flower' of Burns, nor the bright day's eye' of Ben Jonson, or the gentle marguerite' of Chaucer, or the little dazie, that at evening closes' of Spenser; but the ox-eye daisy (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum), a flower which, though ornamental to the field, is so injurious to the pasture that by one of the laws of Denmark its eradication is enforced by severe penalties. It was formerly called Maudelyne-wort.

169. Violets. In former times various flowers bore the name of violets the snowdrop was called the Narcissus violet; wallflower, the Guernsey violet; honesty, in addition to that of moonwort, had the name of strange violet; two species of gentian were called, one the autumn bell-flower or Calathian violet, and another Marion's violet; the periwinkle, now generally known in France by the name of pervenche, went in former times by the name of violette des sorciers, and our own favourite wild sweet violet, violette de Mars, the March violet. The violet is the loveliest of native flowers from its 'mingled hues of every sort, blue, white, and purple.' 172. Bonny sweet robin. In the books of the Stationers' Company, 26th April 1594, there is an entry of 'A Ballad, entituled A Doleful Adewe to the last Erle of Darbie, to the tune of Bonny Sweet Robin." "Sweet Robin" was the pet name by which the mother of Essex addressed him in her letters 'Gerald Massey's Shakespeare's Sonnets, p. 480.

66

175. And will he not, etc. This song was parodied in 1605 in Eastward Hoe, by Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, thus:

203. The great axe.

'His head was as white as milk,

All flaxen was his hair;

But now he is dead

And laid in his bed

And never will come again '-III, iii, 95-99.

Matt. iii, 10; Luke, iii, 9.

SCENE VI.

13. Means-mode of access.

19. Thieves of mercy-merciful thieves.

23. The bore the calibre; the weight of the matter is such that it would bear heavier words.

SCENE VII.

18. General gender-common people.

20. Spring. Those which, like the dropping well on the banks of the Nid at Knaresborough, by their limestone deposits, 'petrify' articles exposed to its influence.

21. Gyves to graces-that which binds and braces into ornamental forms.

28. Challenger on mount-unequalled, unmatched. Like the challenger to all opponents of the rights to the crown of the

sovereign at whose accession he officiates, and by consent unopposed.

32. Beard. To seize and shake by the beard was regarded as a gross and unbearable insult.

50. Character-handwriting. Twelfth Night, V, i, 354.

66. Practice-plot, contrivance. King Lear, I, ii, 163, II, i, 73. 67-80. My lord. graveness. Omitted in folio 1623.

86. Incorps'd-so joined as to form one body.

88. Forgery-power to form an idea of; imagination. 91-93. Lamond. The complimentary terms used of this person, G. R. French regards as 'meant for Sir Walter Raleigh. Malone would read La Mode, 'the brooch and gem of all the nation,' indeed. C. E. Browne thinks 'it is not impossible that this is an allusion to Pietro Monte (in a Gallicised form), the famous cavalier and swordsman, who is mentioned by Castiglione (I Cortegiano, i), as the instructor of Louis VII's Master of Horse. In the English translation [by Sir Thomas Hoby, entitled The Courtier, 1561 and 1588] he is called Peter Mounte.'

99-101. The scrimers . . . . them. Omitted in folio 1623. French escrimeur, a fencer.

113-122. There lives within.

not in folio 1623.

...

the ulcer. These ten lines are

116. Plurisy ought, Upton says, to be plethory.

126. Sanctuarise-afford immunity to. The allusion here is to the Jewish sanctuary whose brazen altar afforded a place of refuge and protection to criminals, and gave them 'the holy privilege of blessed sanctuary'-Richard III, III, i, 42. What glib morality here flows from the lips of one who has not only murdered, but is even now about to prompt a murder!

142. Cataplasm-poultice, soft or moist application for the discussing or dispersing of tumours or suppurating sores.

160. Stuck-thrust. Italian stoccata.

165. A willow. stream. This willow, the Salix alba, grows plentifully on the banks of the Avon, near Stratford, and may often be seen growing aslant.

Nettles,

168. Beisly supplies in his Shakespeare's Garden, p. 159, the following explanation of this line from 'the language of flowers :' Crowflowers, Daisies, and Long purples. Farye mayde. Stung to the quick. Virgin bloom. Cold in death. Ib. Crowflowers. Perhaps the Allium vineale or crow-garlick,

which grows as tall as the midsummer corn, and holds up its pale pink flowers boldly among it; and perhaps some one of the many sorts of the buttercup; both kinds of wild flowers grow prolifically along the reaches of the Avon.

Ib. Nettles. The (Urtica dioica) common bright, ovate-leaved, greyish-green flowered plant, whose sharp sting is so well known.

168. Long purples. We have seen the finely-tinted spikes of the purple loose-strife (Lythum salicaria) in abundance on the banks of the Avon, near Stratford, with stems fully a yard in length; but many commentators consider the meadow purple-flowered orchis (mascula) rather than this, to be the long purple to which Shakespeare refers.

172. Sliver a branch stripped lengthwise from a tree.

The following scene, which in the first quarto, 1603, takes first place in IV, vii, differs so materially from the matter of the revised play, that it may not be unacceptably put before the reader:

Enter HORATIO and the QUEEN.

Hor. Madam, your son is safe arriv'd in Denmark,
This letter I even now receiv'd of him,

Whereas he writes how he escap'd the danger,
And subtle treason that the king had plotted;
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the packet sent to the king of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
As at his next conversion with your grace
He will relate the circumstance at full.

