HOR. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful fummit of the cliff, That beetles o'er his bafe into the fea? And there affume fome other horrible form, • That beetles o'er his bafe-] So, in Sidney's Arcadia, B.I: "Hills lifted up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke pleasantneffe of their under profpect." STEEVENS. That beetles o'er his bafe-] That hangs o'er his base, like what is called a beetle-brow. This verb is, I believe, of our author's coinage. MALONE. 7-deprive your fovereignty of reafon,] i. e. your ruling power of reafon. When poets wish to invest any quality or virtue with uncommon fplendor, they do it by fome allufion to regal eminence. Thus, among the excellencies of Banquo's character, our author diftinguishes "his royalty of nature," i. e. his natural fuperiority over others, his independent dignity of mind. I have selected this inftance to explain the former, because I am told that "royalty of nature" has been idly fuppofed to bear fome allufion to Banquo's diftant profpect of the crown. To deprive your fovereignty of reafon, therefore, does not fignify, to deprive your princely mind of rational powers, but, to take away from you the command of reafon, by which man is governed. So, in Chapman's verfion of the firft iad: I come from heaven to see "Thy anger fettled: if thy foul will ufe her foveraigntie "In fit reflection." Dr. Warburton would read deprave; but feveral proofs are given in a note to King Lear, Vol. XVII. A&t I. fc. ii. of Shakfpeare's use of the word deprive, which is the true reading. STEEVENS. I believe, deprive in this place fignifies fimply to take away. JOHNSON. The very place] The four following lines added from the firft edition. POPE. puts toys of defperation,] Toys, for whims. WARBURTON. That looks fo many fathoms to the fea, And hears it roar beneath. My fate cries out, HAM. HOR. Be rul'd, you shall not go. HAM. [Ghoft beckons. Still am I call'd;-unhand me, gentlemen ; [Breaking from them. By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me:2 I fay, away:-Go on, I'll follow thee. [Exeunt Ghoft and HAMLET. As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve.] Shakspeare has again accented the word Nemean in this manner, in Love's Labour's Loft: "Thus doft thou hear the Némean lion roar." Spenfer, however, wrote Neméan, Fairy Queen, B. V. c. i: "Into the great Neméan lion's grove.' Our poet's conforming in this inftance to Latin profody was certainly accidental, for he, and almoft all the poets of his time, difregarded the quantity of Latin names. So, in Locrine, 1595, (though undoubtedly the production of a scholar,) we have Amphion inftead of Amphion, &c. See alfo, p. 39, n.8. MALONE. The true quantity of this word was rendered obvious to Shakfpeare by Twine's tranflation of part of the Æneid, and Golding's verfion of Ovid's Metamorphofis. STEEVENS. 2 that lets me :] To let among our old authors fignifies to prevent, to hinder. It is ftill a word current in the law, and to be found in almost all leafes. STEEVENS. So, in No Wit like a Woman's, a comedy, by Middleton, 1657: "That lets her not to be your daughter now." MALONE. HOR. He waxes defperate with imagination. MAR. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. HOR. Heaven will direct it.3 MAR. Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt. SCENE V. A more remote Part of the Platform. Re-enter Ghoft and HAMLET. HAM. Whither wilt thou lead me? fpeak, I'll go no further. My hour is almoft come, When I to fulphurous and tormenting flames Muft render up myself, Нам. Alas, poor ghost! GHOST. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I fhall unfold. Нам. Speak, I am bound to hear. 3 Heaven will direct it.] Perhaps it may be more apposite to read, "Heaven will detect it." FARMER. Marcellus answers Horatio's question, "To what iffue will this come?" and Horatio alfo answers it himself with a pious refignation, "Heaven will direct it." BLACKSTONE. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood :-Lift, lift, O lift!If thou didst ever thy dear father love, HAM. O heaven! GHOST. Revenge his foul and moft unnatural murder.8 HAM. Murder? GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this moft foul, ftrange, and unnatural. HAM. Hafte me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love, quently written by our ancient poets instead of porcupine. So, in Skialetheia, a collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. 1598: Porpentine-backed, for he lies on thornes." STEEVENS. 8 Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.] As a proof that this play was written before 1597, of which the contrary has been afferted by Mr. Holt in Dr. Johnson's Appendix, I muít borrow, as ufual, from Dr. Farmer: "Shakspeare is faid to have been no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghoft in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'oeuvre did not pleafe: I will give you an original ftroke at it. Dr. Lodge published in the year 1596, a pamphlet called Wit's Miferie, or the World's Madness, difcovering the incarnate Devils of the Age, quarto. One of these devils is, Hate-virtue, or forrow for another man's good fucceffe, who, fays the doctor, is a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the vizard of the Ghoft, which cried fo miferably at the theatre, Hamlet revenge." STEEVENS. I suspect that this ftroke was levelled not at Shakspeare, but at the performer of the Ghoft in an older play on this fubject, exhibited before 1589. See An Attempt to afcertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. MALONE. 9 As meditation, or the thoughts of love,] This fimilitude is extremely beautiful. The word meditation is confecrated, by the myfticks, to fignify that ftretch and flight of mind which afpires to the enjoyment of the fupreme good. So that Hamlet, confidering with what to compare the fwiftnefs of his revenge, May fweep to my revenge. GHOST. I find thee apt; And duller fhould'ft thou be than the fat weed choofes two of the most rapid things in nature, the ardency of divine and human paffion, in an enthufiaft and a lover. WARBURTON. The comment on the word meditation is fo ingenious, that I hope it is juft. JOHNSON. And duller fhould ft thou be than the fat weed That rots itself in eafe on Lethe wharf,] Shakspeare, apparently through ignorance, makes Roman Catholicks of these Pagan Danes; and here gives a description of purgatory; but yet mixes it with the Pagan fable of Lethe's wharf. Whether he did it to infinuate to the zealous Proteftants of his time, that the Pagan and Popish purgatory stood both upon the fame footing of credibility, or whether it was by the fame kind of licentious inadvertence that Michael Angelo brought Charon's bark into his picture of the Last Judgment, is not easy to decide. WARBURTON. That rots itself in eafe &c.] The quarto reads-That roots itfelf. Mr. Pope follows it. Otway has the fame thought: like a coarse and ufelefs dunghill weed "Fix'd to one fpot, and rot just as I grow." Mr. Cowper alfo, in his verfion of the feventh Iliad, v. 100, has adopted this phrafe of Shakspeare, to exprefs « Ημενοι αὖθι ἔκοςοι ἀκήριοι, "Rot where you fit." v. 112. In Pope's Efay on Man, Ep. II. 64, we meet with a fimilar comparison: "Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, "To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot." The fuperiority of the reading of the folio is to me apparent : to be in a crefcent state (i. e. to root itself) affords an idea of activity; to rot better fuits with the dulnefs and inaction to which the Ghoft refers. Beaumont and Fletcher have a thought fomewhat fimilar in The Humorous Lieutenant : "This dull root pluck'd from Lethe's flood." STEEVENS. That roots itself in eafe &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-That rots itfelf &c. I have preferred the reading of the original copy, because to root itself is a natural and eafy phrafe, but to rot itfelf," not English. Indeed in general the VOL. XVIII. G |