Queen. Alas, he's mad.

Ham. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O, say!

Ghost. Do not forget: This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
Bui, look! amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul;
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works;
Speak to her, Hamlet.
Ham.

How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?
That you do bend your eyes on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O, gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Ham. On him! on him!--Look you how pale
he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.--Do not look upon me;
Lest, with this piteous action, you convert
My stern affects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?
Ham.
Do you see nothing there?
Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I see.
Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

1 i. e. the low mimic, the counterfeit, a dizard, or common vice and jester, counterfeiting the gestures of any man.'-Fleming. Shakspeare afterwards calls him a king of shreds and patches, alluding to the party. coloured habit of the vice or fool in a play.

2 The first quarto adds, in his night-gown.' 3Laps'd in time and passion.' Johnson explains this- That having suffered time to slip and passion to cool, let's go by,' &c. This explanation is confirmed by the quarto of 1603:

Do you not come your tardy son to chide, That I thus long have let revenge slip by.' 4 Conceit, for conception, imagination. This was the force of the word among our ancestors. Thus in The Rape of Lucrece :

And the conceited painter was so nice."

5 The hair is excrementitious; that is, without life or sensation; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up,' &c. So Macbeth :

my fell of hair

Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't.'

6 Capable for susceptible, intelligent, i. e. would excite in them capacity to understand. Thus in King

Richard III. :

Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.
Ham. Why, look you there! look, how it steals
away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
[Exit Ghost
Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ectasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will reward; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg:
Yea, curb and woo, for leave to do him good.
Queen. O, Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in
twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to my uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
[That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat
Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this;11
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on :] Refrain to-night;"
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: [13the next more easy:
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either quell the devil or throw him out
With wondrous potency.] Once more, good night!
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,

[Pointing to POLONIUS.

alter things already effected, but might move Hamlet to a less stern mood of mind.

8 This speech of the queen has the following remarkable variation in the quarto of 1603 :—

Alas, it is the weakness of thy brain

Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy heart's grief:
But as I have a soul, I swear to heaven,

I never knew of this most horrid murder:
But, Hamlet, this is only fantasy,

And for my love forget these idle fits."

9 Do not by any new indulgence heighten your former offences."

10 i. e. bot. Courber, Fr. to bow, crook, or curb' Thus in Pierce Plowman:

Then I courbid on my knees.'

11 That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this,' &c. This passage, which is not in the folio, has been thought corrupt. Dr. Thirlby proposed to read, 'Of habits eril Steevens would read,Or habits' devil. It is evident that there is an intended opposition between angel and devil; but the passage will perhaps bear explaining as it stands:That monster custom, who devours all sense (feeling, or perception) of devilish hubits, is angel yet in this,' &c. This passage might perhaps have been as well omitted, after the example of the editors of the folio; but, I presume, it has been retained upon the principle which every where guide the editors, To lose no drop of that immortal man.'

12 Here the quarto of 1603 has two remarkable lines:And, mother, but assist ine in revenge, And in his death your infamy shall die." 13 The next more easy,' &c. This passage, as far as potency, is also omitted in the folio. In the line:

And either quell the devil, or throw him out.” The word quell is wanting in the old copy. Malone in serted the word curb, because he found, in The Merchant of Venice, And earb this cruel devil of his will." But the occurrence of euch in so opposite a sense just before, is against his emendation.

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.

I do repent: But heaven hath pleas'd it so,-
To punish me with this, and this with me;'
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!—
I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.-
But one word more, good lady.

Queen.

Ham. Not this, by no means, that I bid
What shall I do?
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
you
do:
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
his mouse ;2
you,
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That lessentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. "Twere good, you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? who would do so?
No, in despite of sense, and secresy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions," in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.

Queen. Be thou assur'd if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me." 7

Ham. I must to England; you know that?
Queen.

Alack,

I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.
Ham. [There's letters scal'd: and my two school-

fellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,-
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery: Let it work;
For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar:10 and it shall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon: 0, 'tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.-]
This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room :11
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you:-
Good night, mother.