Queen. Then I perceive there's treason in his looks,
That seem'd to sugar o'er his villainy :

But I will soothe and please him for a time,

For murderous minds are always jealous;

But know not you, Horatio, where he is?

Hor. Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me

To meet him on the east side of the city

To-morrow morning.

Queen. O fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me
A mother's care to him, bid him awhile

Be wary of his presence, lest that he

Fail in that he goes about.

Hor. Madam, never make doubt of that:

I think by this the news be come to court

He is arriv'd: observe the king, and you shall

Quickly find, Hamlet being there,

Things fell not to his mind.

Queen. But what became of Gilderstone and Rossencraft?

Hor. He being set ashore, they went for England,

And in the packet there writ down that doom

To be perform'd on them 'pointed for him :

And by great chance he had his father's seal,

So all was done without discovery.

Queen. Thanks be to Heaven for blessing of the prince.

Horatio, once again I take my leave,

With thousand mother's blessings to my son.

Hor. Madam, adieu.

ACT V.-SCENE I.

4. Straight-immediately, at once. See As You Like It, III, v, 135. Ib. Crowner is not, as is generally supposed, a corruption of

the clown's, but is the word used by Holinshed for the Low Latin term coronator, from corona, a crown.

9. Se offendendo-in self-injury, used intentionally by Shakespeare instead of se defendendo, in self-defence.

27. Even Christian. Even means fellow, occupying the same level. So it is used by Thomas Wilson in his Rhetorique, 1535: 'Beasts and birds without reason love one another, they shroud and they flock together; and shall man endued with such gifts hate his even Christian and eschew company?'

-p. 119.

34. The Scripture says Adam digged. Gen. iii, 23.

49. Unyoke-end your task. Alluding to Samson's riddle, Judges, xiv. 52, 53. Mass. . . cudgel. Mass from Greek μàσow, I knead or press;

Italian massa, a heap; French, masse, a heap, a club. Mass, the service of the Romish Church in the celebration of the Eucharist, suggests mass, a mace or club, and that cudgel from Welsh cogel, from côg, a short piece of wood. 56. Yaughan. This word does not appear in 1603 and 1604 quartos. Can it be that it is a survival' of the Poetaster quarrel of 1601? In Dekkar's Satiromastix, we find Sir Rees ap Vaughan encouraging Horace (Ben Jonson) to hope for his patronage, saying, 'I have some cosenz-german at court shall beget you the reversion of the Master of the King's Revels, or else be his Lord of Misrule now at Christmas;' and if this were a misprint for Vaughan, it would mean that the first grave-digger advises his fellow to betake himself to that fitting patron of such dull wits as he.

58. This song is taken from a poem entitled The Aged Lover renounceth Love, though in a somewhat altered fashion, either because the verses had been corrupted in their transmission, or purposely disguised the better to suit the character of an illiterate clown. A copy of the song, with the music, is extant in MSS. Sloan, No. 4900. It first appeared in Tottel's Miscellany, 1557. See Arber's Reprint, p. 173. The original is published in Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, where, on the authority of George Gascoigne, it is attributed to Thomas Lord Vaux (1512-1562) of Harrowden, in Northamptonshire. It also appears in Rev. Dr A. B. Grosart's Miscellanies, as copied from the Harleian MSS., No. 1703, fol. 100, as a Dyttye representinge the Image of Deathe. The verses in the latter copy, resembling those used in the play, runs as follows:

'I loathe that I dyd love

In youth that I thoughte sweete,
As tyme requireth for my behoove,
Meethinkes they are not meete.
Ffor age with stealinge steppes,
Hath claude me with his cruch,
And lustye youth away hee leapes,
As there had been none such.

A pick-axe and a spade,

And eke a windinge sheete,
A house of clay for to be made
For such a gest most meete."

83. Mazard-from French machoire, the jaw.

85. Loggats a sort of Aunt Sally; throwing logs at a mark. 91. The skull of a lawyer, etc. It has been pointed out by C. E. Browne that in Raynolde's Dolarny's Primeroses, 1606, this passage is versified:

'Why might not this have beene some lawier's pate,

The which sometimes bribed, brawled, and took a fee,

And law exacted to the highest rate;

Why might not this be such a one as he?

Your quips and quillets, now, sir, where be they?
Now he is mute and not a word can say,' etc.

130. Kibe—a chilblain on the heel. Tempest, II, i, 276; Lear, I, v, 9. Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598, gives 'Buganciakibes or chilblains,' and Pernione—a kibe on the heele, or a chilblane on the hands.'

141. There the men are as mad as he. Steevens quotes in illustration:

169. Yorick.

Nimirum insanus paucis videatur, eo quod
Maxima pars hominum morbo jactatur eodem.'

-Horace, Satires, II, iii, 120.

'Of course he seemeth mad but to a few of these,
For most men are afflicted by the same disease.'

'It is very probable that the Yorick here described was one of the court-fools hired to divert the leisure hours of Queen Elizabeth. And it is most likely that our author celebrated the famous Clod-a clown of uncommon wit and ready observation-who died sometime before the accession of James I'-THOMAS DAVIES.

212. The order [of the service for the dead].

214. For-instead of, in place of.

221. Requiem-a mass sung for the rest of the soul of the dead, from the first word of the service: