And he, repulsed (a short tale to make), Act II., Scene 2. It is observed by Warburton, that "the ridicule of the character of Polonius is here admirably sustained. He would not only be thought to have discovered this intrigue by his own sagacity, but to have remarked all the stages of Hamlet's disorder, from his sadness to his raving, as regularly as his physician could have done; when all the while the madness was only feigned. The humor of this is exquisite from a man who tells us, with a confidence peculiar to small politicians, that he could find -- 'Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed In the first quarto edition of the play (1603), the passage stands thus: "Ham. How comes it that they travel? do they grow restie? Gil. No, my lord; their reputation holds as it was wont. Ham. How then? Gil. I' faith, my lord, novelty carries it away; for the principal public audience that came to them, are turned to private plays, and to the humor of children." There is still, however, some obscurity connected with this matter, since we cannot be certain that the passage in the present text refers to the same period of time as the corresponding one in the earliest quarto. In June, 1600. an order of council passed "for the restraint of the immoderate use of playhouses." It prescribes that "there shall be about the city two houses, and no more, allowed for the use "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing of the common stage plays." This order may, with some probability, carrion Have you a daughter?"- Act II., Scene 2. Hamlet, by breaking off abruptly in this sentence, has been the cause of an infinite deal of ink-shedding. The old copies read, " Being a good kissing carrion." The present reading was suggested by Warburton, and has been generally adopted, as the most plausible that has yet been proposed. His labored comment on the passage, in which he endeavors to prove that Shakspeare intended it as a vindication of the ways of Providence in permitting evil to abound in the world, has not been so well received. Malone has traced in a less exalted, though more probable strain, the train of thought in Hamlet's mind: Hamlet has just remarked, that honesty is very rare in the world. To this, Polonius assents. The prince then adds, "that, since there is so little virtue in the world; since corruption abounds everywhere, and maggots are bred by the sun, even in a dead dog, Polonius ought to prevent his daughter from walking in the sun, lest she should prove a breeder of sinners." "Ros. Truly; and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a shadow's shadow. HAM. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows."- Act II., Scene 2. Meaning, according to Johnson, "If ambition is such an unsubstantial thing, then are our beggars (who at least can dream of greatness) the only things of substance; and monarchs and heroes, though appearing to fill such mighty space with their ambition, but the shadows of the beggars' dreams." "We coted them on the way."--Act II., Scene 2. The term "coted" is derived from the french cote, the side. "In the laws of coursing," says Mr. Tollet, "a cote is when a greyhound goes endways by the side of his fellow, and gives the hare a turn." Instances are given of the use of the word in the sense of overtaking or passing by. "The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere." Act II., Scene 2. That is, those who are troubled with a huskiness, or dry cough. "HAM. How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Ros. I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation." Act II., Scene 2 The innovation" here alluded to appears to have been the public performance of the "Children of the Revels," the "Children of St. Paul's," &c., which for a time attracted the town, and thereby in effect "inhibited" or prevented the performance of the regular players at their old stations, and compelled them to "travel." In "JACK DRUM'S ENTERTAINMENT" (1601), we find: "I sawe the children of Powle's [Paul's] last night, be deemed the origin of the "inhibition" and "innovation" referred to in the text. "To grunt and sutat under a weary life."— Act III., Scene 1. This is the true reading, according to all the old copies; "although," as Johnson observes, "it can scarcely be borne by modern ears." On this point, Malone remarks, "I apprehend that it is the duty of an editor to exhibit what his author wrote; and not to substitute what may appear to the present age preferable. I have, therefore, though with some reluctance, adhered to the old copies, however unpleasing this word may be to the ear. On the stage, without doubt, an actor is at liberty to substitute a less offensive word. To the ears of our ancestors, it probably conveyed no unpleasing sound; for we find it used by Chaucer and others." "To split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise."