Ham. How is it with you, lady?
Queen. Alas, how is't with you?

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your fpirits wildly peep;
And, as the fleeping foldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and ftands on end. O gentle fon,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whercon do you look?
Ham. On him!-on him!-Look you, how pale
he glares!

His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to ftones,
Would make them capable.-Do not look upon me;
Left, with this piteous action, you convert
My ftern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you fpeak this?

2

Ham. Do you fee nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all, that is, I fee.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing, but ourfelves.

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 Ghoft. Queen.

1 —like life in excrements.] The hairs are excrementitious, that is, without life or fenfation; yet thofe very hairs, as if they had life, ftart up, &c. POPE.

Not only the hair of animals having neither life nor fenfation was called an excrement, but the feathers of birds had the fame appellation. Thus in Walton's Complete Angler, P. I. c. i. p.9. edit. 1766: "I will not undertake to mention the feveral kinds of fowl by which this is done, and his curious palate pleased by day; and which, with their very excrements, afford him a foft lodging at night. WHALLEY.

2 My father, in his habit as he liv'd!] If the poet means by this expreffion, that his father appeared in his own familiar habit, he

has

Queen. This is the very coinage of

This bodilefs creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. Ecftafy3!

your brain:

My pulfe, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful mufic: It is not madness,
That I have utter'd bring me to the teft,

And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trefpafs, but my madness, speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen. Confefs yourself to heaven;
Repent what's paft; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compoft on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatnefs of these purfy times,
Virtue itself of vice muft pardon beg;

Yea, curb, and woo, for leave to do him good.
Queen. O, Hamlet! thou haft cleft my heart in

twain.

Ham. O, throw away the worfer part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Affume a virtue, if you have it not.

has either forgot that he had originally introduced him in armour, or must have meant to vary his dress at this his last appearance. The difficulty might perhaps be a little obviated by pointing the line thus:

My father-in his habit-as he liv'd. STEEVENS.

3 Ecftafy Ecfafy in this place, and many others, means a temporary alienation of mind, a fit. So, in Eliofio Libidinofo, a novel, by John Hinde, 1605: "that buriting out of an ecftaly wherein the had long stood, like one beholding Medusa's head, lamenting, &c." STEEVENS.

4 - do not spread the compoft, &c.] Do not, by any new indulgence, heighten your former offences. JOHNSON. 5-curb- That is, bend and truckle. Fr. courber. So, in Pierce Plowman:

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

That

"That monster, cuftom, who all fenfe doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the ufe of actions fair and good
He likewife gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on: Refrain to-night;
And that fhall lend a kind of eafinefs

To the next abftinence: the next, more eafy 7:
For ufe can almost change the ftainp of naturé,
And either mafter the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be bleft,
I'll bleffing beg of you.-For this fame lord,

[Pointing to Polonius!
I do repent; But heaven hath pleas'd it fo,-
To punish me with this, and this with me,-
That I must be their fcourge and minifter.
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.-
One word more, good lady ".

Queen. What fhall I do?

Ham: Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

6 That monfler cuftom, who all fenfe doth cats:

Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this ;] This paffage is left out in the two elder folibs it is certainly corrupt, and the players did the difcreet part to ftifle what they did not understand. Habit's devil certainly arofe from fome conceited tamperer with the text, who thought it was neceflary, in contrast to angel. The emendation of the text I owe to the fagacity of Dr. Thirlby:

That monfier cufom, who all jenfe doth ect

Of habits evil, is angel, &c. THEOBALD.

I think Thirlby's conjecture wrong, though the fucceeding edi tors have followed it; angel and devil are evidently oppofed. JOHNSON.

7 -the next, more cafy;] This paffage, as far as potency, is .omitted in the folio. STEEVENS.

9 One word more, &c.] This paffage I have restored from the quartos. STEEVENS,

Let

Let the bloat king' tempt you again to bed
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you, his moufe 2;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kiffes',

Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I effentially am not in madrefs,

Let the fond king] The old quartò reads,
Let the bloat king·

But

i. e. bloated, which is better, as more expreffive of the speaker's contempt. WARBURTON.

bloat king] This again hints at his intemperance. He had drank himself into a dropfy. BLACKSTONE.

