The folios have before this exclamation the words "Let me see; " which I mention not so much for the value of this special instance, as to observe that there are few scenes in the modern editions which more require to be revised and compared with the ancient copies than this. No small portion of the true spirit of the original is lost.

V. I. HAMLET.

Woul't drink up ESIL? eat a crocodile ?

in

Much as has been written upon this word, a passage Shakespeare's own Sonnets has not been brought to the illustration of it.

Whilst like a willing patient I will drink
Potions of eysell 'gainst my strong infection.

SONNET Cxi.

This shews it was not any river so called, but some desperate drink. The word occurs often in a sense of which acetum is the best representative, associated with verjuice and vinegar. It is the term used for one ingredient of the bitter potion given to our Saviour on the cross, about the composition of which the commentators are greatly divided. Thus the eighth prayer of the Fifteen Oos, in the Salisbury Primer, 1555, begins thus: "O Blessed Jesu! sweetness of heart and ghostly pleasure of souls, I beseech thee for the bitterness of the aysell and gall that thou tasted and suffered for me in thy passion, &c."

V. 2. HAMLET.

and that should teach us

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will.

The sooner Dr. Farmer's unfortunate remark on this pas

sage is expunged the better. Rough-hew is not and never was technical. It is a common English word applicable to to all kinds of work where there is room for ordinary manual labour before the master comes and applies a skilful hand. Thus, in Palsgrave's Table of Verbs, "I rough-hewe a pece of tymber to make an ymage of, or to put to some byldyng: and again, “It is rough-hewen all redy, I will now fall a karvynge of it," p. 344. This is in 1530. Florio in 1598 explains the Italian Abbozzare" to rough-hew any first draught, to bungle ill-favouredly," and Abbozamento is "a rough, coarse, imperfect, bungling piece of work." In the Epilogue to the play of The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon,

Thus is Matilda's story shewn in art

And rough-hewn out by an uncunning hand
Being of the most material points compackt
That with the certainst state of truth do stand.

And in The Scourge of Folly by John Davies, called of Hereford,

Thou learn'd art in the laws; then we retain

Thee with Love's fee to smooth our bill rough-hewn;
For thou wilt say, we cause have to complain

Which in our piteous bill at large is shewn.

Concerning the meaning of the passage there can be no doubt. We but begin a work; God finishes it.

V. 2. HAMlet.

And stand a comma 'twixt their amities.

Dr. Johnson's note is ingenious, but the Poet's intention appears to have been to ridicule such an absurd expression in some speech or document of the time.

V. 2 HAMLET.

Without debatement further, more or less,

4

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

Not shriving-time allowed.

In the last clause there is another outrage on every just and proper feeling, though it is not necessary to suppose with Steevens that Hamlet means without allowing them time for repentance. It was a term in common use for any short period. All he meant was, that they should be put to instant death.

V. 2. HAMLET.

The phrase would be more GERMAN to the matter, if we could carry a cannon by our sides.

In the quarto of 1603 it is cousin-german. Chaucer, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, writes

Eke Plato sayth, whoso can hym rede,

The wordes mote ben cosyn to the dede.

Here is the word or phrase in its pristine state. Shakespeare adds "german," and at length "german" entirely supplants "cousin," and becomes part of our current language.

V. 2. HAMLET.

Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my BROTHER.

It is thus in all the earlier editions, but in the folios the word is mother. The change might be made by Shakespeare after he retired to Stratford, the passage as it originally stood coming too near to an incident which had recently occurred in the family of Greville in that neighbourhood, where one of them had by misadventure killed his brother with an

arrow.

V. 2. HAMLET.

as this fell serjeant Death

Is strict in his arrest.

The apposite quotation from Sylvester loses its effect through an oversight in the transcriber. It ought to be

And Death, dread serjeant of th' eternal judge

Comes very late to his sole-seated lodge.

It occurs in the Third Day of the First Week. Sylvester is the earlier writer, but Shakespeare's substitution of "fell" for "dread" shews a master hand.

V. 2. FORTINERAS.

let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage.

As may be seen in the monument in Westminster Abbey of Sir Francis Vere, a soldier, who died in 1608. This was no doubt at that time the accustomed mode of burial of a soldier of rank.

It is a remarkable peculiarity of Hamlet, that whoever approaches these plays with the intention of commenting upon them, whatever may be the leading character of his annotations, finds more passages on which to remark in this than in any other.

KING LEAR.

DR. HARSNET must have been the terror of all those who, either in sincere belief of the efficacy of the means they used, or with a view to strengthen a religious party by the exhibition of powers apparently more than human, practised the arts of exorcism. We have shewn, when speaking of Twelfth Night, how he attacked the Puritans. He had no sooner completed his exposure of some attempts by them of the kind in question than he turned to the Papists, and with equal force of reason and power of ridicule exposed similar pretensions of theirs: thus vindicating for himself his right to the position which, in his last will, he claims for himself, as one who "renounced all modern Popish superstitions as well as all novelties of Geneva."

It is remarkable that in both instances the Poet whose works we are considering fights by his side.

Dr. Harsnet's book has the following title :-A Declaration of egregious Popish Impostures, to withdraw the hearts of his Majesty's subjects from their allegiance, and from the truth of Christian Religion, under the pretence of casting out devils : practised by Edmunds, alias Weston, and divers Roman Priests, his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the copies of the confessions and examinations of the parties themselves, which were pretended to be possessed and dispossessed, taken upon oath before his Majesty's Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical.

The affair had occurred several years before, namely, in 1585 or 1586; but Harsnet's book was not printed till 1603. There is a second edition in 1605.

In this case six persons were supposed to be possessed,