stern.

crantz;

And I beseech you instantly to visit

King. Thanks, Rosencrantz, and gentle Guilden- | That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise;
Queen. Thanks, Guildenstern, and gentle Rosen-On such regards of safety, and allowance,
As therein are set down.
King.
It likes us well:
And, at our more consider'd time, we'll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Mean time, we thank you for your well-took labour:
Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together:
Most welcome home!

My to much changed son.-Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.
Gui!. Heavens make our presence, and our prac-
tices,

Pleasant and helpful to him!
Queen.

Ay, Amen!

[Exeunt Ros. GUIL. and some Attendants.
Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. The embassadors from Norway,my good lord,
Are joyfully return'd.

King. Thou sull hast been the father of good

news.

Pol. Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God, and to my gracious king;
And I do think (or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail' of policy so sure
As it hath us'd to do) that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet's lunacy.

in.

King. O, speak of that; that do I long to hear.
Pc!. Give first admittance to the embassadors;
My news shall be the fruit' to that great feast.
King. Thyself do grace to them, and bring them
[Exit POLONIUS.
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
Queen. I doubt, it is no other but the main;
His father's death, and our o’erhasty marriage.
Re-enter POLONIUS, with VOLTIMAND and COR-

NELIUS.

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.
Pol.
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate"
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night, night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,-
I will be brief: Your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it: for, to define true madness,
What is't, but to be nothing else but mad:
But let that go.
Queen.
More matter, with less art.
Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis, 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him, then and now remains,
That we find out the cause of this effect;
Or, rather say, the cause of this defect;
For this effect, defective, comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
I have a daughter; have, while she is mine;

Hath given me this: Now gather and surmise.

King. Well, we shall sift him.-Welcome, my-To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most good friends!

Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway?

Vol. Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress

His nephew's levies; which to him appear'd
To be a preparation 'gainst the Polack;
But, better look'd into, he truly found

It was against your highness: Whereat griev'd-
That so his sickness, age, and impotence,
Was falsely borne in hand,4-sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys;
Receives rebuke from Norway; and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle, never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee;"
And his commission, to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,

[Gives a Paper.

beautified Ophelia,

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; beautified is a
vile phrase; but you shall hear.-Thus:

In her excellent white bosom, these, &c."
Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?

Pol. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faith

ful.

1 i. e. the trace or track. Vestigium. It is that ves-tal, the rest natural. Such a man is positive and confitige, whether of footmarks or scent, which enables the hunter to follow the game.

2 Folio--as I have.

3 Folio-news. By fruit dessert is meant.

dent, because he knows that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant

4 i. e. deluded, imposed on, deceived by false appear-in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and ances. It is used several times by Shakspeare; Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 1; Much Ado about Nothing, Act iv. Sc. 1; Cymbeline, Sc. ult.

can draw from his depositaries of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel: but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and 5 Malone refers to the custom of taking the assay of intent, the old man is subject to the dereliction of his wine, &c. before it was drunk by princes and other great faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles persons, to ascertain that it was not poisoned. But the himself in his own thoughts, till he recover the leading expression in the text has nothing to do with that cus-principle, and fall into his former train. The idea of tom. To give the assay of arms, is to attempt or es-dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the say any thing in arms, or by force. Accingi armis.' I phenomena of the character of Polonius.'-Johnson. have to request the reader's patience for this superfluous 8 Vile as Polonius esteems the phrase, from its note, but it is really sometimes impossible to resist ex-equivocal meaning, Shakspeare has used it again in posing such mistakes. The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

6 That is, the king gave his nephew a feud or fee in land of that annual value. The quartos read three score thousand.

Seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape,' &c.

Cary. It is not uncommon in dedications and encomiastic verses of the poet's age.

Nash, in his dedication of Christ's Tears over Jerusa7 i. e. to inquire. Polonius is a man bred in courts,lem, 1594: To the most beautified Lady Elizabeth exercised in business, stored with observation, confident in his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. This part of his character is acciden

9 See note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. Sc. 1. Formerly the word these was usually added at the end of the superscription of letters. The follo reads: These in her excellent white bosom these.

you think,

But what might

When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
(As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me,) what might you,
Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play'd the desk or table-book;

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb;'
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;
What might you think? no, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak;
Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star;3
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make,)
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;
Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,4
And all we mourn for.
King.

Do you think, 'tis this?
Queen. It may be, very likely.

comes reading.

Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away;
I'll board' him presently :-Ö, give me leave.-
[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and Attendants.
How does my good Lord Hamlet?
Ham. Well, God-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.
Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes,
is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,-Have you daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive,”— friend, look to't.

Pol. How say you by that? [Aside.] Still harp

Pol. Hath there been such a time, (I'd fain knowing on my daughter :-yet he knew me not at first;

that,)

That I have positively said, 'Tis 8o,

When it prov'd otherwise?

King.

Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise :
[Pointing to his Head and Shoulder.

If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

King.
Pol. You know, sometimes he walks four hours
together,

How may we try it further?

Here in the lobby.
Queen.

So he does, indeed.

he said, I was a fishmonger: He is far gone, far gone: and, truly, in my youth I suffered much extremity for love: very near this. I'll speak to him again. What do you read, my lord?

Ham. Words, words, words.

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?
Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord. Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have gray beards: that their and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, lack of wit, together with most weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus

Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: set down; for yourself, sir, should be as old as I Be you and I behind an arras then;

Mark the encounter: if he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,

1 'If I had play'd the desk, or table-book ;

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb.' That is If I had acted the part of depositary of their secret loves, or given my heart a hint to be mute about their passion. The quartos read-given my heart a working,' and the modern editors follow this reading I prefer the reading of the folio. 'Conniventia, a winking at; a sufferance: a feigning not to see or know.' The pleonasm, mute and dumb, is found in the Rape

of Lucrece :

And in my hearing be you mute and dumb.' 2 Plainly, roundly, without reserve. Polonius, in the third act, says, be round with him.'

3 This was changed to sphere in the 4to. 1632, and that reading is followed by the modern editions. Out of thy star,' is placed above thee by destiny. We have fortune's star in a former scene. Aumerle in King Richard III. says:

'Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars.' 4 The ridicule of this character is here admirably sustained. He would not only be thought to have discovered this intrigue by his own sagacity, but to have remarked all the stages of Hamlet's disorder, from his sadness to his raving, as regularly as his physician could have done; when all the while the madness was only feigned. The humour of this is exquisite from a man who tells us, with a confidence peculiar to small politicians, that he could find

"Where truth was hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre." Warburton. 5 i. e. accost, address him. See Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc. 3.

6 The old copies read-'being a good kissing carrion. The emendation is Warburton's, who has accompanied it with a long comment, in which he endeavours to prove that Shakspeare intended the passage as a vindication of the ways of Providence in permitting evil to abound in the world. He observes that Shakspeare had an art not only of acquainting the audience with

am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my

lord?

what his actors say, but what they think. This emendation, and the moral comment on it, delighted Dr. Johnson, who says, that it almost sets the critic on a level with the author! There was certainly much ingenuity in the emendation (which is unquestionably right) as well as in the argument, but the latter appears totally irrelevant and strained, and certainly was rather intend ed to show the skill and ingenuity of the critic than to raise the character of the poet, or display his true meaning. Warburton pointed out the same kind of expres sion in Cymbeline:- Common-kissing Titan.' And play of King Edward III. 1596, which Shakspeare had Malone has adduced the following passage from the certainly seen :

"The freshest summer's day doth soonest taint The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss."

7 The folio reads- Conception is a blessing, but no there is a play upon words here, as in the first scene ef as your daughter may conceive.' Steevens thinks that King Lear:

Kent. I cannot conceive you, sir.

But the simple meaning may be, though conception
'Glo. Sir, this young fellow's mother could.'
in general be a blessing, yet as your daughter may
chance to conceive that it may be a calamity, every
thing being so corrupt or sinful in the world; he there-
fore counsels Polonius not to let his daughter walk
i' the sun,' i. e. be too much exposed to the corrupting
scurities of Hamlet's language are intended to give
influence of the world. The abrupt transitions and ob
Polonius a notion of his insanity.

that Shakspeare means Juvenal, and refers to a pas
8 By the satirical rogue Warburton will have i
sage on old age in his tenth satire. Dr. Farmer states
that there was a translation of that satire by Sir Joha
Beaumont, but is uncertain whether it was printed a
Shakspeare's time. The defects of age were, however,
a common topic of moral reflection.

Ham. Into my grave?

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air.-How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will eave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.-My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.'

Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.
Ham. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
Ros. God save you, sir! [TO POLONIUS.
[Exit POLONIUS.

Guil. My honour'd lord!-
Ros. My most dear lord!-
Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost
thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads,
now do ye both?

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What news?

Ros. None, my lord; but that the world is grown honest.