ACT IV.

497

SCENE I. The same. Enter King, Queen,
ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN.

King. There's matter in these sighs; these pro-
found heaves:

You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them:
Where is your son?

Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while. 12-
[To ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN,
Ah,13 my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
who go out.
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the sea, and wind, when both
contend14

a rat!

Whips out his rapier, cries, A rat
Which is the mightier: In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
And, in this brainish apprehension, kills
The unseen good old man.

King.

It had been so with us, had we been there:
O, heavy deed!
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Should have kept, short restrain'd,and out of haunt,'s
Alas! how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
This mad young man: but, so much was our love,
We would not understand what was most fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
To keep it from divulging, let it feed

Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
Shows itself pure; he weeps for what is done.
O'er whom his very madness, like some ore,
Among a minerale of metals base,

King. O, Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We must, with all our majesty and skill,
Both countenance and excuse.-Ho! Guildenstern!
Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

9 This and the eight following verses are omitted in the folio.

Το

[Exeunt severally; HAMLET dragging in hoyse was the old verb. A petar was a kind of mortar 10 Hoist with his own petar. Hoist for hoised.

POLONIUS.

Thus

1 To punish me by making me the instrument of this man's death, and to punish this man by my hand. 2 Mouse, a term of endearment formerly. Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy Pleasant names may be invented, bird, mouse, lamb, puss, pigeon,' &c.

used to blow up gates.

a prince under any circumstances, and such as is not 11 It must be confessed that this is coarse language for called for by the occasion. But Hamlet has purposely throughout the interview with his mother, perhaps to Something may be said in extenuation. The word chosen gross expressions and coarse metaphors, make his appeal to her feelings the more forcible. 3 i. e. reeky or fumant; reekant, as Florio calls it. The guts was not anciently so offensive to delicacy as it is at King has been already called the bloat king, which hints present; the courtly Lyly has used it in his Mydas, at his intemperance. In Coriolanus we have the reechy1592; Stanyhurst often in his translation of Virgil, and neck of a kitchen wench. Reeky and reechy are the Chapman in his version of the sixth Iliad :same word, and always applied to any vaporous exha lation, even to the fumes of a dunghill. in whose guts the king of men imprest In short, guts was used where we now use entrails. His ashen lance.' 12 This line does not appear in the folio, in which i.stage at all. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz are not brought on the 13 Quarto-Ah, mine own lord. 14 Thus in Lear :

4 The hint for Hamlet's feigned madness is taken from the old Historie of Hamblett already mentioned. 5 For paddock, a toad, see Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 1: and for gib, a cat, see King Henry IV. Part I. Act Sc. 2.

Sir

6 To try conclusions is to put to proof, or try experi ments. See Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Sc. 2. John Suckling possibly alludes to the same story in one of his letters:It is the story after all of the jackanapes and the partridges; thon starest after a beauty till it be lost to thee, and then let'st out another, and starest after that till it is gone too."

7 The quarto of 1603 has here another remarkable variation:

'Hamlet, I vow by that Majesty

That knows our thoughts and looks into our hearts,
I will conceal, consent, and do my best,
What stratagem soe'er thou shalt devise.'

Dido and her Sichæus shall want troops,
And all the haunt be ours.'

And in Romico and Juliet:

We talk here in the public haunt of men.

16 Shakspeare, with a licence not unusual among his contemporaries, uses ore for gold, and mineral for mine. Bullokar and Blount both define or or ore, 8 The manner in which Hamlet came to know that tionary, 1594, under the Latin word mineralia, will he was to be sent to England is not developed. He ex-show how the English mineral came to be used for a gold; of a golden colour.' And the Cambridge Dicpresses surprise when the king mentions it in a future scene; but his design of passing for a madman may account for this. 3 N

mine. Thus also in The Golden Remaines of Hales of
Eton, 1693:- Controversies of the times, like spirits in
the minerals, with all their labour nothing is donc.'

