But that religion and the horrid dream

To be suffer'd in the other world denies it."

There is good illustration of Hamlet's remarks on the hard drinking of the Danes and the bad name they have for it-how their "addition" is soiled with "swinish phrase in Pierce Pennilesse. Nash concludes a violent diatribe against them by declaring that they are "bursten-bellied sots that are to be confuted with nothing but tankards or quart pots. God so love me as I love the quick-witted Italians, and therefore love them more because they mortally detest this surly swinish generation." See also Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent, pp. 318-21, ed. 1826.

That image of the mole-to show how a single defect spoils everything-which Hamlet uses in the same speech, is found also in Pandosto—a fact that is worth noticing as perhaps one of the many signs of Shakespeare's familiarity with Greene's writings. "One mole," says Bellaria, "staineth the whole face; and what is once spotted with infamy can hardly be worn out with time.”

We do not see that Mr. Furness has pointed out in Armin's Nest of Ninnies-on the same page of the “Shakespeare Society's reprint" with the phrase in "the top of question" (which we observe Staunton has noted)—the words, "There are, as Hamlet says, things called whips in store." Though Hamlet does not say so, yet perhaps the ascription of the saying to him may be taken as a mark of his popularity." The nearest approach to the words is in 2 Henry VI., II. i. 139, Gloucester loq.: "My masters of Saint Alban's, have you not beadles in your town, and things called whips?" Possibly the quotation may come from some earlier form of the play. See Mr. HalliwellPhillipps's Memoranda on Hamlet.

XXII.

HAMLET'S AGE.

(From the Academy for March 11, 1876.)

HE following quotation from a well-known book is certainly noteworthy with regard to the question of Hamlet's age :

"For fashion sake some (Danes) will put their children to schoole, but they set them not to it till they are fourteene years old; so that you shall see a great boy with a beard learne his A. B. C., and sit weeping under the rod when he is thirty years old.”—NASH's Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil, ed. Collier, for the Shakespeare Society, p. 27.

So, after all, there is perhaps less inconsistency in the play than has been supposed. I do not mean that there is

none.

I

"AN AERY OF CHILDREN, LITTLE

EYASES."

(From the Athenæum for Sept. 14, 1878.)

AM not aware that the following extract has ever been quoted to illustrate a well-known passage in Hamlet. It may have been so, for the industry and keenness of

Shakespearian commentators in search of quotations have been no less remarkable than the eager interest of Spartacus in the contents of Roman cellars, whose raids, as we gather from Horace, scarcely anywhere had a bottle been able to elude. However, if ever quoted, it is certainly not generally known. It occurs in neither Malone's nor Mr. Furness's Variorum; so I give it here—give it as quoted by Cunningham in his Handbook of London :-"He embraced one young gentleman and gave him many riotous instructions how to carry himself . . . . told him he must acquaint himself with many gallants of the Inns of Court, and keep rank with those that spend most. . . His lodging must be about the Strand in any case, being remote from the handicraft scent of the City; his eating must be in some famous tavern, as the Horn, the Mitre, or the Mermaid; and then after dinner, he must venture beyond sea, that is in a choice pair of nobleman's oars to the Bankside, where he must sit out the breaking up (= the carving) of a comedy; or the first cut of a tragedy; or rather if his humours so serve him, to call in at the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a man."-Father Hubburd's Tales, 4to. 1604.

1604 is the date of the first complete quarto of Hamlet; 1603 of the imperfect quarto; 1602 of the entry in the Registers of the Stationers' Company of "a book the Revenge of Hamlet Prince of Denmark as it lately was acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants."

The "rather" and the last words exactly illustrate what Rosencrantz says of the extraordinary popularity of certain children-actors-how these are now the fashion. The phrase "a nest of boys" cannot but remind everybody of Shakespeare's "aery of children, little eyases." Aire is translated by Cotgrave, "An Airie or nest of hawkes."

The fact that the passage from "How comes it? Do

they grow rusty?" down to "Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too" is not found in any of the quartos, does not of course in the least interfere with the value of this illustration.

"THAT CRY OUT ON TOP OF QUESTION." (From the Athenæum for Jan. 8, 1881.)

I

T is interesting to note that the great writer who has just

gone from us was a native of the same part of the country as Shakespeare, and that her works no less than his illustrate the Midlands, and are to be illustrated from them; and further, that their works illustrate each other. They were both Warwickshire born-Shakespeare of a Warwickshire race, "George Eliot's" father a Staffordshire man. In the veins of both ran some Keltic blood, if, not relying on their literary styles, we may depend upon the names Arden and Evans. Much might be said of the relation of these two great authors to Middle-March, or Mercia, or the Midlands, and to each other. But I only propose now to mention a curious illustration of a certain phrase in Hamlet to be found-though never yet noticed, I think-in Adam Bede.

It is the phrase used by Rosencrantz of the boy-actors; they are described as an aery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question." About this "crying out on the top of question" there has been "much throwing about of brains." Some commentators have not understood

66

on the top of" and others have not understood " question." Not that no one has hit upon the right interpretation-that

is the interpretation which I think it will be allowed is justified by the below quotation from Mr. Bartle Massey. Messrs. Clarke and Wright, in their excellent edition of Hamlet, say that the phrase "means probably to speak in a high key dominating conversation." Now let us hear the Hayslope schoolmaster, speaking of Martin Poyser's establishment. "There's too many women in the house for me,” says the misogynist; "I hate the sound of women's voices; they are always either a-buzz or a-squeak—are always either a-buzz or a-squeak. Mrs. Poyser keeps at the top o' the talk like a fife," &c.

That "question" in Shakespeare's language means dialogue, conversation, talk, has been pointed out by Steevens, Elze, and others.

"ASSUME A VIRTUE IF YOU HAVE IT NOT.".

TH

(From the Academy for May 15, 1880.)

HE idea that Shakespeare teaches false morality in the well-known line—

"Assume a virtue if you have it not

arises entirely, not from any misunderstanding of the word assume (Mr. Aldis Wright has surely made its meaning plain enough if there could be any doubt about it), but through cutting off the line from its context. If it is not so dissociated, "assume" needs no new gloss, but has, and it must have, its ordinary sense. Shakespeare certainly does say, "Wear the guise of a virtue, even if you do