- Act III., Scene 2. The pit, in the early theatres, had neither floor nor benches, and was frequented by the poorer classes. Ben Jonson speaks with equal contempt of the "understanding gentlemen of the ground." Of the "dumb shows," we have a specimen in the play scene of this tragedy. "The meaner people," says Dr. Johnson, "then seem to have sat [stood] below, as they now sit in the upper gallery; who, not well understanding poetical language, were sometimes gratified by a mimical and mute representation of the drama, previous to the dialogue." "I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod." -Act III., Scene 2. Termagant, according to Percy, was a Saracen deity, very clamorous and violent in the Old Moralities. Herod, also, was a constant character in these entertainments, and his outrageous boasting is sometimes highly amusing. Subjoined are two short specimens. The first is from the "CHESTER WHITSUN PLAYS: " "For I am kinge of all mankinde, I byd, I beate, I lose, I bynde: I master the moone:- take this in mynde, That I am most of mighte. I am the greatest above degree, That is, that was, or ever shall be; The sonne it dare not shine on me, And I bid him go downe." It appears that this amiable personage had no less conceit of his "bewte" than of his "boldness." In one of his "COVENTRY PLAYS," he exclaims: "Of bewte and of boldness I ber evermore the belle, Of mayn and of myght I master every man; I dynge with my dowtiness the devil down to helle, "My lord, you played once in the university, you say,” Act III., Scene 2. The practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is very ancient, and continued to near the middle of the seventeenth century. They were performed occasionally for the entertainment of princes, and other great personages; and regularly at Christmas, at which time a "Lord of Misrule" was appointed at Oxford, to regulate the exhibitions, and a similar officer, with the title of "Imperator," at Cambridge. A Latin play, on the subject of Casar's death, was performed at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1582. "HAM. Lady, shall I lie in your lap? \ ОPH. No, my lord."- - Act III., Scene 2. On the publication of the original edition of this play, which had been previously unknown to the commentators or the public, some remarks upon it appeared in a morning journal, from which we select the following, as well worthy of attention, in reference to this scene, and to some other parts of Shakspeare's text which the reader, without being affectedly delicate, may be pardoned for wishing away:"Many striking peculiarities in this edition of Hamlet tend strongly to confirm our opinion, that no small portion of the ribaldry to be found in the plays of our great poet, is to be assigned to the actors of his time, who flattered the vulgar taste with the constant repetition of many indecent, and not a few stupid jokes, till they came to be considered, and then printed, as part of the genuine text. Of these, the two or three brief but offensive speeches of Hamlet to Ophelia, in the play scene (act iii.), are not to be found in the copy of 1603; and so far are we borne out in our opinion; for it is not to be supposed that Shakspeare would insert them upon cool reflection, three years after the success of his piece had been determined. Still less likely is it that a piratical printer would reject anything actually belonging to the play, which would prove pleasing to the vulgar bulk of those who were to be the purchasers of his publication." We have no desire to be numbered among those who are in the habit of visiting the sins of Shakspeare, real or imaginary, on the heads of the actors; but there is certainly something in the fact here stated that deserves consideration. In justice both to poet and players, we subjoin Mr. Campbell's judicious comment on the remarks just cited:-- "For O, for 0, the hobby-horse is forgot!"— Act III. Scene 2. The banishment of the hobby-horse from the May games is frequently lamented in the old dramas. The line quoted by Hamlet appears to have been part of a ballad on the subject of poor Hobby. He was driven from his station by the Puritans, as an impious and pagan superstition; but restored on the promulgation of the "BOOK OF SPORTS." The hobby-horse was formed of a pasteboard horse's head, and probably a light frame made of wicker-work, to form the hinder parts; this was fastened round the body of a man, and covered with a footcloth which nearly reached the ground, and concealed the legs of the performer. Similar contrivances, in burlesque picces, are not unusual at this day, in the London minor theatres. "HOR. Half a share. HAM. A whole one, I."— Act III., Scene 2. Actors, in Shakspeare's time, had not annual salaries, as at present. The whole receipts of each theatre were divided into shares, of which the proprietors of the theatre, or "house-keepers," as they were called, had some; and each actor had one or more shares, or parts of a share, according to his merit. "Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice, We need no great persuasion to make us believe that we ought to read, as a manuscript note tells us, "And oft 't is seen, the wicked purse itself "I'll silence me e'en here.” — Act III., Scene 4. That this is a misprint we might guess without any hint from the corrected folio, 1632, which thus gives the words, "I'll 'sconce me even here." Johnson felt obliged to explain that "I'll silence me e'en here" meant "I'll use no more words." In "The Merry Wives," Falstaff says, "I will ensconce me behind the arras," which is exactly what Polonius does. 