Or to the dreadful border of the cliff,
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,

And

ner as the head of a beetle hangs over, and is too big for the reft of its body: fo, we fay, a beetle-headed or beetle-brow'd fellow, for a heavy, thick-headed one. The line.

Which might deprive your fovereignty of reason,

has fomething in it truly Shakespearian: deprive, is used in its primary fenfe, according to our author's frequent method: which might deprive, i. e. take away your fovereignty of reason, i. c. your fovereign reafon. Mr. Warburton, at all adventures, condemns the paffage. "Deprive your fovereignty of reafon, i. e. deprive your fovereignty of its reafon. Nonfenfe. Sovereignty of reafon is the fame as fovereign or fupreme reafon; reason which governs man. And thus it was used by the best writers of those times. Sidney fays, It is time for us both to let reafon enjoy its due fovereignty. Arcad. And King Charles, at once to betray the fovereignty of vcafon in my foul. Είκων Βασιλική. It is evident that Shakefpcar wrote,

Deprave your fovereignty of reason.

4. e. diforder your understanding and draw you into madness. So afterwards

Now fee that noble and most fovereign reason,
Like fweet bells jangled out of tune.

Warburton.

The reader, I dare fay, will not be difpleafed with this note of Mr. Warburton; as it feems the best that could be given to confirm the reading in the text; deprive your, &c. may be properly explained as he defires, i. e. diforder your understanding and draw you into madness: for was it to deprive his fovereignty of reafon, or take it awaythat must be the confequence. If the paffage is tranflated literally into Latin, the learned reader will immediately fee its propriety: it may be unneceffary, perhaps, to add, he ufes, contrive,in the fame manner, in its primary fenfe: contrive an afternoon, i. e. fpen I an afternoon together. See Taming of the Shrew, Act 1. as he does frequently two fubftantives to exprefs one thing; fo, in Othello;

As when by night and negligence a fire

Is fpied

i.e. fire occafioned by nightly negligence: And in numberlefs other places.

And there affume fome horrible form,
Which might deprive your fovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madnefs? Think of it,
The very place puts toys of defperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

SCENE VIII. (13) Enter Ghoft and Hamlet.

Ham. Where wilt thou lead me? fpeak; I'll go ne further.

Ghoft. Mark me.

Ham. I will.

Ghoft. My hour is almost come,

When I to fulph'rous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham. Alas, poor ghost.

Ghoft. Pity me not, but lend thy ferious hearing To what I fhall unfold.

Ham.

(13) Enter, &c.] The prefent fcene betwixt Hamlet and the Ghoft is fo truly excellent and inimitable, that I dare fay, I fhall need no apology with the reader for giving it, whole and entire. The Ghoft, in peaking of the horrors of purgatory, fays, he was confin'd to faft in fires; upon which Mr. Theobald judicioufly obferves, that it is the opinion of the religion here reprefented (the Roman catholic) that fafting purifies the foul here, as the fire does in the purgatory here alluded to; and the foul must be purg'd either by fafting here, or burning hereafter. This opinion, Shakespear again hints at, where he makes Hamkt fay, He took my father grofly, full of bread: and we are to obferve, it is a common faying of the Romish priests to their people, " If you won't faft here, you must faft in fire."-It is a little furprifing any commentator on our author, after this obfervation, could think of altering the paffage and miferably degrading it either into,

Confin'd too fast in fires: Or, Confined fast in fires :

both of which to every true reader of Shakespear, carry their own conviction: he could never have exprefs'd himself fo meanly on fuch an occafion, nor would have made his ghoft talk of being confined faft or to faft in fires: confin'd in fires had been enough,

and

Ham. Speak; I am bound to hear.

Ghoft. So art thou to revenge when thou fhalt hear.

Ham. What?

Ghoft. I am thy father's fpirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confin'd to faft in fires,

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 cou'd a tale unfold, whofe lightest word
Would harrow up thy foul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine;
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood: lift, lift, Ɔ, lift!
If thou did'ft ever thy dear father love.
Ham. O, heaven!

