longer loved her, may be regarded as a token by which she was to perceive that his passion for her continued.

178. "The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;

"The glass of fashion and the mould of form,

"Th' observ'd of all observers !"

The same reflection is uttered by Lady Percy, in application to Hotspur, in the Second Part of King Henry IV.

By his light,

"Did all the chivalry of England move "To do brave acts; he was indeed the glass "Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves." And again,

"He was the mark and glass, copy and book, "That fashion'd others."

185. The very age and body of the time," &c.

.

The " age of the time," as objected to by Dr. Johnson, is not, I believe, implied in the con

struction; it is "the age," simply, "to shew virtue," &c. and the very age-and the body of the time, its form, &c. to shew the age its form; i. e. to exhibit the manners of the age: by "body of the time," or rather "the body of the time, I believe is meant, the public body-the people in the aggregate.

187. "Not to speak it profanely."

"

If the profanation that Hamlet deprecates or disclaims, be (as I suppose, with Dr. Johnson, it is) that which might seem to belong to the remark he is going to make, we should, perhaps, read thus:-O there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, that not to speak it profanely, neither having, &c. Dr. Farmer, for "man," would read "mussulman," but, I believe, unnecessarily the sense appears to be of Christian, Pagan, or man of any country or persuasion.

I know not why this perverse use of the subjunctive mood, instead of the indicative, "be," instead of " is," or "are," should have taken place, or should be retained-" O there be players," instead of, "there are players."

188. "There be of them, that will themselves laugh."

Has not a word been omitted here ?-" that will of themselves laugh;" i. e. without any motive proper to the scene.

189. "No revenue hast, but thy good spirits "To feed, and clothe thee."

An eminent modern dramatist has made use of this sentiment:"

"My distresses are so great, that I cannot afford to part with my spirits."

School for Scandal.

"To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?"

The word "why" is useless to the sense, and only spoils the metre.

192. "I eat the air, promise-crammed." The same thought is introduced in King Henry IV. Part 2:

194.

Eating the air, on promise of supply."
They stay upon your patience."

This is right-they wait attendance for a patient hearing. The prologue presently says"We beg your hearing patiently."

205. "That's wormwood.'

To this hemistic I suppose belonged words like these:

"To her, Mark, Horatio."

206. "Nor earth to give me food, nor Heaven light."

Should we not read:

"Nor earth do give me food," &c.

The sense is optative.

209. "I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.

This may refer, as Mr. Steevens observes, to the interpretators at puppet-shews; but the

immediate sense of, "if I could see the puppets dallying," is—if I could observe the agitations of your bosom. See a note upon this line in King Henry the Fourth:

"To play with mammets, and to tilt with lips." Begin, murderer ;-leave thy damnable faces, and begin."

210.

This appears to be a spontaneous reproof from the actor, to check the grimace and buffoonery of the murderer, and is, perhaps, among a multitude, an instance to shew that the best authority existing, for many passages and scenes in these plays, is transcription from oral and capricious utterance. Presently, in the quarto, the following words are set down without any regard to the change of the speakers.

They fool me to the top of my bent; I will come by and by.

Leave me friends.

"I will say so; by and by is easily said."

211.

The croaking raven "Deth bellow for revenge."

It is not apparent how these words, or whatever sense they contain, should be applied; but I am inclined to think that Hamlet, who is supposed to know the play and the catastrophe, affects, before the king and the court, (the better to conceal his contrivance) to treat the composition with a shew of contempt.

214. "This realm dismantled was

8661

Of Jove himself."

i. e. Of Hamlet's father.

This is a very shrewd conjecture.

B. STRUTT.