'Sconce and ensconce are constantly used figuratively for hide "For, at your age "I am inclined, upon the whole, to agree with these remarks, although the subject leaves us beset with uncertainties. This copy of the play was apparently pirated; but the pirate's omission of the improper passages alluded to, is not a perfect proof that they were absent in the first representation of the piece; yet it leads to such a presumption; for, looking at the morality of Shakspeare's theater in the main, he is none of your poetical artists who resort to an impure i. e. from his father to his uncle: Hamlet is exalting the first, and The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble, 193 debasing the last; and the expression, "Would step from this to this," is feeble and inexpressive, while a slight alteration in one word makes a vast difference: "And what judgment Would stoop from this to this?" "Hide fox, and all after.” — Act IV., Scene 2. This, no doubt, was the name of a juvenile sport of the poet's age; it is supposed to be the same as is now called "hide and seek." "Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet," dr. Act IV., Scene 3. The folios omit "politic," probably unintentionally, but possibly because it was not clearly understood why the worms should be called "politic." The old corrector of the folio, 1632, leads us to suppose that "politic" was misprinted, or miswritten, for an epithet, certainly more applicable in the place where it occurs, in reference to the taste of the worms for the rich repast they were enjoying: "A certain convocation of palated worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots." It is easy to suppose that "politic," a word with which the scribe was familiar, was misheard by him for the unusual word palated. Shakspeare employs to palate as a verb in "Coriolanus," Act III., Scene I., and in "Antony and Cleopatra," Act V. Scene II.; and it is doing no great violence to imagine that he here uses the partciple of the same verb. If the text had always stood "palated worms,” and it had been proposed to change it to "politic worms," few readers would for an instant have consented to relinquish an expression so peculiarly Shakspearian. "Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" - Act IV., Scene 5. It is remarked by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that there is no part of this play, in its representation on the stage, more pathetic than this scene; which he supposes to arise from the utter insensibility of Ophelia to her own misfortunes. "A great sensibility (says he), or none at all, seems to produce the same effect. In the latter case, the audience supply what is wanting; and with the former they sympathize." "They say the owl was a baker's daughter."- Act IV., Scene 5. This transformation is said to be a common tradition in Gloucestershire. It is thus related by Mr. Douce:-"Our Savior went into a baker's shop where they were baking, and asked for some bread to eat: the mistress of the shop immediately put a piece of dough in the oven to bake for him; but was reprimanded by her daughter, who insisting that the piece of dough was too large, reduced it to a very small size: the dough, however, immediately began to swell, and presently became of a most enormous size, whereupon the baker's daughter cried out, Heugh, heugh, heugh,' which owl-like noise probably induced our Savior to transform her into that bird, for her wickedness." The story is told to deter children from illiberal behav ior to the poor. "Where are my Switzers?"-Act IV., Scene 5. The Swiss, in Shakspeare's time, were already in the habit of entering as mercenaries into foreign service. In Nashe's "CHRIST'S TEARS OVER JERUSALEM" (1594), we find:-"Law, logic, and the Switzers, may be hired to fight for anybody." "There's such divinity doth hedge a king, Act IV., Scene 5. For "hedge" the first quarto reads "wall."-As a genuine instance of royal confidence, an anecdote of Queen Elizabeth is quoted from Chettle's" ENGLAND'S MOURNING GARMENT;"-"While her Majesty was on the Thames, near Greenwich, a shot was fired by accident, which struck the royal barge, and hurt a waterman near her. The French ambassador being amazed, and all crying Treason, treason!' yet she, with an undaunted spirit, came to the open place of the barge, and bade them never fear; for if the shot were made at her, they durst not shoot again. Such majesty had her presence, and such boldness her heart, that she despised fear, and was as all princes are, or should be, so full of divine fulness, that guilty mortality durst not behold her but with dazzled eyes." "O, how the wheel becomes it!"