p. 57.

66

p. 58.

p. 59.

p. 60.

p. 62.

p. 65.

ACT SECOND.

SCENE I.

[By the Mass]":- These words are omitted from the folio as an oath.

"He closes with you thus are found only in the folio. "Alas, my lord!" &c. : lord," &c.

:-The words 'with you'

The 4tos., "O my lord, my

to shatter all his bulk":- Here bulk' is not a general, but a specific term, and means the chest. "The bulke or breast of a man, Thorax, la poitrine." Baret's Alvearie. Apud Singer.

"[Come,] go with me" :- The folio omits, come.'

with better heed and judgment" :- The folio misprints, "with better speed," &c., and in the next line has, "I feare." I had not quoted him means, I had

The folio, "It seemes," for the

reason so often mentioned for similar changes.

SCENE II.

"I cannot dream of": So the 4tos. The folio, “deeme of,” and not improbably so Shakespeare wrote.

6

"[Whether aught, to us unknown," &c. :- This line, absolutely necessary to the sense, is omitted from the folio. It also omits but' in Guildenstern's speech below, and Ay' in the Queen's exclamation as the Ambassadors go out.

"Both to my God, and to my gracious King":- The folio, by a manifest and injurious misprint, has, "one to my gracious king."

The folio, "As I have us'd to do;" and in Polonius' next speech it has, " My news shall be the news," &c.

- So the

"He tells me, my sweet Queen, that he," &c. :— folio; the 4tos., "my deere Gertrard," which smacks less of the honey-moon.

out of thy star": - So all the old copies (even the 4to. of 1603) precedent to the folio of 1632, which has, "out of thy sphere" - at once a plausible reading and a gloss.

he walks four hours together":

The obvious

reading, "for hours together," has occurred to many critical readers; and to modern taste this would seem an improvement. But similar phrases, "two hours," "three hours," and "four hours together," are of common occurrence in old books.

"But keep a farm" :- The folio," And keep," &c.

one man pick'd out of ten thousand": So all the 4tos.; the folio, "two thousand."

66

-The old cop

being a god kissing carrion": ies (except the 4to. of 1603, in which the passage is not found) have, "a good kissing carrion." The correction, which is almost of the obvious sort, was made by Warburton, who improved the occasion in a small sermon, which the reader will find preserved in the Variorum editions. This speech of Hamlet's has an intimate connection in thought and in expression with his next; the thought being one which his madness, real or affected, may excuse, but upon which it is not pleasant to dwell, much less to expatiate.

"I mean, the matter that you read": - The folio, by one of the accidental repetitions so common in this play, "that you mean.”

the middle of her favour?" - The old copies, "her favours;" but considering the context, there can be no doubt that the s is a mere superfluity. Favour' has here two senses, one of which is person, figure, to express which it was commonly used in the singular, but never in the plural.

I have an eye of you": i. e., on you.

it goes so heavily with my disposition": folio has the manifest misprint "so heavenly."

·- Thus the

this brave o'erhanging firmament": 4tos. The folio omits firmament,' accidentally, beyond a doubt. In the same sentence, the 4tos. have " why it appeareth nothing to me but," &c.

66

we coted them on the way' -To cote-from the French coté - is to come side by side with, to over take.

the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' th' sere":- I may be pardoned for expressing my surprise at the explanation universally given to this passage hitherto, that Hamlet means the Clown shall make even those laugh whose lungs are irritable, or shall

convert their coughing into laughter. But the whole speech is ironical; and here, as in his famous directions to the players (Act III. Sc. 2,) Hamlet is severest upon the Clown, who, he says, will have to be content with such semblance of laughter as comes from those who are tickled not by his jokes, but by a dry cough—"o' th' sere."

"an eyry of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question": Shakespeare," says Mr. Collier, than whom there could be no better authority on such a point, "here alludes to the encouragement at that time given to some 'eyry' or nest of children, or 'eyases,' (young hawks.) . . . There were several companies of young performers about this date engaged in acting, but chiefly the children of Paul's and the children of the Revels, who, it seems, were highly applauded, to the injury of the companies of adult performers. From an early date, the choir-boys of St. Paul's, Westminster, Windsor, and the Chapel Royal, had been occasionally so employed, and performed at court." The performance of these young eyases was the innovation alluded to by Hamlet just before. - The phrase, "cry out on the top of question," has been regarded as meaning that the children shouted out their parts in high, shrill tones:- a great misapprehension, in my judgment. To cry in the top' seems rather to mean to assume superiority; — as afterward Hamlet, speaking of people who set him down about the play from which he quotes, says that their judgments "cried in the top" of his. I can conjecture no specific origin of the phrase. It might well have been formed on the mere general force of the words which compose it.

their scot.

how are they escoted?" — i. e., paid. Who pays

no longer than they can sing?" - i. e., until their voices break at puberty.

