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"A theefe, a cowarde, and a peacocke foole."

FARMER.

74 With drink, sir?] Hamlet takes particular care that his uncle's love of drink shall not be forgotten.

JOHNSON.

75 these pickers and stealers.] These hands.

76 -Recorders.] i. e. a kind of flute. In The Antipodes, a comedy, by Brome, 1638, is "A solemn lesson upon the recorders.”

STEEVENS.

77 They fool me to the top of my bent.] They compel me to play the fool, till I can endure to do it no longer.

JOHNSON.

78-shent,] To shend, is to reprove harshly, to treat with injurious language.

79 To give them seals never, my soul, consent!] i. e. put them in execution.

so Though inclination be as sharp as will;] Will is command, direction. Thus, Ecclus. xliii. 16. “-and at his will the south wind bloweth." The king says, his mind is in too great confusion to pray, even though his inclination were as strong as the command which requires that duty.

STEEVENS.

To hent is used

81 know thou a more horrid hent:] by Shakspeare for, to seize, to catch, to lay hold on. Hent is, therefore, hold, or seizure. Lay hold on him, sword, at a more horrid time.

82 As hell, whereto it goes.] This speech, in which Hamlet, represented as a virtuous character, is not content with taking blood for blood, but contrives damnation for the man that he would punish, is too horrible to be read or to be uttered.

JOHNSON.

83 As kill a king!] This exclamation may be considered as some hint, that the queen had no hand in the murder of Hamlet's father.

STEEVENS.

84 Hyperion's curls;] It is observable that Hyperion is used by Spenser with the same error in quantity.

FARMER.

85 A station like the herald Mercury,] Station in this instance does not mean the spot where any one is placed, but the act of standing. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act. 3. Sc. 3:

Her motion and her station are as one.

86 batten-] is to grow fat.

87 In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed;] Thus the folio: i. e. greasy bed.

JOHNSON.

Beaumont and Fletcher use the word inseamed in the same sense, in the third of their Four Plays in One: "His leachery inseam'd upon him."

In the Book of Haukyng, &c. bl. 1. no date, we are told that " Ensayme of a hauke is the grece."

STEEVENS.

In some parts of the west the word is still in partial use. Among the vulgar at Exeter, the fat which drips from a goose in roasting is called goose-seam.

68 --a vice of kings;] a low mimick of kings. The vice is the fool of a farce; from whom the modern punch is descended.

89 Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,

Starts up, and stands on end.-] The hairs are excrementitious, that is, without life or sensation; yet those very hairs, as if they had life, start up, &c.

POPE.

90-ecstasy-] Ecstasy, in Shakspeare, frequently

signifies temporary madness.

91

curb and woo-] That is, bend and truckle.

Fr. courber. So, in Pierce Plowman:

"Then I courbid on my knees, &c."

STEEVENS.

9reechy kisses,] Reechy is smoky. The author meant to convey a coarse idea, and was not very scrupulous in his choice of an epithet.

93

-like some ore,

Among a mineral of metals base,]

to think ore to be or, that is, gold. ore no less than precious.

94

STEEVENS.

Shakspeare seems

Base metals have

JOHNSON.

like an ape,] The quarto has apple, which is generally followed. The folio has upe, which Hanmer has received, and illustrated with the following

note.

"It is the way of monkeys in eating, to throw that " part of their food which they take up first into a pouch they are provided with on each side of their "jaw, and there they keep it, till they have done with "the rest."

JOHNSON.

Surely this should be "like an ape, an apple.”

FARMER.

95 The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.-] This answer I do not comprehend. Perhaps it should be, The body is not with the king, for the king is not with the body.

JOHNSON.

Perhaps it may mean this. The body is in the king's house (i. e. the present king's) yet the king (i. e.

he who should have been king) is not with the body. Intimating that the usurper is here, the true king in a better place. Or it may mean-the guilt of the murder lies with the king, but the king is not where the body lies. The affected obscurity of Hamlet must excuse so many attempts to procure something like a meaning.

STEEVENS.

96-much unhappily.] i. e. though her meaning cannot be certainly collected, yet there is enough to put a mischievous interpretation to it. WARBURTON.

97 How should I your true love, &c.] There is no part of this play, in its representation on the stage, more pathetic than this scene, which I suppose proceeds from the utter insensibility Ophelia has to her own misfortunes.

A great sensibility, or none at all, seems to produce the same effect. In the latter the audience supply what she wants, and with the former they sympathize.

96 By his cockle hat and staff,

SIR J. REYNOLDS.

And by his sandal shoon.] This is the description of a pilgrim. While this kind of devotion was in favour, love-intrigues were carried on under that mask. Hence the old ballads and novels made pilgrimages the subjects of their plots. The cockle-shell hat was one of the essential badges of this vocation: for the chief places of devotion being beyond sea, or on the coasts, the pilgrims were accustomed to put cockle-shells upon their hats, to denote the intention or performance of their devotion. WARBURTON.

99 They say, the owl was a baker's daughter.] This was a metamorphosis of the common people, arising from the mealy appearance of the owl's feathers, and her guarding the bread from mice. WARBURTON.

To guard the bread from mice, is rather the office of a cat than an owl. In barns and granaries, indeed, the services of the owl are still acknowledged. This was, however, no metamorphosis of the common people, but a legendary story, which both Dr. Johnson and myself have read, yet in what book at least I cannot recollect. Our Saviour being refused bread by the daughter of a baker, is described as punishing her by turning her into an owl.

STEEVENS. I

100 — don'd-dupp'd-] To don, is to do on, or put on; to dup is to do up, or lift up.

101 By Gis,] Both Gis here and cock afterwards are corruptions of the sacred name.

102 Like to a murdering piece,] Such a piece as assassins use, with many barrels. It is necessary to ap prehend this, to see the justness of the similitude.

WARBURTON.

103 The ratifiers and props of every word,] By word is here meant a declaration, or proposal; it is determined to this sense, by the inference it hath to what had just preceded:

The rabble call him lord, &c.

This acclamation, which is the word here spoken of, was made without regard to antiquity, or received custom, whose concurrence, however, is necessarily

VOL. XIV.

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