And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
Go, seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
And let them know, both what we mean to do,
And what's untimely done: [so, haply, slander,-
Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,'
Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air.2]-0, come away!
My soul is full of discord, and dismay.
SCENE II. Another Room in the same.

HAMLET.

[Exeunt.
Enter

Ham.
-Safely stowed,-[Ros. &c. within.
Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!] But soft!3-what noise?
who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
Ros. What have you done, my lord, with the
dead body?

Ham. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. Rs. Tell us where 'tis; that we may take it thence,

And bear it to the chapel.

Ham. Do not believe it.
Ros, Believe what?

Ham. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! --what replication should be made by the son of a king?

Ros. Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best services in the end: He keeps them, like an ape doth nuts, in the corner of his jaw first mouthed to be last swallowed: When he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

Ros. I understand you not, my lord. Ham. I am glad of it: A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ar.

Ros. My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thingGuil. A thing, my lord?

Ham. Of nothing: bring me to him.

This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause: Diseases, desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Enter ROSENCRANTZ.

Or not at all.-How now? what hath befallen?
Ros. Where the dead body is bestow'd, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

King.
But where is he?
Ros. Without, my lord, guarded, to know your
pleasure.

King. Bring him before us.

Ros. Ho, Guildenstern! bring in my lord.

Enter HAMLET and GUILDENSTERN.

King. Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius?
Ham. At supper.

King. At supper? Where?

Ham. Not where he eats, but where he is eaten : a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for magots; Your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table; that's the end.

[King. Alas, alas!

Ham. A man may fish with the worm that hathe eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."]

King. What dost thou mean by this?
Ham. Nothing, but to show you how a king may
go a progress10 through the guts of a beggar.
King. Where is Polonius?

Ham. In heaven; send thither to see: if your messenger find him not there, seek him i' the other place yourself. But, indeed, if you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

King. Go seek him there. [To some Attendants.
Ham. He will stay till you come.

[Exeunt Attendants. King. Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,

Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,-must send thee

hence

With fiery quickness: Therefore prepare thyself; Hide fox, The bark is ready, and the wind at help,11 and all after. [Exeunt. The associates tend,12 and every thing is bent SCENE III. Another Room in the same. Enter For England. King, attended. For England?

King. I have sent to seek him, and to find the

body.

How dangerous is it, that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He's lov'd of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And, where 'tis so, the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,

1 The blank was the mark at which shots or arrows were directed. Thus in The Winter's Tale, Act ii. Sc. 3:

"Out of the blank and level of my aim."

2 The passage in brackets is not in the folio. The wordsSo, haply, slander,' are also omitted in the quartos; they were supplied by Theobald. The addition is supported by a passage in Cymbeline :

No, is slander,

Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Out-renoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth bely
All corners of the world,'

3 But soft,' these two words are not in the folio.
4 Here the quarto, 1603, inserts that makes his
iberality your storehouse, but,' &c.

5 The omission of the words ' doth nuts,' in the old copies, had obscured this passage. Dr. Farmer proposed to read like an ape an apple. The words are how supplied from the newly discovered quarto of 1603. 6 He's but a spunge, and shortly needs must leese, His wrong got juice, when greatness' fist shall

Ham.
King.
Ham.

Ay, Hamlet.

Good.

King. So is it, if thou know'st our purposes. Ham. I see a cherub, that sees them.-But, come; for England!-Farewell, dear mother. King. Thy loving father, Hamlet. and wife; man and wife is one flesh; and so, my Ham. My mother; Father and mother is man mother. Come, for England.

nothing. Johnson would have altered Of nothing' to Or nothing; but Steevens and Farmer, by their superior acquaintance with our elder writers, soon clearly showed, by several examples, that the text was right

8Hide fox, and all after.' This was a juvenile sport, most probably what is now called hoop, or hide and seek; in which one child hides himself, and the rest run all after, seeking him. The words are not in the quarto.

