the approach of day contradicts a curious fact mentioned by The glowworm hangs out to allure ... Her mate to her green bower at night'-THOMas Moore, The light becomes, as Dr Johnson remarks, 'uneffectual only at the approach of morn, in like manner as the light of a candle would be at mid-day.' 98. Table of my memory. Compare, 'the table of thine heart,' Prov. iii, 3; and deλTois opevŵv (on the tablets of the heart), in the Prometheus of Eschylus, 789. 116. Hillo, etc. 'This is an imitation of the manner in which falconers used to call down a flying hawk'-REV. JOHN HUNTER, M.A. In Marston's Malecontent, 1604, we have this cry and a phrase used at line 150 combined: 'Hillo, ho! ho! ho! arte there, olde true-penny?'—III, iii, 36. And another portion, S. W. Singer says, is given in Tyro's Roaring Megge, 1598: 'Come, come, bird, come; pox on you, you can mute.' 136. Saint Patrick. In his Genealogical Table of the Kings of Denmark, the Rev. Wm. Betham places Ruric in the year A. D. 434, and it was during the reign of this mythic king that Horvendile's murder is said to have occurred. In 432 St Patrick was consecrated as a bishop by Pope Celestine, so that he had just then risen to his sainthood. It is difficult to guess why the Irish saint was invoked by Hamlet the Dane, unless it were that in 1598 Ireland was in insurrection, and Essex had been sent over to quell the revolt, and so the phrase had acquired a temporary popularity as an asseveration. Does Hamlet in this invocation indicate that 'As Irish earth doth poison poisonous beasts -The True Trojans, III, i, 13, he has a longing for the aid of St Patrick to purge Denmark of similar creatures? The Rev. C. E. Moberly suggests that it was because he was 'the saint of all blunders and confusions.' The proper Danish saint is St Ansgarius; but St Patrick was the keeper of purgatory, and had just allowed the revealer to have leave. 150. True-penny-a cant name for a genuinely honest fellow. It may be a vulgarism for the Greek Tρúnavov, veterator, 'crafty old fox.' See the Clouds of Aristophanes, 447. 154. Swear by my sword. The hilt and the blade being crossed at right angles by the guard, the sword sworn by was in that regard a cross. Richard II, I, iii, 178-192. 156. Hic et ubique—' here and everywhere.' A scholastic phrase in theology. In this scene, as in several others, Hamlet illustrates the motto of Giordano Bruno's Il Candelajo, 1583, In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis ('In sadness glad, in gladness sad'). Is it possible that in the halls of Beauchamp Court or in the glades of Wedgnock Park, while he was the guest of Sir Fulke Greville, Shakespeare had seen that man of slight and slender presence, wasted and pale, thoughtful and sad, with dark eyes of mingled melancholy and ardour, and noble, regular features,' who wrote De l'Infinito Universo Mondi, and idealised him as Hamlet? ACT II.-SCENE I. This scene was for upwards of a century never acted, and is even yet often omitted in representation as by no means essential to the play. 7. Danskers-Danes. Danske was the old English name for Denmark. See in the Tale of Argentile and Curan, the line 'By chance, one Curan, son unto a prince in Danske, did see' -Warner's Albion's England, 1586. 8. Keep (1) live; (2) maintain; (3) possess; (4) lodge; (5) frequent; (6) fix their style of life, in the respective questions proposed. 10. Encompassment-exhaustive summary. 1b. Drift here force; at line 37, intention, meaning; in III, i, 1, management. 22. Slips-(1) false steps, mistakes; (2) engraftments. 29. Another. For this Theobald, Monck Mason, etc., would read an utter.' L 31. Quaintly-deftly, delicately. 34. Unreclaimed-untamed, untrained. 35. Of general assault-forming a common temptation. 38. Fetch of warrant a cunning plan often justified by its success. 43. Prenominate-aforesaid, previously named. 47. Addition-style of salutation. 62. Bait-alluring morsel, carefully planned to deceive. Ib. Carp. The carp is a stately, a good, and a subtle fish,' which is mentioned by Dame Juliana Berners in the Boke of St Albans, 1496, as a 'dayntous fysshe, but scarce.' It is an inhabitant of lakes and ponds rather than rivers. It is amazing fecund, and is said to live to a great age-150 or 200 years! It is not a free-biter, and even when hooked runs strongly and fights with cunning and resolution. It is very cautious, and nibbles at the bait before it takes it, even when most cleverly set forth. As Isaak Walton saith, 'If you will fish for a carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience' Compleat Angler-chap. viii, p. 168, Elliot Stock's reprint. 64. Windlaces wiles, cunning methods, circuitous processes. Windlace, literally a-winding, was used to express taking a circuituous course, fetching a compass, making an indirect advance, or, more colloquially, beating about the bush, instead of going directly to a place or object, and in this sense it exactly harmonises with the other phrase used by Polonius to express the same thing-assays of biasattempts in which, instead of going straight to the object, we seek to reach it by a curved or winding course, the bias gradually bringing the ball round to the jack'-Edinburgh Review, Shakespearian Glossaries, p. 93. Ib. Assays of bias-indirect attempts, experimental trials of bias (French biais, sloping), inclinations, tendencies to run away. A term in bowling, see Nicholas Breton's Grimello's Fortunes, 1604: Temptations, illusions, and suggestions. . would have put you out of your bias, that you would sometime have lost the cast had you bowled never so well '-Dr A. B. Grosart's Chertsey Worthies Library, reprint, p. 6, col. 1. 