The folio reads blunt king. HENDERSON.

2- his moufe;] Moufe was once a term of endearment. So, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602. b. ii. chap. 10:

"God bless thee moufe, the bridegroom faid, &c." Again, in the Menæchimi, 1595: "Shall I tell thee, fweet mouse? I never look upon thee, but I am quite out of love with my wife." STEEVENS,

3reechy kiffes,] Reechy is fmoky. The author meant to convey a coarse idea, and was not very fcrupulous in his choice of an epithet. The fame, however, is applied with greater propriety to the neck of a cook-maid in Coriolanus. Again, in Ĥans Beer Pot's Invifible Comedy, 1618:

bade him go

"And wash his face, he look'd fo reechily,

"Like bacon hanging on the chimney's roof."
STEEVENS.

4 That I effentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft.-] The reader will be pleased to fee Dr. Farmer's extract from the old quarto Hiftorie of Hamblet, of which he had a fragment only in his poffeffion: "It was not without

caufe, and jufte occafion, that my geftures, countenances, and "words, feeme to proceed from a madman, and that I defire to "haue all men efteeme mee wholy depriued of fence and reafonable understanding, bycaufe I am well affured, that he that hath made no confcience to kill his owne brother (accustomed to murthers, and allured with defire of gouernement without "controll in his treafons) will not fpare to faue himselfe with the "like crueltie, in the blood, and flesh of the loyns of his brother, "by him maffacred: and therefore it is better for me to fayne "madneffe, then to use my right fences as nature hath bestowed them upon me. The bright fhining clearnes thereof I am "forced to hide under this fhadow of diffimulation, as the fun ❝ doth hir beams vnder fome great cloud, when the wether in VOL. X. "summer

But mad in craft. "Twere good, you let him know
For who, that's but a queen, fair, fober, wife,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib',
Such dear concernings hide? who would do fo?
No, in defpight of fenfe, and fecrecy,
Unpeg the bafket on the houfe's top,

Let the birds fly; and, like the famous ape,
To try conclufions 7, in the basket creep,
And break your neck down.

Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath,

"fummer time ouercafteth: the face of a madman ferueth to couer my gallant countenance, and the geftures of a fool are fit for "me, to the end that, guiding myfelt wifely therin, I may pre"ferue my life for the Danes and the memory of my late de"ceated father, for that the desire of reucnging his death is fo ingrauen in my heart, that if I dye not thortly, I hope to take "fuch and fo great vengeance, that thefe countryes fhall for euer fpeake thereof. Neuertheleffe I must stay the time, meanes, and occafion, let by making ouer gre..t haft, I be now the "caufe of mine own fodaine ruine and ouerthrow, and by that' 86 meanes end, before I beginne to effect my hearts defire: hee "that hath to doe with a wicked, difloyall, cruell, and difcour"teous man, muft vfe craft, and politike inuentions, fuch as a "fine witte can best imagine, not to difcover his interprite: for feeing that by for,e I cannot effect my defire, cafon alloweth me by dimulation, fubtilitic, and fecret practifes to proceed "therein." STEEVENS.

5-a gib.] So, in Drayton's Epiftle from Elinor Cobham to Duke Humphrey:

"And call me beldam, gib, witch, night-mare, trot." Gib was a common name for a cat. So, in Chaucer's Rom. of the Rofe, ver. 6204 :

gibbe our cat,

"That waiteth mice and rats to killen." STEEVENS. the basket on the bufe's top,

6 Unpeg

Let the birds fy;-1 Sir John Suckling, in one of his letters, may poffibly allude to the fame ftory. "It is the flory of the jackanapes and the partridges; thou flareft after a beauty till it is left to thee, and then let'it out another, and ftarcft after that till it is gone too.” WARNER.

7 To try conclufions,] i. e. experiments. See vol. iii. p. 167.

STEEVENS.

And