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required to confer validity and stability in every proposal of this kind.

HEATH,

Sir T. Hanmer would transpose the two last lines, Dr. Warburton proposes to read, word; and Dr. Johnson, weal, instead of word. I should be rather forading, work.

TYRWHITT.

In the first folio there is only a comma at the end of the above line; and will not the passage bear this construction?—The rabble call him lord, and as if the world were now but to begin, and as if the ancient custom of hereditary succession were unknown, they, the ratifiers and word he utters, cry, Let us make choice, that Laertes shall be king. TOLLET.

of props

every

104 Nature is fine in love: and, where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself

After the thing it loves.] These lines are not in the quarto, and might have been omitted in the folio without great loss, for they are obscure and affected; but, I think, they require no emendation. Love (says Laertes) is the passion by which nature is most exalted and refined; and as substances, refined and subtilised, easily obey any impulse, or follow any attraction, some part of nature, so purified and refined, flies off after the attracting object, after the thing it loves.

As into air the purer spirits flow,

And separate from their kindred dregs below,
So flew her soul.

JOHNSON.

105 There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ;—and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.] There is probably

some mythology in the choice of these herbs, but I cannot explain it. Pansies is for thoughts, because of its name, Pensees; but why rosemary indicates remembrance, except that it is an ever-green, and carried at funerals, I have not discovered.

JOHNSON.

106 There's fennel for you, and columbines:- there's rue for you; and here's some for me:—we may call it, herb of grace o'sundays:] Greene, in his Quip for an Upstart Courtier, 1620, calls fennel, women's weeds: "fit generally for that sex, sith while they are maidens they wish wantonly."

I know not of what columbines were supposed to be emblematical. They are again mentioned in All Fools, by Chapman, 1605:

"What's that?—a columbine?

"No: that thankless flower grows not in my garden."

Gerard, however, and other herbalists, impute few, if any, virtues to them; and they may therefore be styled thankless, because they appear to make no grateful return for their creation.

Again, in the 15th Song of Drayton's Polyolbion:

"The columbine amongst, they sparingly do set." From the Caltha Poetarum, 1599, it should seem as if this flower was the emblem of cuckoldom:

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the blue cornuted columbine,

"Like to the crooked horns of Acheloy."

STEEVENS.

Herb of grace is the name the country people give

to rue.

And the reason is, because that herb was a

principal ingredient in the potion which the Romish priests used to force the possessed to swallow down when they exorcised them. Now these exorcisms being performed generally on a Sunday, in the church before the whole congregation, is the reason why she says, we may call it herb of grace o'sundays. Sandys tells us, that at Grand Cairo there is a species of rue much in request, with which the inhabitants perfume themselves, not only as a preservative against infection, but as very powerful against evil spirits. And the cabalistic Gaffarel pretends to have discovered the reason of its virtue, La semence de ruë est fuicte comme une croix, et c'est paraventure la cause qu'elle a tant de vertu contre les possedez, et que l'Eglise s'en sert en les exorcisant. It was on the same principle that the Greeks called sulphur, delov, because of its use in their superstitious purgations by fire. Which too the Romish priests employ to fumigate in their exorcisms; and on that account hallow or consecrate it.

WARBURTON.

I believe there is a quibble meant in this passage; rue anciently signifying the same as Ruth, i. e. sorrow. Ophelia gives the queen some, and keeps a proportion of it for herself. There is the same kind of play with the same word in King Richard the Second.

Herb of grace is one of the titles which Tucca gives to William Rufus, in Decker's Satiromastix. I suppose the first syllable of the surname Rufus introduced the quibble. 107 No trophy, sword, nor hatchment,] It was the

STEEVENS.

custom, in the times of our author, to hang a sword over the grave of a knight.

JOHNSON.

This practice is uniformly kept up to this day. Not only the sword, but the helmet, gauntlet, spurs, and tabard (i. e. a coat whereon the armorial ensigns were anciently depicted, from whence the term coat of armour), are hung over the grave of every knight.

SIR J. HAWKINS.

108 -the bore of the matter.] The bore is the caliber of a gun, or the capacity of the barrel. The matter (says Hamlet) would carry heavier words.

JOHNSON,

109 As checking at his voyage.] The phrase is from falconry; and may be justified from the following passage in Hinde's Eliosto Libidinoso, 1606: For who knows not, quoth she, which comes now so fair to the fist,

check at the lure?"

110

that this hawk,

may to-morrow

STEEVENS.

the scrimers-] The fencers. Fr. escrimeurs. 111 love is begun by time;] This is obscure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and co-essential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from some external cause, and being always subject to the operations of time, suffers change and diminution.

JOHNSON.

112-long purples,] This is the vulgar appellation of a beautiful species of wild flowers. Their botanical name is orchis, which consult for the grosser one spoken of by Shakspeare.

113 an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do,

and to perform.] Ridicule on scholastic divisions without distinction; and of distinctions without difference.

WARBURTON.

114-crowner's quest-law.] I strongly suspect that this is a ridicule on the case of Dame Hales, reported by Plowden in his commentaries, as determined in 3 Eliz.

It seems her husband sir James Hales had drowned himself in a river, and the question was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a lease from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which he was possessed of, did not accrue to the crown; an inquisition was found before the coroner, which found him felo de se. The legal and logical subtilties, arising in the course of the argument of this case, gave a fair opportunity for a sneer at crowner's quest-law. The expression, a little before, that an act hath three branches, &c. is so pointed an allusion to the case I mention, that I cannot doubt but that Shakspeare was acquainted with and meant to laugh at it.

It may be added, that on this occasion a great deal of subtilty was used, to ascertain whether sir James was the agent or the patient; or, in other words, whether he went to the water, or the water came to him. The cause of sir James's madness was the circumstance of his having been the judge who condemned lady Jane Gray.

SIR J. HAWKINS.

115 In youth when I did love, did love, &c.] The three stanzas, sung here by the grave-digger, are ex

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