Upon whofe influence Neptune's empire ftands,
Was fick almost to doomsday with eclipfe.

Ghafts vanish at the crowing of the Cock, and the
Reverence paid to Christmas-Time.

Ber. It was about to speak when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started like a guilty thing,
Upon a fearful fummons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-founding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in fea or fire, in earth or air,
Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine. And of the truth herein,
This prefent object made probation.

Mar. It faded at the crowing of the cock.
Some fay, that ever 'gainst that feafon comes,
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning fingeth all night long:
And then, they fay, no fpirit walks abroad,
The nights are wholefome, then no planets strike,

No victim can atone the impious age;
No facrifice the wrathful gods affuage :
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state,
And ev'ry omen points out Cæfar's fate:
Around each hallow'd shrine and facred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their filent feats and wand'ring fhades forfake,
And fearful tremblings the rock'd city shake.

(2) No

(Welfied.)

The originals confist, the first of 23 lines, the latter of 16, the tranflations of 31 and 22 lines: Shakespear has but eight, and perhaps, were we to fay he was as expreffive and elegant as Virgil and Ovid on this fubject, we might not be tax'd with too great partiality to him: however, it may be no difagreeable amufement to the reader to compare these three paffages together, allowing for the great spirit the ancients muft lofe in a tranflation. -See teo Julius Caefar, A. 2. S. 4.

(2) No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm So hallow'd and fo gracious is the time.

Morning.

(3) But look, the morn in ruffet mantle clad Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary fuits of folemn black,
Nor windy fufpiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the

eye,

Nor the dejected 'haviour of the vifage,

Together with all forms, moods, fhews of grief,
That can denote me truly. Thefe, indeed, feem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within, which paffeth fhew;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Immoderate Grief discommended.

"Tis fweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father: But you must know your father loft a father That father his, and the survivor bound In filial obligation for some term

To

(2) No fairy takes.] The poet here plainly alludes to that wellknown characteristic of the fairies, their taking away, or changing children: the whole difpute in the Midfummer Night's Dream, between Oberon and Titania, is concerning a boy fhe had taken away, or ftolen from its mother: the reader will find a pretty fable on this fubject in Gay's Fables: and indeed the thing is fo generally known by all read in the economy of these little dapper elves, it needs not infifting on.

(3) But,&c.] See Midsummer Night's Dream, A&t. 1. Sc. 8. and

the note.

To do obfequious forrow. (4) But to perfevere
In obftinate condolement, does exprefs
An impious stubbornnefs, unmanly grief,
It fhews a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortify'd, a mind impatient,
An understanding fimple and unfchool'd:
For what we know muft be, and is as common
As any of the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish oppofition,
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heav'n,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reafon moft abfurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cry'd
From the first corfe, till he that died to-day,
This must be so.

Hamlet's Soliloquy on his Mother's Marriage. (5) O, that this too too folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew;

(4] But to, &c.] Juvenal fays, (Sat. 13.)

·Ponamus nimios gemitus: flagrantior æquo
Non debet dolor effe viri, nec vulnere major.

Abate thy paffion nor too much complain,
Grief fhould be forc'd: and it becomes a man
To let it rife no higher than his pain.

Creech.

ΟΙ

}

(5) 0, that, &c.] The late tranflator of Longinus obferves, upon that fection, (the 22d) where his excellent author is fpeaking of the Hyperbaton, "That nothing can better illuftrate his remarks than a celebrated paffage in Shakespear's Hamlet, where the poet's art has hit off the strongest and most exact refemblance of nature. The behaviour of his mother makes fuch impreffion on the young prince, that his mind is big with abhorrence of it, but expreffions fail him: he begins abruptly, but as reflections crowd thick upon his mind, he runs off into commendations of his father. Some time after, his thoughts turn again on that action of his mother, which had rais'd his refentments, but he only touches it, and flies off a◄

gain

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-flaughter! Oh, God! oh, God! How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the ufes of this world.

Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to feed; things rank and grofs in nature
Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this!
But two months dead! nay, not fo much, not two-
So excellent a king, that was to this,

Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother,

That

gain; in short, he takes up eighteen lines in telling us that his mother married again in less than two months after her hufband's death."

Speaking of self-flaughter, in Cymbeline, he says;

'Gainst felf-flaughter

There is a prohibition fo divine

That cravens my weak mind.

Hyperion was a name of the fun; Hamlet, afterwards speaking of his father, fays;

See what a grace was feated on his brow,
Hyperion's curls.

Mr. Dryden obferves, on the famous

of Virgil, that it is the fharpeft fatire in thefe weft words, that ever was made on womankind; for both the adjectives are neuter, and animal must be understood to make them grammar. Mr. Theobald is of opinion, this of Shakespear Frailty thy name is woman, is, as being equally concife in the terms, and more fprightly in the thought and image, to be preferred to Virgil, and the tharper fatire of the two.

It is, I think, obferved, either in the Tatlers or Spectators, how greatly Hamlet exaggerates his mother's offence by continually leffening the time fhe ftayed before her fecond marriage. 'Tis at first two months--then immediately not fo much as two -prefently after 'tis within a month; that is again leffened→ 'twas not only within a month, but within a little monthnay, even before her eyes were dry, and no longer gall'd with her most unrighteous tears.

That he might not let e'en the winds of heav'n
Vifit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Muft I remember?-why, fhe would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; and yet, within a month ?-
Let me not think on't ;-Frailty thy name is woman:
A little month!-or ere thofe fhoes were old,
With which the follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears- -Why the, even she—
O heav'n! a beast that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer-married with mine uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father,
Than I to Hercules. Within a month!
Ere yet the falt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O moft wicked speed, to poft
With fuch dexterity to inceftuous fheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to, good.

SCENE IV. A complete Man.

(6) He was a man, take him for all in all, I fhall not look upon his like again.

SCENE

(6) He, &c.] This (as Mr. Whalley obferyes in his Enquiry into the learning of Shakespear) will perhaps be thought too much the fuggeftion of nature and the human heart, to be taken from a place of Sophocles, to which it has great affinity;

Παντων αριςον ανδρα των επι χθονι

Κτείνας οποιον αλλον εκ οψει ποτε.

Which in the most literal translation, is,

Trachin. v. 821.

You've kill'd the very best of men on earth,
And fhall not look upon his like again.

In Cymbeline there is a character very fimilar to this;

As to feek through the regions of the earth,

For