9 Alas, Alas! This speech and the following one of Hamlet, are omitted in the folio.

10 A progress is a journey. Steevens says it alludes to the royal journies of state, always styled progresses This was probably in Shakspeare's mind, for the worl was certainly applied to those periodical journeys of the sovereign to visit their noble subjects, but by no means exclusively. Sir William Drury, in a Letter to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, among the Conway papers, tells him he is going a little progresse to be merry with his neighbours. And that popular book of John Bunyan's, The Pilgrim's Progress, is surely not the account of a regal predatory excursion.' 11 i. e. in modern phrase the wind serves,' or is right to aid or help you on your way. 12 i. c. attend.

aboard;

King. Follow him at foot; tempt him with speed That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies.--I humbly thank you, sir.
Cap. God be wi' you, sir. [Exit Captain.
Ros.
Will't please you go, my lord?

Delay it not, I'll have him hence to-night;
Away; for every thing is seal'd and done
That else leans on the affair: Pray you, make haste.
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense;
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,) thou may'st not coldly set1
Our sovereign process; which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,2
And thou must cure me: Till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys will ne'er begin.'

[Exit. SCENE IV. A Plain in Denmark. Enter FORTINBRAS, and Forces, marching.

For. Go, captain, from me greet the Danish
king;

Tell him, that, by his licence, Fortinbras
Claims the conveyance of a promis'd march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye.
And let him know so.

Commands them, sir?

Who

Cap. The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.
Ham. Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

Cap. Truly to speak, sir, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground,
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway, or the Pole,
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

Ham. Why, then the Polack never will defend it.
Cap. Yes, 'tis already garrison'd.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand
ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw:
This is the imposthume of much wealth and

peace;

Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.

4 The quarto reads-craves.

5 Eye for presence. In the Regulations for the esta blishment of the Queen's Household, 1627:- All such as doe service in the queen's eye. And in the Establishment of Prince Henry's Household, 1610:—' All such as doe service in the prince's eye.' It was the formulary for the royal presence,

6 The remainder of this scene is omitted in the folio. 7 i. e. profit.

before.

Ham. I will be with you straight. Go a little
[Exeunt Ros. and GUIL.
How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good, and market" of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse,"
Looking before, and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unus'd. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,-

A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part
wisdom,

And, ever, three parts coward,-I do not know
Why yet I live to say, This thing's to do:
Sith Thave cause, and will, and strength, and means,
To do't. Examples, gross as earth, exhort me:
Witness, this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince;
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event;
Exposing what is mortal, and unsure,

To all that for une, death, and danger, dare,
Even for an egg-shell. Rightly to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a stra
When honour's at the stake. How stand I, then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason, and my blood,19
And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy, and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds: fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough, and continent,12
To hide the slain ?-0, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

[Exit.

trates

Of ground to win a plot, a while to dwell, We venture lives, and send our souls to hell.” 12 Continent means that which comprehends or en closes. Thus in Lear :-

Rive your concealing continents,

And in Chapman's version of the third Iliad :

did take

Thy fair form for a continent of parts as fair."

8 See note on Act i. Sc. 2. It is evident that discursive powers of mind are meant; or, as Jobuson explains it, If there be no fulnesse, then is the continent greater such latitude of comprehension, such power of review-than the content.'--Bacon's Advancement of Learning, ing the past, and anticipating the future. Since I wrote the former note, I find that Bishop Wilkins makes ratiocinution and discourse convertible terms.

1633, p. 7.

13 Enry is often used by Shakspeare and his contem poraries for malice, spite, or hatred :"You turn the good we offer into enry.' King Henry VIII

9 Craven is recreant, cowardly. It may be satisfactorily traced from erant, creant, the old French word for an act of submission. It is so written in the old metri- See Merchant of Venice, Act iv. Sc. 1. Indeed 'en cal romance of Ywaine and Gawaine (Ritson, vol i. p.viously, and spitefully,' are treated as synonymous by our old writers

133):

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.4
Queen. Twere good, she were spoken with; for
she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds:
Let her come in."
[Exit HORATIO.

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss :
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA."

Oph. Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

Queen. How now, Ophelia ?