Ham. Then is doomsday near: But your news is not true.2 [Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord! Ham. Denmark's a prison. Ros. Then is the world one. Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.'

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow. Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and outstretch'd heroes, the beggars'

1 This speech is abridged thus in the quartos :'I will leave him and my daughter. My lord, I will take my leave of you.'

2 All within crotchets is wanting in the quarto copies. 3 Shakspeare has accidentally inverted the expres sion of Pindar, that the state of humanity is the dream of a shadow. Thus also Sir John Davies :

Man's life is but a dreame, nay, less than so,
A shadow of a dreame.

483

I cannot reason.
shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay,"

Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.
the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an
Ham. No such matter:
honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.] But,
will not sort you with
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at
Elsinore ?

4 If ambition is such an unsubstantial thing, then are our beggars (who at least can dream of greatness) the only things of substance, and monarchs and heroes, though appearing to fill such mighty space with their ambition, but the shadows of the beggars' dreams.' Johnson thought that Shakspeare designed a ridicule of those declamations against wealth and greatness, that seem to make happiness consist in poverty."

5 See note on the Induction to Taming of a Shrew, 6 See note on Love's Labour's Lost, Act iv. Sc. 3.

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; are too dear, a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come; deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

sent for; and there is a kind of confession in your Ham. Any thing-but to the purpose. You were looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: I know, the good king and queen have sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord?

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no? Ros. What say you? Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you; [Aside. [To GUILDENSTERN. -if you love me, hold not off. Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

Ham.

you,

the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late,
will tell you why; so shall my anticipa-
tion prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to
forgone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes
so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly
(but wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth,
frame, the earth, seems to me to be a steril promon-
tory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look
this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical
roof fretted with golden fire," why, it appears no
How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in
other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congre
form, and moving, how express and admirable! in
gation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man!
of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintes
action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how
sence of dust ? man delights not me, no nor woman
like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon
neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so,

Man delights not me?
Ros. My lord, there is no such stuff in my thoughts.
Ham. Why did you laugh, then, when I said,

receive from you: we coted them on the way;
Ros. To think, my lord, if you delight not in
and hither are they coming, to offer you service.
man, what lenten entertainment the players shall

rous knight shall use his foil, and target: the lover Ham. He that plays the king, shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adventu his part in peace: [the clown shall make those laugh, whose lungs are tickled o' the sere ;] and shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall end

7 To have an eye of any one is to have an inkling of his purpose, or to be aware of what he is about. It is still a common phrase. The first quarto has:-'Nay, then I see how the wind sets,'

8

'Look how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patins of bright gold.'
Merchant of Venice

9 See Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc. 5.

10 To cote is to pass alongside, to pass by :-
Marry, presently coted and outstript them.'
It was a familiar hunting term, and its origin from
"With that Hippomenes coted her.'
Return from Parnassus
a cote, French, is obvious.
Golding's Ovid, Metam. ji.

them laugh that are tickled in the lungs. The words
11 The first quarto reads:-The clown shall make
appears to be, the clown shall make even those laugh
as they now stand are in the folio. The meaning
whose lungs are tickled with a dry cough, or huskiness

484

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse | King of Denmark, and those, that would make shall halt for't.-What players are they?

Ros. Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Ham. How chances it, they travel? their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

Ros. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Ham. Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed? Ros. No, indeed, they are not.

Ham. How comes it? Do they grow rusty? Ros. Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace: But there is, sir, an aiery2 of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of the question,4 and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion; and so berattle the common stages (so they call them,) that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose quills, and dare scarce come thither,

6

Ham. What, are they children? who maintains them? how are they escoted? Will they pursue the quality, no longer than they can sing? will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players (as it is most like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession? Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible

Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

Ham. Do the boys carry it away?

Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and

his load too."

Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is

by his merriment shall convert even their coughing into
laughter. The same expression occurs in Howard's
Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophecies,
16:20, folio: Discovering the moods and humours of
the vulgar sort to be so loose and tickle of the seare.'
1 In the first quarto copy this passage stands thus:-
Ham. How comes it that they travel? do they grow
restie ?

Gil. No, my lord, their reputation holds as it was

wont.

'Ham. How then?

Gil. I'faith, my lord, novelty carries it away, for the principal publicke audience that came to them, are turned to private plays, and to the humour of children.'