-Act IV., Scene 5. The terms "wheel" and "a-down-a" both signify the round or burthen of a ballad. "No, no, he is dead; In reference to " the sweet Ophelia," Hazlitt eloquently exclaims:- could have drawn in the way he has done; and to the conception of Gone to thy death bed," -Act IV., Scene 5. "No, no, he is dead, Gone to his death-bed, It has always hitherto been printed, "Go to thy death-bed,” and we can scarcely think the proposed change merely arbitrary. For "His beard was as white as snow," the correction in manuscript is, Mrs. Jameson also, in her "CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN," has a beautiful passage on the same pathetic theme:-"Once at Marano, I saw a dove caught in a tempest: perhaps it was young, and either lacked strength of wing to reach its home, or the instinct which teaches to shun the brooding storm: but so it was-and I watched it, pitying as it flitted, poor bird! hither and thither, with its silver pinions shining against the black thunder-cloud, till after a few giddy whirls it fell blinded, affrighted, and bewildered, into the turbid wave beneath, and was swallowed up for ever. It reminded me of the fate of Ophelia; and now, when I think of her, I see again that poor dove, may be deemed immaterial. When Ophelia makes her exit, it is stabeating with weary wing, bewildered amid the storm." "How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle-hat and staff, And his sandal-shoon."- Act IV., Scene 5. The habiliments mentioned in the last two lines were appropriated to pilgrims. Warburton remarks, "that while this kind of devotion was in favor, love intrigues were carried on under that mask. Hence "His beard was white as snow." In the folios it is, "His beard as white as snow," and the variation ted that she goes out dancing distracted, although she had sung such a melancholy ditty just before, and had taken such a sad farewell. It is the last we see of her. "In youth, when I did love, did love," &c.— Act V., Scene 1. The stanzas, of which the clown gives his imperfect version, are attributed to Lord Vaux; they were published in "SONGES AND SON NETTES," by Lord Surrey and others (1575). The original runs thus: "I loth that I did love, In youth that I thought swete, As time requires: for my behove Methinks they are not mete. "For Age with steling steps Hath clawde me with his crowch; And lusty Youthe awaye he leapes, As there had bene none such. "A pikeax and a spade, And eke a shrowding shete, A house of clay for to be made For such a guest most mete." "To play at loggats with them?"- Act V., Scene 1. "Loggats" is a game still much used in some country parts, particularly Norwich, and its vicinity. A stake is fixed in the ground, at which the loggats (small logs or pieces of wood) are thrown. The sport may be considered a rude kind of quoits. "It was that very day that young Hamlet was born." Act V., Scene 1. This is possibly a slip of memory in the poet. It appears, from what the Gravedigger subsequently says, that Hamlet must have been at this period thirty years old; and yet, in the early part of the play, we are told of his intention to return to school at Wittenberg. In the first quarto, Yorick's skull is said to have lain in the earth twelve years, instead of three-and-twenty, as at present:-"Look you, here's a skull hath been here this dozen year; let me see, ay, ever since our last King Hamlet slew Fortinbrasse in combat: - young Hamlet's father: he that's mad." It is probable that, in the reconstruction of the play, Shakspeare perceived that the general depth of Hamlet's philosophy indicated a mind too mature for the possession of a very young man. In reference to Hamlet's demeanor in this transcendant scene, Boswell the younger says (in his edition of Malone), "The scene with the Gravedigger shews, in a striking point of view, his good-natured affability. The reflections which follow afford new proofs of his amiable character. The place where he stands, the frame of his own thoughts, and the objects which surround him, suggest the vanity of all human pursuits; but there is nothing harsh or caustic in his satire; his observations are dictated rather by feelings of sorrow than of anger; and the sprightliness of his wit, which misfortune has repressed, but cannot altogether extinguish, has thrown over the whole a truly pathetic cast of humorous sadness. Those gleams of sunshine, which serve only to shew us the scattered fragments of a brilliant imagina tion, crushed and broken by calamity, are much more affecting than a long uninterrupted train of monotonous woe." "I'll do't. — Dost thou come here to whine?"— Act V., Scene 1. The line clearly wants two syllables; and the corrector of the folio, 1632, makes Hamlet emphatically repeat, "I'll do 't," which perfects the measure: "I'll do't: I'll do 't. Dost thou come here to whine?" This repetition was probably omitted by the printer accidentally. "He's fat and scant of breath.— Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows." Act V., Scene 2. The second line is obviously defective, and the corrector of the folio, 1632, does not, in this instance, cure it by adopting the text of the quartos, but that of some independent authority; perhaps his emendation here, as in some other places, represents the passage as it was delivered by the player of the part of the Queen: "He's fat and scant of breath.Here is a napkin, rub thy brows, my son." "Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally." Act V., Scene 2. Many efforts have been made to render the character of Hamlet perfectly consonant with that idea of moral perfection which we are anxious to attach to him; but none, it appears to us, with perfect success; nor are such attempts necessary, except for those who are anxious to worship an idol, rather than to discuss the merits of a human being. As regards the main incident of his life, his merits and deficiencies are delineated with great delicacy and discrimination by the hand of Goethe:-"It is clear to me that Shakspeare's intention was to exhibit the effects of a great action, imposed as a duty, upon a mind too feeble for its accomplishment. In this sense, I find the character consistent throughout. Here is an oak planted in a china vase, proper to receive only the most delicate flowers: the roots strike out, and the vessel flies to pieces. A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that energy of soul which constitutes the hero, sinks under a load which it can neither support nor resolve to abandon altogether. All his obligations are sacred to him; but this alone is above his powers. An impossibility is required at his hands; not an impossibility in itself, but that which is so to him. Observe how he shifts, turns, hesitates, advances and recedes; how he is continually reminded and reminding himself of his great commission, which he, nevertheless, in the end, seems almost entirely to lose sight of; and this without ever recovering his former tranquillity." In reference to the disputed question of Hamlet's sanity, Boswell makes some judicious remarks, in which he maintains that the prince's great intellect is essentially sound, though weakened and disturbed: "The sentiments which fall from Hamlet in his soliloquies, or in confidential communication with Horatio, evince not only a sound, but an acute and vigorous understanding. His misfortunes, indeed, and a sense of shame, from the hasty and incestuous marriage of his mother, have sunk him into a state of weakness and melancholy; but though his mind is enfeebled, it is by no means deranged. It would have been little in the manner of Shakspeare to introduce two persons in the same play whose intellects were disordered; but he has rather, in this instance, as in 'KING LEAR,' a second time effected what, as far as I can recollect, no other writer has ever ventured to attempt-the exhibition on the same scene of real and fictitious madness in contrast with each other.-In carrying his design into execution, Hamlet feels no difficulty in imposing upon the King, whom he detests; or upon Polonius, and his school-fellows, whom he despises: but the case is very different indeed in his interviews with Ophelia: aware of the submissive mildness of her character, which leads her to be subject to the influence of her father and her brother, he cannot venture to intrust her with his secret. In her presence, therefore, he has not only to assume a disguise, but to restrain himself from those expressions of affection which a lover must find it most difficult to repress in the presence of his mistress. In this tumult of conflicting feelings, he is led to overact his part, from a fear of falling below it; and thus gives an appearance of rudeness and harshness to that which is, in fact, a painful struggle to conceal his tenderness." In the folios, the passage is merely this: "He's fat and scant of breath. Here's a napkin, rub thy brows." Dr. Johnson's appreciation of Shakspeare is, unfortunately, not in general such as to tempt us to transcribe his summary remarks on each play; but as the opening paragraph of his estimate of "HAMLET" is more laudatory than usual, we willingly give it currency:"If the dramas of Shakspeare were to be characterized, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity: with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations; and solemnity not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the Apparition that in the first Act chills the blood with horror, to the Fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt." As a specimen of the great difference between the first edition of "HAMLET" and the finished play, we subjoin a scene from the former, in which the prince's return is announced to his mother. It should be premised that, in the earlier edition, the Queen's innocence of the murder is distinctly asserted by herself; as it is also in the black-letter"HISTORIE OF HAMBLETT:"— Enter HORATIO and the QUEEN. Hor. Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmarke, This letter I even now received of him, Whereas he writes how he escaped the danger And subtle treason that the King had plotted, Being crossed by the contention of the winds, Queen. Then I perceive there's treason in his looks, Hor. Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me Queen. O fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me |