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longer than they can sing?1 will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players, (as it is most like, if their means are no better,) their writers do them wrong,3 to make them exclaim against their own succession?

Ros. 'Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it no sin, to tarre them on to controversy: there was, for a while, no money bid for argument, unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

Ham. Is it possible?

Guil. O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

away?

Ham. Do the boys carry it Ros. Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.5]

1 Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?] Will they follow the profession of players no longer than they keep the voices of boys, and sing in the choir? So afterwards, he says to the player, Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech. Johnson.

So, in the players' Dedication, prefixed to the first edition of Fletcher's plays in folio, 1647: " directed by the example of some who once steered in our quality, and so fortunately aspired to chuse your honour, joined with your now glorified brother, patrons to the flowing compositions of the then expired sweet swan of Avon, Shakspeare." Again, in Gosson's School of Abuse, 1579: "I speak not of this, as though every one [of the players] that professeth the qualitie, so abused himself, " "Than they can sing," does not merely mean, "than they keep the voices of boys," but is to be understood literally. He is speaking of the choir-boys of St. Paul's. Malone.

2—most like,] The old copy reads-like most. Steevens. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. Malone.

3 their writers do them wrong, &c.] I should have been very much surprised if I had not found Ben Jonson among the writers here alluded to. Steevens.

4to tarre them on to controversy:] To provoke any animal to rage, is to tarre him. The word is said to come from the Greek ταράσσω. Johnson.

So, already, in King John:

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"Like a dog, that is compelled to fight,

"Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on."

Steevens.

Hercules and his load too.] i. e. they not only carry away the world, but the world-bearer too: alluding to the story of Hercules's relieving Atlas. This is humorous. Warburton.

Ham. It is not very strange: for my uncle is king of Denmark; and those, that would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, fifty, an hundred ducats a-piece, for his picture in little.? 'Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out. [Flourish of Trumpets within.

Guil. There are the players.

Ham. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. Come then: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in this garb; lest my extent to the players, which, I tell you, must show fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my unclefather, and aunt-mother, are deceived.

Guil. In what, my dear lord?

Ham. I am but mad north-north west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.1

The allusion may be to the Globe playhouse on the Bankside, the sign of which was Hercules carrying the Globe. Steevens.

I suppose Shakspeare meant, that the boys drew greater audiences than the elder players of the Globe theatre. Malone.

6 It is not very strange: for my uncle] I do not wonder that the new players have so suddenly risen to reputation, my uncle supplies another example of the facility with which honour is conferred upon new claimants. Johnson.

It is not very strange: &c. was originally Hamlet's observation, on being informed that the old tragedians of the city were not so followed as they used to be: [see p. 99, n. 7.] but Dr. Johnson's explanation is certainly just, and this passage connects sufficiently well with that which now immediately precedes it.

Malone.

7 in little.] i. e. in miniature. So, in The Noble Soldier, 1634:

"The perfection of all Spaniards, Mars in little."

Again, in Drayton's Shepherd's Sirena:

"Paradise in little done."

Again, in Massinger's New Way to pay Old Debts:

"His father's picture in little."

Steevens.

8 let me comply &c.] Sir T. Hanmer reads,-let me compliment with you. Johnson.

To comply is again apparently used in the sense of—to compli ment, in Act V: "He did comp with his dug, before he sucked it." Steevens.

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when the wind is southerly, &c.] So, in Damon and Pythias, 1582:

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen!

Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern ;-and you too ;—at each ear a hearer: that great baby, you see there, is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.

Ros. Hapily, he's the second time come to them; for, they say, an old man is twice a child.

Ham. I will prophecy, he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas then, indeed.

Pol. My lord, I have news to tell you.

Ham. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius

was an actor in Rome,

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.

Ham. Buz, buz !2

"But I perceive now, either the winde is at the south,
"Or else your tunge cleaveth to the rooffe of your mouth."
Steevens.

11 I know a hawk from a handsaw.] This was a common proverbial speech. The Oxford editor alters it to,—I know a hawk from an hernshaw, as if the other had been a corruption of the players; whereas the poet found the proverb thus corrupted in the mouth of the people: so that the critick's alteration only serves to show us the original of the expression. Warburton.

Similarity of sound is the source of many literary corruptions. In Holborn we have still the sign of the Bull and Gate, which exhibits but an odd combination of images. It was originally (as I learn from the title-page of an old play) the Boulogne Gate, i. e. one of the gates of Boulogne; designed perhaps as a compliment to Henry VIII, who took the place in 1544.

The Boulogne mouth, now the Bull and Mouth, had probably the same origin, i. e. the mouth of the harbour of Boulogne. Steevens. The Boulogne Gate was not one of the gates of Boulogne, but of Calais; and is frequently mentioned as such by Hall and Holinshed. Ritson.