By this we may understand what Hamlet means in
saying their inhibition comes of the late innovation,
1. e. their prevention or hinderance comes from the late
innovation of companies of juvenile performers, as the
children of the revels, the children of St. Pauls, &c.-
They have not relaxed in their endeavours to please,
but this (brood) aiery of little children are now the
fashion, and have so abused the common stages as to
deter many from frequenting them. Thus in Jack
Drum's Entertainment, or Hasquil and Catherine, 1601:
"I sawe the children of Powles last night,
And troth they pleased me prettie prettie well,
The apes in time will do it handsomely.
Pla. I'faith,

I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: a man shall not be chokt
With the stench of garlic, nor be pasted
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.

'Bra. 'Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope
The boys will come one day in great request.'
2 i. e. a brood.

3 i. e. young nestlings; properly young unfledged
hawks.

4 Question is speech, conversation. The meaning may therefore be, they cry out on the top of their voice. 5 i. e. paid.

6 i. e. profession. Mr. Gifford has remarked that 'this word seems more peculiarly appropriated to the profession of a player by our old writers.' But in Measure for Measure, Angelo. when the Bawd and Tapster are brought before him inquires what quality they are of. In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, the

mouths at him while my father aved, give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little. 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

[Flourish of Trumpets within.

Guil. There are the players.

Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come, then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply1 with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should You more appear like entertainment than yours. are welcome: but my uncle-father, and aunt-mother, are deceived.

Guil. In what, my dear lord?

Ham. I am but mad north-north west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw." Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen! Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too; at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you see there, is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.

Ros. Happily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child.

Ham. I will prophesy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it.-You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas then, indeed.

Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.

Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you; When
Roscius was an actor in Rome,

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord
Ham. Buz, buz!12

Pol. Upon my honour,

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,

Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comcal, historical-pastoral [tragical-historical, tragical comical-historical pastoral,] scene individable, or poem unlimited :-Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor

Outlaws speak of men of our quality. And Sir Thomas Eliot, in his Platonic Dialogue, 1534:- According to the profession or qualitee, wherein men have opinion that wisdome doth rest, so ought to be the form of livinge, countenance, and gesture.' He is speaking of philosophers.

"No longer than they can sing,' i. e. no longer than they keep the voices of boys, and sing in the choir. 7 i. e. set them on, a phrase borrowed from the setting on a dog. Thus in King John :

'Like a dog that is compelled to fight, Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on." 8 i. e. carry all the world before them: there is perhaps an allusion to the Globe theatre, the sign of 9 First copy, mops and moes. Folio, mowes." which is said to have been Hercules carrying the globe. 10 Let me comply with you in this garb.' Hammer, with his usual temerity, changed comply to compliment, means to compliment with,' here and in a passage in and Steevens has contented himself with saying that he the fifth act, He did comply with his dug before he He evidently never looked at the context. Hamlet has sucked it,' where that sense would be even more absurd. received his old schoolfellows with somewhat of the coldness of suspicion hitherto, but he now remembers that this is not courteous: He therefore rouses himself to give them a proper reception, Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come then, the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me embrace you in this fashion: lest I should seem to give you a less courteous reception than I give the players, to whom I must behave with at least exterior politeness.' That to comply with was to embrace, wil appear from the following passages in Herrick :witty Ovid, by

Whom Corinna sits, and doth comply, With iv'ry wrists, his laureat head, and steeps His eye in dew of kisses, while he sleeps.' 11 The original form of this proverb was undoubtedly To know a hawk from a hernshato,' that is, to know i hawk from the heron which it pursues. The corruption is said to be as old as the time of Shakspeare.

12 Surely the commentators need not have expended their ingenuity on this common interjection.

13 The words within crotchets are not in the quartos

Plautus too light for the law of writ' and the liberty: these are the only men.

Ham. O Jephthah, Judge of Israel,-what a treasure hadst thou!

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord?
Ham. Why-One fair daughter, and no more,
The which he loved passing well.2

[Aside.

Pol. Still on my daughter.
Ham. Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah
Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a
daughter, that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?

Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then, you know, It came to pass, As most like it was,-The first row of the pious chanson3 will show you more; for look, my abridgment comes.

Enter Four or Five Players.

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-I am glad to see thee well:-welcome, good friends.O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to beard me in Denmark?-What! my young lady and mistress! By-'r-lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine." "Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring."-Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see: We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

1 Play. What speech, my lord?

Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once,— but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once: for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was, (as I received it, and others, whose judgments, in such matters, cried in the top of mine,) an excellent play: well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said, there were no sallets in the lines,1° to make the mat

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