1 That thou, dead corfe, again, in compleat steel, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our fouls? [Ghoft beckons Hamlet. Hor. It beckons you to go away with it, To you alone. Mar. Look, with what courteous action Hor. No, by no means. [Holding Hamlet. Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it. Ham. Why, what should be the fear cumlocution, confounding in his fright the foul and body. Why, fays he, have thy bones, which with due ceremonies have been intombed in death, in the common ftate of departed mortals, burft the folds in which they were embalmed? Why has the tomb in which we faw thee quietly laid, opened his mouth, that mouth which, by its weight and flability, feemed clofed for ever? The whole fentence is this: Why dost thou appear, whom we know to be dead? Had the change of the word removed any obfcurity, or added any beauty, it might have been worth a ftruggle, but either reading leaves the fenfe the fame. If there be any afperity in this 4 controverfial note, it must be imputed to the contagion of peevifhnefs, or fome refentment of the incivility fhown to the Oxford Editor, who is represented as fuppofing the ground caronized by a funer 1, when he only meant to fay, That the body was depofited in holy ground, in ground confecrated according to the conn. 1-us fools of nature] The expreffion is fine, as intimating we were only kept (as formerly, fools in a great family) to make fport for nature, who lay hid or ly to mock and Jaugh at us, for our vain fearches into her myfteries. WARBURTON. 2-to shake our difpofition.] Difpofuion, for frame. WARBURTON. Being Being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again.I'll follow it Hor. What if it tempt you tow'rd the flood, my Lord? Or to the dreadful fummit of the cliff, That beetles o'er his Bafe into the fea And there affume fome other horrible form, Ham. It waves me ftill.-Go on, I'll follow thee. Ham. Hold off your hands. Mar. Be rul'd, you shall not go. Ham. My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body Still am 1 call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen [Breaking from them. By heav'n, I'll make a Ghost of him that lets me 3-DEPRIVE your fav'reigr ty of reafon,] i. e. deprive your fov'reignty of its reafon. Nonfenfe. Sov'reignty of reafon is the fame as fovereign or fupreme reason: Reafon which governs man. And thus it was ufed by the beft writers of those times. Sidney fays, It is time for us both to let reafon enjoy its due foveraigntie. Arcad. And King Charles, at once to betray the foveraignty of reafon in my foul. Εἰκὼν βασιλική, It is evident that Shak fear wrote, M 2 1 fay, I fay, away.Go on- -I'll follow thee [Exeunt Ghoft and Hamlet. Hor. He waxes defp'rate with imagination. Mar. Let's follow! 'Tis not fit thus to obey him. Hor. Have after.To what iffue will this come? Mar. Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. Hor. Heav'n will direct it. Mar. Nay, let's follow him. Ham. SCENE [Exeunt. VIII. A more remote Part of the Platform. Re-enter Ghoft and Hamlet. 7 HERE wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further. W Ghoft. Mark me. Ham. I will. Ghoft. My hour is almost come, When I to fulphurous and tormenting flames Muft render up myself. Ham. Alas, poor Ghost! Gloft. Pity me not, but lend thy ferious hearing To what I fhall unfold. Ham. Speak, I am bound to hear. Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. Ham. What? Ghost. I am thy father's Spirit; Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, 6 6-torfin'd To faft in fires;] for the fuperlative m'ft, or very. We fhould read, TOO faft in fires. i.. very clofely confined. The particle to is ufed frequently 5 WARBURTON. I am rather inclined to read, confin'd to lafting fires, to fires unremitted and unconfumed. The change is flight. 'Till 'Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid To tell the fecrets of my prifon-house, I could a tale unfold, whofe lightest word To ears of flesh and blood. Lift, lift, oh lift! Ham. O heav'n! Ghoft. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. Ham. Murder? Ghoft. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, ftrange, and unnatural. Ham. Hafte me to know it, that I, with wings as fwift 7 As meditation or the thoughts of love, May fweep to my revenge. 8 Ghoft. I find thee apt; $ And duller fhouldft thou be than the fat weed 7 As meditation or the thoughts of love,] This fimilitude is extremely beautiful. The word, meditation, is confecrated, by the myftics, to fignify that ftretch and flight of mind which afpires to the enjoyment of the fupreme good. So that Hamlet, confidering with what to compare the fwiftness of his revenge, chooses two of the most rapid things in nature, the ardency of divine and human paffion, in an enthufiaft and a lover. WARBURTON. That The comment on the word meditation is fo ingenious, that I hope it is juft. 8 And dulier fhouldst thou be, the's wharf, &c.] SakeSpear, apparently through ignorance, makes Roman Catholicks of thefe pagan Danes; and here gives a defcription of purgatory: But yet mixes it with the pay an fable of Lethe's wha: f. Whether he did it to infinuate, to the M 3 zealous That roots itself in eafe on Lethe's wharf, Wouldst thou not ftir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. 'Tis given out, that, fleeping in my orchard, A ferpent ftung me. So the whole ear of Den mark Is by a forged process of my death Rankly abus'd; but know, thou noble Youth, Ham. Oh, my prophetick foul! my uncle? To thofe of mine! But virtue, as it never will be mov'd, Though lewdnefs court it in a fhape of heav'n; And prey on garbage. But, foft! methinks, I fcent the morning air- zealous Proteflants of his time, that the pagan and popish purgatory flood both upon the fame footing of credibility; or whe ther it was by the fame kind of licentious inadvertence that Achael Angelo brought Charon's bark into his picture of the laft judgment, is not eafy to decide, WARBURTON. And |