2 Buz, buz!] Mere idle talk, the buz of the vulgar. Johnson. Buz, buz! are, I believe, only interjections employed to interrupt Polonius. Ben Jonson uses them often for the same purpose, as well as Middleton in A Mad World, my Masters, 1608. Steevens.

Buz used to be an interjection at Oxford, when any one began a story that was generally known before. Blackstone.

Buzzer, in a subsequent scene in this play, is used for a busy talker:

"And wants not buzzers, to infect his ear
"With pestilent speeches."

Pol. Upon my honour,

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,

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Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, [tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral,] scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men.6

Again, in King Lear:

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on every dream,

"Each buz, each fancy."

Again, in Trussel's History of England, 1635: "

who, in

stead of giving redress, suspecting now the truth of the duke of Gloucester's buzz," &c.

It is, therefore, probable from the answer of Polonius, that buz was used, as Dr. Johnson supposes, for an idle rumour without any foundation.

In Ben Jonson's Staple of News, the collector of mercantile intelligence is called Emissary Buz. Malone.

Whatever may be the origin of this phrase, or rather of this interjection, it is not unusual, even at this day, to cry buz to any person who begins to relate what the company had heard before. M. Mason. Then came &c.] This seems to be a line of a ballad.

3

Johnson. tragical-historical, &c.] The words within the crotchets I have recovered from the folio, and see no reason why they were hitherto omitted. There are many plays of the age, if not of Shakspeare, that answer to these descriptions. Steevens.

5- Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light] The tragedies of Seneca were translated into English by Thomas Newton, and others, and published first separate, at difierent times, and afterwards all together in 1581. One comedy of Plautus, viz. the Menæchmi, was likewise translated and published in 1595. Steevens.

I believe the frequency of plays performed at publick schools, suggested to Shakspeare the names of Seneca and Plautus as dramatick authors. T. Warton.

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Prefixed to a map of Cambridge in the Second Part of Braunii Civitates, &c. is an account of the University, by Gulielmus Soonus, 1575. In this curious memoir we have the following passage: Januarium, Februarium, & Martium menses, ut noctis tædix fallant in spectaculis populo exhibendis ponunt tanta elegantia, tanta actionis dignitate, ea vocis & vultus moderatione, ea magnificentia, ut si Plautus, aut Terentius, aut Seneca revivisceret mirarentur suas ipsi fabulas, majoremque quam cum inspectante popul. Rom. agerentur, voluptatem credo caperent. Euripidem vero, Sophoclem & Aristophanem, etiam Athenarum suarum tæderet." Steevens.

Ham. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

Pol. What a treasure had he, my lord?

Ham. Why-One fuir daughter, and no more,

The which he loved passing well.

Pol. Still on my daughter.

Ham. Am I not ' the right, old Jephthah?

[aside.

Pol. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

Ham. Nay, that follows not.

Pol. What follows then, my lord?

Ham. Why, As by lot, God wot, and then, you know,

For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men.] All the modern editions have, the law of wit, and the liberty: but both my old copies have-the law of writ, I believe rightly. Writ, for writing, composition. Wit was not, in our author's time, taken either for imagination, or acuteness, or both together, but for understanding, for the faculty by which we apprehend and judge. Those who wrote of the human mind, distinguished its primary powers into wit and will. Ascham distinguishes boys of tardy and of active faculties into quick wits and slow wits. Johnson.

That writ is here used for writing, may be proved by the following passage in Titus Andronicus:

"Then all too late I bring this fatal writ." Steevens. The old copies are certainly right. Writ is used for writing by authors contemporary with Shakspeare. Thus, in The Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, by Thomas Nashe, 1593: "For the lowsie circumstance of his poverty before his death, and sending that miserable writte to his wife, it cannot be but thou liest, learned Gabriel." Again, in Bishop Earle's Character of a mere dull Physician, 1638: " Then followes a writ to his drugger, in a strange tongue, which he understands, though he cannot conster." Again, in King Henry VI, P. II:

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"Now, good my lord, let's see the devil's writ." Malone. Why, As by lot, God wot, &c.] The old song from which these quotations are taken, I communicated to Dr. Percy, who has honoured it with a place in the second and third editions of his Reliques of ancient English Poetry. In the books belonging to the Stationers' Company, there are two entries of this Ballad among others. "A ballet intituled the Songe of Jepthah's doughter" &c. 1567, Vol. I, fol. 162. Again: “Jeffa Judge of Israel," p. 93, Vol. III, Dec. 14, 1624.

This story was also one of the favourite subjects of ancient tapestry. Steevens.

There is a Latin tragedy on the subject of Feptha, by John Christopherson, in 1546, and another by Buchanan, in 1554. A third by Du Plessis Mornay, is mentioned by Prynne, in his Hi&

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