Ghoft

and much more poetical, was that all he had to have inform'd us of. The words burnt and purg'd away, fhew the propriety of the reading in the text. When the Ghost, in telling his fon, he was glad to find him fo ready for revenge-adds, duller fhouldft thou be than the fat weed that roots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf wouldst thou not fir in this(for should and would are quite proper in their places; fo we fay, I fhould have efteem'd you a coward wou'd you not have done fo and fo, and indeed the words are ufed very licentiously the one for the other) when I fay, the Ghaft talks of Lethe's wharf, we fee the fame inconfiftence as in Michael Angelo's famous picture of the laft judgment, where he introduces Charon's bark: Mr. Warburton observes, poffibly Shakepcar might do it to infinuate to the zealous proteftants of his time, that the pagan and popish purgatory stood both upon the fame footing of credibility. Tao, in his Gierusalemma Liberato, very licentiously mixes the Chriftian and heathen fyftem, tho' he is writing a Christian poem, and in one stanza calls the devil,

The ancient foe to man, and mortal feed,

yet in the immediately fubfequent ones, he introduces Silenus, the Iphinges, centaurs, gorgons, &c.-See C. 4. S. 1, 4, 5.

VOL. II.

L

Ghoft. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.
Ham. Murder!

Ghost. Murder moft foul, as in the best it is;
But this moft foul, ftrange, and unnatural.

Ham. Hafte me to know it, that I with wings as fwift As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

May fweep to my revenge.

Ghof. I find thee apt,

And duller fhouldst thou be than the fat weed
That roots itself in ease on Lethe's wharf,

Wouldst thou not ftir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear;
"Tis given out that, fleeping in my garden,

A ferpent stung me; fo the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,
The ferpent that did fting thy father's heart,
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic foul, my uncle!

Ghoft. Ay, that inceftuous, that adulterate beaft,
With witchcraft of his wits, with trait'rous gifts,
(O wicked wits, and gifts that have the power.
So to feduce ;) won to his fhameful luft

The will of my moft feeming virtuous queen.
O, Hamlet, what a falling off was there!
From me, whofe love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To thofe of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heav'n;
So vice, tho' to a radiant angel link'd,
Will fate itself in a celeftial bed,

And prey on garbage

But foft; methinks, I fcent the morning air,
Brief let me be: fleeping within my garden,
My cuftom always of the afternoon,
Upon my fecure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of curfed hebenon in a viol,

And

And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous diftilment, whofe effect
Holds fuch an enmity with blood of man,
That fwift as quickfilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And, with a fudden vigor, it doth poffet
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood; fo did it mine,
And a most instant tetter bark'd about,

Moft lazar-like, with vile and loathfome cruft,
All my fmooth body.

Thus was I, fleeping, by a brother's hand,

Of life, of crown, of queen at once difpatch'd;
Cut off even in the bloffoms of my fin,
(14) Unhousell'd, unanointed, unaneal'd,

No

(14) Unboufel'd, &c.] This line has created the editors much trouble: both the words and the sense of them having been difputed. The old editions read, unhouzzell'd, disappointed, unaneal'd.—Of the fignification of the first word their is no difpute, all agreeing, unboufel'd means, without having receiv'd the (boufel) hoft, or eucharift: the fecond, Mr. Theobald alters to unappointed which he explns by, "no confeffion of fins inade, no reconciliation to heaven, no appointment of penance by the church." This reading is generally difregarded, and we find unanointed almoft univerfally prevail, the fenfe of which, as indifputably as of the firft word in the line, is determined to be, without extreme unction: naneal d, now alone remains unconfider'd; Mr. Theobald Yays, it muft fignify, without extreme unction; Mr. Pope explains it by no knell rung: the Oxford editor, by unprepared; and his expli cation is certainly most juft: "to anneal or neal in its primitive and proper fenfe, is to prepare metals or glafs by the force of fire, for the different ufes of the manufactures in them: and this is here applied by the author in a figurative fenfe to a dying perfon, who when prepared by impreffions of piety, by repentance, confeffion, abfolution, and other acts of religion, may be faid to be annneakd for death." Thus, as it fees, the fenfe of the words is clear, and the paffage plain. I ap prehend the word fhould certainly have been unakn ll'd, to bear the fenfe Mr. Pope gives it: however, be that as it will, we must certainly allow Mr. Pope to have been a proper commentator here. There are more arguments ftill to fupport the reading in the text: an attentive perfon muft find great pleasure, in looking, as it were, into the mind of his author;