Oph. How should I your true love know,

From another one?

By his cockle hat and staff,

And his sandal shoon."

[Singing.

You promis'd me to wed:

[He answers.]

So would I ha' done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed. King. How long hath she been thus? Oph. I hope, all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think, they should lay him i' the cold ground: My brother shall know of it, and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies: good night, good night.

(Ext.
King. Follow her close! give her good watch, I
pray you.
[Erit HORATIO.
O! this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death: And now behold,
O, Gertrude, Gertrude,16

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions! First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: The people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whis-

pers,

1 To collection, that is, to gather or deduce conse-bly induced our Saviour to transform her into that tard quences from such premises. Thus in Cymbeline, Act v. Sc. 5:-

whose containing

Is so from sense to hardness, that I can
Make no collection of it.'

See note on that passage.

2 The quartos read-yawn. To aim, 3 Folio-ould.

4 Unhappily, that is, mischievously.

is to guess.

for her wickedness.' The story is related to deter chil
dren from illiberal behaviour to the poor.
13 The old copies read:-

To-morrow 'tis Saint Valentine's day." The emendation was made by Dr. Farmer. The ori of the choosing of Valentines has not been clearly developed. Mr. Douce traces it to a Pagan custom of the same kind during the Lupercalia feasts in hocent of Pan and Juno, celebrated in the month of February by the Romans. The anniversary of the good bishef, or Saint Valentine, happening in this month, the picom 6 Shakspeare is not singular in his use of amiss as a early promoters of Christianity placed this popular cos substantive. Several instances are adduced by Stee-tom under the patronage of the saint, in order to era vens, and more by Mr. Nares in his Glossary. Each toy,' is each trifle.

5 The three first lines of this speech are given to Horatio in the quarto.

cate the notion of its pagan origin. In France the Falantin was a moveable feast, celebrated on the first 7 There is no part of this play in its representation Sunday in Lent, which was called the jour des brenon the stage more pathetic than this scene; which, I sup-dons, because the boy's carried about lighted torches my pose, proceeds from the utter insensibility Ophelia has that day. It is very probable that the saint has nothing to her own misfortunes. A great sensibility, or none at to do with the custom; his legend gives no clue to s all, seem to produce the same effects. In the latter such supposition. The popular notion that the birds [case] the audience supply what is wanting, and with choose their mates about this period has its rise in the the former they sympathize.-Sir J. Reynolds. poetical world of fiction.

8 These were the badges of pilgrims. The cockle shell was an emblem of their intention to go beyond sea. The habit being held sacred, was often assumed as a disguise in love adventmes. In The Old Wive's Tale, by Peele, 1595:-I will give thee a paimer's staff of ivory, and a scallop shell of beaten gold." 9 Garnished. 10 Quarto-ground.

11 See Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 6.

14 To up is to do up, as to đơn is to do on, to daß in do off, &c. Thus in Damon and Pythias, 1582:— The porters are drunk will they not dip the gate to-day? The phrase probably had its origin from doing up or lifting the latch. In the old cant language to up the gyger was to open the door. See Harman's Caveat for Cursetors, 1575.

15 Saint Charity is found in the Martyrology on the 12 This (says Mr. Douce) is a common tradition in first of August. Romæ passio sanctarum virginum Gloucestershire, and is thus related:-* Our Saviour Fidei, Spei, et Charitas, qua sub Hadriano principe went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and martyrie coronam adeptæ sunt. Spenser mentions ser asked for some bread to eat. The mistress of the shop in Eclog. v. 225. By gis and by cock are only corrip. immediately put a piece of dough in the oven to baketions, or rather substitutions, for different forms of

for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size. The dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became of a most enormous size. Whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, Heugh, heugh, heugh, which owl-like noise proba

imprecation by the sacred name,

is in the quarto 1603 the King says:

Ah pretty wretch! this is a change indeed:
O time, how swiftly runs our joys away?
Content on earth was never certain bred,
To-day we laugh and live, to-morrow dead,