79. Down-gyved (perhaps 'ungyved, down')-gyves (Welsh gefyn), shackles, fetters, fastenings; hanging down like fetters. 21. Adheres-is attached. SCENE II. 22. Gentry-generositas, the kindliness of well-bred men. 90. Wit-wisdom, intellectual discourse. 98. A foolish figure—anadiplosis or redoubling. 105. Perpend an affected term for reflect upon, consider. See Merry Wives, II, i, 119. III. Beautified. The evil opinion Polonius expresses of this word requires some explanation. It was one of the most common complimentary terms of that age. Nash dedicates his Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, 1594, 'to the most beautified Lady Elizabeth Carey;' Shakespeare uses it himself in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV, i; and the verb beautify he employs four times. Henry Chettle, in the preface to Kind Hart's Dreame, 1593, speaks of works 'no lesse beautified with eloquente phrase, than garnished with excellent example.' Something must be surmised as underlying this critical observation. Now, we know that Robert Greene charged Shakespeare with having 'beautified himself' with 'feathers' not his own, and this we read as stigmatising that phrase as a vile one in its falsity and its ill-nature. Ante, p. 27. 141. Out of thy sphere-beyond thy reach, moving in another sphere. 142. Precepts. Not precepts, which set forth the general law, but prescripts, which apply it to the particular instance. 163. Arras-tapestry. Ārras, the old capital of Artois, was the seat of the chief manufacture of these room-hangings. 174. Fishmonger. He had been fishing for Hamlet's secret, and was about to sell it (when caught) for royal favour. 196. The satirical slave. The reference seems here to be to Juvenal: 'Da spatium vitæ, multos da, Jupiter, annos Plena malis, deformem, et tetrum ante omnia vultum 'Grant us, ye gods, a dateless term of years In health, in sickness, these are still our prayers, A hideous face-a body lank and thin Loose hanging jaws-a parched and shrivelled skin. -FRANCIS HODGSON, M.D. 250, 251, 253, 255. Shadow. Here Shakespeare plays with a commonplace of Greek poetry popular in his day, found in the Agamemnon of Eschylus, 839, and in Pindar's Pythian Odes, viii, 136, and Englished by Sir John Davies, thus: 'Man's life is but a dream, yea, less than so, 259. I am most dreadfully attended. Here the prince uses an equivoque, apparently underrating his servants, really giving sarcastic expression to his opinion of the two courtiers. 280. An eye of you-a glimpse of your meaning. 295. Apprehension. A logical term signifying the power of receiving or forming ideas; imaginative capacity. I, iii, 300. See Richard II, 296. Paragon-the peerless among, the most perfect of. 311. Whose lungs are tickled o' the sere. Sere or serre, now spelled sear or scear, the catch in a gunlock which keeps the hammer on full or half cock, till the trigger is drawn. Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, in his Defensative against the Poyson of Supposed Prophecies, 1583, speaks of 'the moods and humours of the vulgar sort' being so loose and tickle of the seare.' This phrase, therefore, means 'whose lungs are easily moved to laughter, like a gun which goes off at the least touch.' This explanation was suggested independently by Dr Brinsley Nicholson and 'the Cambridge editors;' and is supported by Hamlet's opinion of those clowns who operate on such loose-set 'spectators' (III, ii, 38). Another explanation of the phrase has been given-those whom old jokes set agog easily enough. Quarto 1603 reads, "that are tickled in the lungs.' 314. The tragedians of the city. 'the law of writ and the 318. Inhibition... innovation. On 19th February 1597-8, an order was issued by the Privy Council to the effect that only two companies of public players-the Lord Admiral's and the Lord Chamberlain's-should be permitted to act in London or its neighbourhood' (Collier's Annals of the Stage, p. 305); and by another order, dated 22d June 1600, the council commanded that only two public theatres-the Fortune in Golding Lane, and the Globe on the Bankside, should be opened for stage performances-p. 312. 'The Blackfriars seems to have been occupied during the earlier years of the seventeenth century by the youths known as the "children of the Queen's Chapel,' as they were called in the time of Queen Elizabeth, or as the "children of the Revels," which was the name given to them after the accession of James I to the throne '-p. 353. 'These juvenile actors were, in the language of that day, regarded as a private company, and did not, therefore, come under the interdict of the Privy Council, which was directed exclusively against common stage-plays and players. . . A doubt has been raised whether "the eyry of children relates to the "children of Paul's," that is to say, the singing boys of St Paul's Cathedral, or to the "children of Her Majesty's Chapel." There exists distinct evidence that the former of these juvenile societies, after having been for some years interdicted from engaging in theatrical performances, were again acting, and with considerable success, at the commencement of the seventeenth century. In a piece entitled Jack Drum's Entertainment [or Pasquil and Katharine], first published in 1601, we find the following dialogue: The licensed players, those having liberty.' "Sir Edw. Fortune. I saw the children of Paul's last night, And troth they pleased me pretty, pretty well |