affection so strongly and been acted so fre quently. Act I. Scene I. FRANCISCO. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, The right expreffion of a fimple thought is fometimes of confiderable and unexpected confequence to the fpeaker. Mr. Boheme was, about the year 1718, accidentally seen by Rich, when playing with some itinerants at Stratford le Bow, who foon diftinguished him from his companions, and hired him, at a small income, to act at his theatre in Lincoln's-inn fields. I have been told, that this actor was, on his first trial, cast into the trifling part of Francisco. His unaffected, yet feeling, manner, of pronouncing this fhort fpeech, roused the auditors to an attention of his merit. His falary was immediately increased by the manager, B 3 manager, and he proved afterwards a greaṛ ornament of the stage. I DE M. Not a mouse stirring. Voltaire, who, in examining the merit of our author's plays, difdains the use of no unfair method to depreciate them, has ridiculed this paffage of Hamlet, as if the mention of a mouse were beneath the dignity of tragedy. But could there be a properer mode of describing the folitarinefs which reigned in the place, than by faying, that every thing was so still, that the soft tread of a small reptile had not been heard? The infignificance of an object does by no means leffen the general idea. Have not the most celebrated antient dramatic writers admitted thoughts as low, and words more grofs and offensive, into their best tragedies? How does the nice ear of a Frenchman relish the filthy plafters and nafty rags which Philoctetes applies to his fores? Yet Sophocles understood nature, and the laws of decorum, I prefume, as as perfectly as Voltaire. Tirefias's description, in Antigone, of the ordure and filth of the ill-omened birds who had fed on the carcafs of Polynices, would raise a nausea in the ftomach of a delicate French critic! Men of folid judgement and true taste defpife fuch refinement. BERNARDO. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, Dr. Warburton will have rivals to mean partners. Blunt derives the word from rivus, or rivulus, or from men fetching water from a neighbouring river, or rivulet. Hanmer fays, rivals are thofe men who watch upon an adjoining ground: by this interpretation, they, who were to fucceed Bernardo, muft have indeed gone through very hard service, as they were called from one act of duty to another. But, without a learned explanation, it is plain, by rivals, that Shakfpeare means, those men who were appointed next to relieve foldiers on the watch. They were indeed fo far rivals, as they were fucceffors to others, and waiting to occupy their places. HORA TI O. Some ftrange eruption to the ftate. Some political diftemper, which will break out in dangerous confequences.' I DE M.. That hath a ftomach in it. Stomach, fays Dr. Johnfon, in the times of Shakspeare, was used for conftancy and refolution. The original, ftomachus, has various fignifications befides the ftomach. In Cicero, it means, in one place, choler; in another, humour, or fancy. Ille mihi rifum magis quam ftomachum. Ludi appara-, tiffimi, fed non tui ftomachi. In Shakspeare, ftomach generally ftands for exceffive pride, or infolence of power. Queen Katharine, fpeaking of Cardinal Wolfey, He was of an unbounded fiomach.' Henry VIII. act IV. I think, in this place, hath aftomach in it. means, means, 'the business is of an alarming na ture.' MARCELLUS. Some fay, that, ever 'gainft that feafon comes These lines, which are omitted in the representation of the play, are remarkably beautiful, they are invigorated by fancy and harmonized by verfification. The word fpirit, in the 4th line, fhould be, I think, contracted to fprite, or sp’rit; both are, I believe, familiar to our old dramatists. No fairy takes, in the 6th line, is explained by Lear's curfe on Goneril, in the fecond act of that play: Strike her young bones, Ye taking airs, with lameness Scene II. f The King, Queen, Hamlet, &c. A little more than kin, and lefs than kind. Hanmer |