Laer. I am loft in it, my lord. But let him come; It warms the very sickness in my heart, That I fhall live and tell him to his teeth, King. If it be fo, Laertes, As how should it be fo ?-how otherwife?- Laer. Ay, my lord; So you will not o'er-rule me to a peace. 3 King. To thine own peace. If he be now return'd, As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it,—I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device, Under the which he fhall not choose but fall: And for his death no wind of blame fhall breathe ; But even his mother fhall uncharge the practice, And call it, accident. 4 Laer. My lord, I will be rul'd; The rather, if you could devife it fo, King. It falls right. You have been talk'd of fince your travel much, And that in Hamlet's hearing, for a quality Wherein, they fay, you fhine: your fum of parts Did not together pluck fuch envy from him, 3 As liking not his voyage,-] The folio, As checking at bis voyage. Checking is, I think, the best reading. The phrafe is from falcoury; and may be juftified from the following paffage in Hinde's Eliofo Libidinofo, 1606: "For who knows not, quoth fhe, that this hawk, which comes now fo fair to the fift, may to-mor row check at the lure ?" Again, in G. Whetstone's Cafle of Delight, 1576: But as the hawke, to gad which knowes the way, "Will hardly leave to checke at cairen crowes, &c." STEEVENS. Laer.] The next fixteen lines are omitted in the folio. STEEVENS. As As did that one; and that, in my regard, 5 Of the unworthieft ficge. Laer. What part is that, my lord? King. A very ribband in the cap of youth, Yet needful too; for youth no lefs becomes The light and carelefs livery that it wears, Than fettled age his fables, and his weeds, Importing health, and gravenefs.-Two months fince, Here was a gentleman of Normandy, 6 I have feen myself, and ferv'd againft, the French, Come fhort of what he did. Laer. A Norman, was't? King. A Norman. Laer. Upon my life, Lamond. King. The very fame. Laer. I know him well: he is the brooch, indeed, And gem of all the nation.. King. He made confeffion of you; 5 Of the unworthieft fiege.] Of the lowest rank. Siege, for feat, place. JOHNSON. So, in Othello: I fetch my birth "From men of royal fiege." STEEVENS. 6 Importing health and gravenefs.-] But a warm furr'd gown rather implies fickness than health. Shakspeare wrote, Importing wealth and graveness. i. e. that the wearers are rich burghers and magistrates. WARBURTON. Importing here may be, not inferring by logical confequence, but producing by phyfical effect. A young man regards fhow in his drefs, an old man, health. JOHNSON. 6 Can.] The folio reads ran. HENDERSON. 7-in forgery of shapes and tricks.] I could not contrive fo many proofs of dexterity as he could perform. JOHNSON. H h 4 And And gave you fuch a masterly report, That he cried out, "Twould be a fight indeed, If one could match you: 9 the ferimers of their nation, He fwore, had neither motion, guard, nor eye, That he could nothing do, but with and beg Laer. What out of this, my lord? King. Laertes, was your father dear to you? Laer. Why afk you this? King. Not that I think, you did not love your father; But that I know, I love is begun by time; 2 And that I fee, in paffages of proof, Time qualifies the fpark and fire of it. 8-in your defence,] That is, in the fcience of defence. JOHNSON. 9 the ferimers-] The fencers. JOHNSON, This paffage is not in the folio. STEEVENS. love is begun by time;]This is obfcure. The meaning may be, love is not innate in us, and co-effential to our nature, but begins at a certain time from fome external caufe, and being always fubject to the operations of time, fuffers change and diminution. JOHNSON. 2- passages of proof,] In tranfactions of daily experience. JOHNSON, 3 There lives, &c.] The next ten lines are not in the folio. STEEVENS. • For For goodness, growing to a pleurify, Dies in his own too much: That we would do, We fhould do when we would; for this would changes, And hath abatements and delays as many, As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents; $ And then this Jhould is like a fpendthrift figh 4 For goodness, growing to a pleurify] I would believe, for the honour of Shakspeare, that he wrote plethory. But I obferve the dramatic writers of that time frequently call a fulness of blood a pleurify, as if it came, not from whevfà, but from plus pluris. 66 WARBURTON. I think the word fhould be fpelt-plurify. This paffage is fully explained by one in Mafcal's treatife on Cattle, 1662. p. 187. Against the blood, or plurifie of blood. The disease of blood is, fome young horfes will feed, and being fat will increase blood, and fo grow to a plurifie, and die thereof if he have not help." TOLLET. 5 And then this fhould is like a spendthrift's figh That hurts by eafing -] This nonsense should be read thus That burts by eafing 3 i. e. though a fpendthrift's entering into bonds or mortgages gives him a prefent relief from his ftraits, yet it ends in much greater diftreffes. The application is, If you neglect a fair opportunity now, when it may be done with ease and safety, time may throw fo many difficulties in your way, that, in order to furmount them, you must put your whole fortune into hazard. WARBURTON. This conjecture is fo ingenious, that it can hardly be oppofed, but with the fame reluctance as the bow is drawn against a hero whofe virtues the archer holds in veneration. Here may be applied what Voltaire writes to the empress : Le genereux François Te combat et t'admire. It is a Yet this emendation, however fpecious, is mistaken. The original reading is, not a spendthrift's figh, but a fpendthrift figh; a figh that makes an unneceffary wafte of the vital flame. notion very prevalent, that fighs impair the ftrengh, and wear out the animal powers. JOHNSON. Hence Shakspeare, in K. Henry VI. calls them "blood confuming fighs," The idea is enlarged upon in Fenton's Tragical Difcourses, 1579: "Why ftaye you not in tyme the fource of your fcorching. fighs, that have already drayned your body of his wholefome humoures, appointed by nature to give fucke to the entrals and inward partes of you?" MALONE, That That hurts by cafing. But, to the quick o' the ulcer: Hamlet comes back; What would you undertake, To fhew yourself your father's fon in deed More than in words? Laer. To cut his throat i' the church. King. No place, indeed, fhould murder fanctua rize : Revenge fhould have no bounds. But, good Laer tes, chamber : your Will you do this, keep clofe within Hamlet, return'd, fhall know you are come home : We'll put on those fhall praise your excellence, And fet a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you; bring you, in fine, together, And wager o'er your heads: "he, being remifs, 8 he being remifs,] He being not vigilant or cautious. Laer. JOHNSON. 7 A fword unbated,—] i. e. not blunted as foils are. one edition has it, embated or envenomed. POPE. There is no fuch reading as embaited in any edition. In Sir Thomas North's Tranflation of Plutarch, is faid of one of the Metelli, that " he flewed the people the cruel fight of fencers at unrebated words." STEEVENS. 8-a pafs of practice,] Practice is often by Shakspeare, and other writers, taken for an infidious fratagem, or privy treafon, a fense not incongruous to this paffage, where yet I rather be lieve, that nothing more is meant than a thraft for exercife. So, in Look about you, 1600: Again, JOHNSON "I pray God there be no practice in this change." -the man is like to die: "Practice, by th' mafs, practice by the, &c- Again, more appofitely in our author's Twelfth Night, act v. fc. ult. This |