The safety and the health of the whole state;" And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd Unto the voice and yielding of that body, Whereof he is the head: Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it,

As he in his particular act and place

8

May give his saying deed; which is no further, Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain, If with too credent ear you list his songs;

Or lose your heart; or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd' importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,'
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:

7 The safety and the health of the whole state;] Thus the quarto, 1604, except that it has-this whole state, and the second the is inadvertently omitted. The folio reads:

The sanctity and health of the whole state.

This is another proof of arbitrary alterations being sometimes made in the folio. The editor, finding the metre defective, in consequence of the article being omitted before health, instead of supplying it, for safety substituted a word of three syllables.

8

MALONE.

May give his saying deed;] So, in Timon of Athens: "the deed of saying is quite out of use." Again, in Troilus and Cressida:

9

1

Speaking in deeds, and deedless in his tongue."

unmaster'd-] i. e. licentious. JOHNSON.

MALONE.

keep you in the rear &c.] That is, do not advance so far as your affection would lead

you. JOHNSON.

2 The chariest maid-]_Chary is cautious. So, in Greene's Never too Late, 1616: "Love requires not chastity, but that her soldiers be chary." Again: "She liveth chastly enough, that liveth charily." STEEVENs.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes :
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then best safety lies in fear;
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPH. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart: But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read."

LAER.

I stay too long;—But here my

3

O fear me not.

father comes.

·recks not his own read.] That his, heeds not his own lessons. Pope.

So, in the old Morality of Hycke Scorner:

Again, ibidem:

I reck not a feder."

"And of thy living, I reed amend thee." Ben Jonson uses the word reed in his Catiline:

"So that thou could'st not move

"Against a publick reed."

Again, in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch:

- Dis

patch, I read you, for your enterprize is betrayed." Again, the old proverb, in The Two angry Women of Abington, 1599:

"Take heed, is a good reed."

i. e. good counsel, good advice. STEEVENS.

So, Sternhold, Psalm i:

Enter POLONIUS.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Poz. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame;

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are staid for: There, my blessing with you;

[Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;"

-the shoulder of your sail,] This is a common sea phrase. STEEVENS.

And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou charácter.] i. e. write, strongly infix. The same phrase is again used by our author in his 122d Sonnet:

thy tables are within my brain

"Full character'd with lasting memory."

Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

6

I do conjure thee,

"Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

"Are visibly charácter'd and engrav'd." MALone.

Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;] The old copies read with hoops of steel. I have no doubt that this was a corruption in the original quarto of 1604, arising, like many others, from similitude of sounds. The emendation, which was made by Mr. Pope, and adopted by three subsequent editors, is strongly supported by the word grapple. See Minsheu's Dict. 1617:"To hook or grapple, viz. to grapple and to board a ship." A grapple is an instrument with several hooks to lay hold of a ship, in order to board it.

This correction is also justified by our poet's 137th Sonnet:

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade." Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee,
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judge-

ment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man ;9
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous, chief in that,'

"Why of eyes' falshood hast thou forged hooks,
"Whereto the judgement of my heart is ty'd ?”

It may be also observed, that hooks are sometimes made of steel, but hoops never. MALONE,

We have, however, in King Henry IV. P. II;

"A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in."

The former part of the phrase occurs also in Macbeth :
Grapples you to the heart and love of us.”

7 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

STEEVENS.

Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.] The literal sense is, Do not make thy palm callous by shaking every man by the hand. The figurative meaning may be, Do not by promiscuous conversation make thy mind insensible to the difference of characters. JOHNSON.

8 each man's censure,] Censure is opinion. So, in King Henry VI. P. II:

"The king is old enough to give his censure."

STEEVENS.

For the apparel oft proclaims the man;] "A man's attire, and excessive laughter, and gait, shew what he is," Eccus XIX. ver. 30. Todd,

Are most select and generous, chief in that.] I think the whole design of the precept shows that we should read:

Are most select, and generous chief, in that.

Chief may be an adjective used adverbially, a practice common to our author: chiefly generous. Yet it must be owned that the punctuation recommended is very stiff and harsh.

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;

I would, however, more willingly read:

;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Select and generous, are most choice in that.

Let the reader, who can discover the slightest approach towards sense, harmony, or metre, in the original line,Are of a most select and generous chief, in that,— adhere to the old copies. STEEvens.

The genuine meaning of the passage requires us to point the line thus:

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

i. e. the nobility of France are select and generous above all other nations, and chiefly in the point of apparel; the richness and elegance of their dress. RITSON.

Are of a most select and generous chief, in that.] Thus the quarto, 1604, and the folio, except that in that copy the word chief is spelt cheff. The substantive chief, which signifies in heraldry the upper part of the shield, appears to have been in common use in Shakspeare's time, being found in Minsheu's Dictionary, 1617. He defines it thus: Est superior et scuti nobilior pars; tertiam partem ejus obtinet; ante Christi adventum dabatur in maximi honoris signum; senatoribus et honoratis viris.” B. Jonson has used the word in his Poetaster.

The meaning then seems to be, They in France approve themselves of a most select and generous escutcheon by their dress. Generous is used with the signification of generosus. So, in Othello: "The generous islanders," &c.

Chief, however, may have been used as a substantive, for note or estimation, without any allusion to heraldry, though the word was perhaps originally heraldick. So, in Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil, 16mo. 1597: "In the warmer climates the people are generally more wise, but in the northern climates the wits of chief are greater.'

If chief in this sense had not been familiarly understood, the editor of the folio must have considered the line as unintelligible, and would have probably omitted the words of a in the beginning of it, or attempted some other correction. That not having been done, I have adhered to the old copies.

Our poet from various passages in his works, appears to have been accurately acquainted with all the terms of heraldry. MALONE.