"to tarre them to controversy":-i. e., to excite or provoke them. See the Note on "doth tarre him on," King John, Act IV. Sc. 2, p. 126.

"It is not strange":-The 4tos., "not very strange." "Your hands, come":- The 4tos., "your hands come then."

66- let me comply with you in this garb":- In my judgment comply with' (not comply' alone) has here, as in the speech about Osric, (Act V. Sc. 2,) merely the sense of compliment.' But Mr. Singer would have it in both cases mean embrace.

66

p. 72. I know a hawk from a handsaw":- An alliterative folk-phrase, like B from a bull's foot.' Its source is the gentle disport of hawking, and its original form was a hawk from a hernshaw;' but the last word was corrupted by popular use into handsaw' long before Shakespeare's day. I suspect, too, that at that time the corrupted phrase had, to general acceptation, lost its original meaning, and that the comparison was supposed to be between the tool called a hawk, and a handsaw. Such a confusion would tend to facilitate and confirm the corruption. There was, and I believe there still is a hooked cutting tool called a hawk. Latimer, I remember, but where I cannot recollect, speaking of a priest's reading the Book of Homilies says, "He would so hawk and chop it," &c.

"Then came each actor on his ass":- Mr. Dyce says that this line is probably a quotation.

"For the law of writ, and the liberty," &c.:- Mr. Collier says, "The meaning probably is, that the players were good, whether at written productions or at extemporal plays, where liberty was allowed to the performers to invent the dialogue in imitation of the Italian commedia al improviso."

"One fair daughter, and no more": :- - These lines and the two below are from the old ballad Jephtha, Judge of Israel. See Child's British Ballads, Vol. VII. p. 198.

61

the first row of the pious chanson," &c. :-' - Thus the 4to. The folio has the misprint "Pons Chanson," which would be unworthy of notice save for the confusion which it has occasioned. Hamlet calls the ballad from which he has been quoting, the pious chanson - in the 4to. of 1603, "the godly ballet' -on account of the biblical character of its subject. His quotations are all from the first stave; and to the first row, i. e., line or column, he refers his hearers for more, he being cut short in his recital, "for look where my abridgment comes.' It is possible, however, that both here and in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V. Sc. 1, abridgment' means that which shortens time-pastime; though there it is applied to things, here to persons. - The folio has abridgments come."

66

"Why, thy face is valanc'd":— Thus the 4tos. The folio "is valiant," which is rather a sophistication than a misprint.

by the altitude of a chopine":— The cioppino

was a strange Italian device, which is thus described in Raymond's Mercurio Italiano. London, 1647. "The Ladies have found out a devise very different from all other European Dresses. They weare their owne, or a counterfeit haire below the shoulders, trim'd with gemmes and Flowers, their coats halfe too long for their bodies, being mounted on their Chippeens, (which are as high as a man's leg.) They walke between two handmaids, majestically deliberating of every step they take. This fashion was invented, and appropriated to the Noble Venetians wives, to be constant to distinguish them from the Courtesans, who goe covered in a vaile of White Taffety." p. 202.

See the Introduction to Othello for a figure of an Italian Courtesan mounted on cioppini:- for Raymond is in error as to a distinction having been made by this singular article of dress.

crack'd within the ring":- The thin coins of past centuries were liable to be cracked; and if the crack extended beyond the second ring, within which was the hideous effigies of the monarch under whom the coin was struck, it became uncurrent.

"What speech, my lord?"- The 4tos., "my good lord."

66

'twas caviare to the general": All my readers may not know that caviare is a preparation of dried fishroe, first made in Russia, where it is still a favorite dish. It was a foreign luxury, a taste for which was acquired only by the few, not by the general.

[as wholesome," &c. :- The folio omits this clause, and in the next sentence has, "One chief speech," erroneously, without a doubt.

[So proceed you]":- The folio omits these words, which are found in the 4to. of 1604. That of 1603 has 66 So goe on."

the mobbled Queen" :- Mobbled' means muffled about the head. Hecuba is described as having a clout upon her head. Mob,' in this sense, is still in use in the compound mob-cap.' The folio has, in all three instances, innobled queene' - a misprint surely.

"With bisson rheum":- i. e., with blinding rheum.

than their ill report while you live": - So all the 4tos.; the folio, "while you lived," which, although the slight variation produces a considerable difference in the purport of the sentence, I incline to regard as a misprint.