No reckoning made, but fent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! moft horrible!
If thou haft nature in thee, bear it not,
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But howfoever thou purfu'ft this act,

Taint

and, as our thoughts on any fubject always fucceed in train, and are nicely affeciated, be much delighted with finding out that train, and tracing thofe affociations. Let us fee if we cannot do fo in this paffage: the poet is fpeaking of the misfortune of being cut off in the bloffom of our fins, when we have had no means to atone for them, or to receive the benefits of religion : thefe benefits then must naturally arife in the mind: the greatest of which it is natural to fuppofe would occur firft, the blessed saerament, the immediate confequence of which is, extreme unction, two fo important and neceffary branches of duty, that the lofs of thefe was the lofs of all, and we may reasonably expect he fhould particularize no more, but add-I was not only deprived of thefe, but also of every other preparation, and without any kind of reckoning made, fent to my laft and horrible account. If we were to admit Mr. Pope's fenfe of the word, we must imagine our author's thoughts carried ftill farther; "without the hoft, without unction, without enjoying the benefits of the taffing bell," which used to toll while the perfon lay expiring, and thence was fo called: nay, this fhocking custom ftill prevails in fome parts of England. The run of the line is no bad argument in fupport of the reading in the text: this manner of bcginning each word with the fame fyllable is not unfrequent with the Greek tragedians, nor our best poets; and befides it adds great strength and beauty.

Unrefpited, unpitied, unreprov'd.

Milton Par. Loft. B. 2. 125.

Umfhaken, unfeduc'd, unterrified.

-B. 5. 899.

And numberless other inftances, if neceffary, might easily be brought. Mr. Upton explains difappointed and unaneal'd the fame as Mr. Theobald, whom he condemns for altering disappointed; which he esteems the genuine reading, and tells us," He cannot but admire the ignorance as well as boldness of those editors who have changed it." Obfervations on Shakespear, page 181.

Taint not thy mind, (15) nor let thy foul defign
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to thofe thorns that in her bofom lodge,
To goad and fting her. Fare thee well at once;
The glow-worm fhews the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:

Adieu, adieu, adieu, remember me.

[Exit.

Ham. O, all you host of heaven! O earth! what else? And fhall I couple hell? O, fy! hold, hold, my heart, And you, my finews, grow not inftant old,

But bear me ftiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou

poor Ghof, while memory holds a feat
In this diftracted globe; remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory,
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All faws of books, all forms, all preffures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone fhall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with bafer matter; yes, by heaven;
O, most pernicious woman!

O, villain, villain, fmiling damned villain ;

My tables:-
:-meet it is I fet down,

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;

At least I'm fure he may be fo in Denmark. [Writing. So, uncle, there you are: now to my word,

It is, adieu, adieu; remember me!

АСТ

(15) Nor let, &c.] The author in this noble fentiment, doubtlefs alluded to the well-known ftory of Oreftes, and his mother Clytemnestra. It would be unneceffary to fay any thing concerning the fimilarity of this play to the celebrated Electra of Sophocles; as, I believe, there is scarce an editor or commentator on Shakefpear, that has not mentioned fomething concerning it. The reader, if he thinks proper, may confult Mr. Rowe's Life of the author, (towards the end) or Mr. Gildon's Remarks on Hamlet, or rather, perhaps, than either, Mr. Upton's Obfervations, p. 49. 2d ed. It will too, poffibly, be thought unneceffary to add, that it is reported, all this fine fcene betwixt Hamlet and the Ghoft, was written by Shakespear, in a charnelhouse.

13

ACT II. SCENE II.

Ophelia's Defcription of Hamlet's mad Addrefs to

ber.

(16) My lord, as I was fewing in my closet,
Prince Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd,
No hat upon his head, his stockings loose,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyred to his ankle,
Pale as his fhirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look fo piteous, in purport
As if he had been loofed out of hell

To fpeak of horrors; thus he comes before me.
Pol. Mad for thy love?

Opb. My lord, I do not know,

But truly I do fear it.

Pol. What faid he?

Oph. He took me by the wrift, and held me hard, Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

And with his other hand thus o'er his brow

He falls to fuch perufal of my face,

As he would draw it: long time ftaid he fo;
At last, a little shaking of my arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He rais'd a figh fo piteous and profound,

As

(16) My lord, &c.] Nothing can exprefs the hurry of spirits and agitation of mind Ophelia was in, more naturally than this defcription fhe gives us 'tis another fine inftance of Shakespear's excellence in the Hyperbaton, which the reader will remember we remark'd just before.

The reader will observe it is faid-he came with his stockings Loofe, ungarter'd, and down-gyred to his ankle; that is, roll'd or turn'd down to his ankle; but to me there appears no difference in loofe and ungarter'd, if they were loofe, 'twas unneceffary to add ungarter'd, and fo vice versa: the folios read, foul'd; now this gives another circumftance at leaft, and tho' kofe and ungarter'd might be juftified, yet foul'd expreffes an additional mark of his madness and neglect of himself, and is, therefore, (in my judgment) to be preferr'd: perhaps the reader may think, loofed, ufed in the fubfequent lines, an argument in favour of the word I would fupport.

As it did feem to fhatter all his bulk,

And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And with his head over his shoulder turn'd,
He feem'd to find his without his eyes;

way

For out of doors he went without their helps,
And to the last bended their light on me.

Old-Age.

Befhrew my jealousy,

It feems it is as proper to our age
To caft beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger fort
To lack difcretion.

SCENE VI. Happiness confifts in Opinion.

Why then 'tis none to you:

For there is nothing either good or bad,

But thinking makes it fo:

To me it is a prison.

Hamlet's Account of his own Melancholy, and Reflections on Man.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all mirth, foregone all cuftom of exercises, and indeed it goes fo heavily with my difpofition, that this goodly frame, the earth, feems to me a fteril promontory: this moft excellent canopy the air, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and peftilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man: how noble in reafon! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how exprefs and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehenfion how like a God! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quinteffence of duft? Man delights

L 4

delights not me, nor woman neither, though by your finiling you feem to fay fo (17).

SCENE VIII.

Hamlet's Reflections on the Player and himself.

Q, what a rogue and peafant flave am I ! Is it not monftrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of paffion, Could force his foul fo to his own conceit,

That

(17) We have in the next fcene fome fpeeches from a play, which feems to have been a favourite of Shakspear's: the critics have been greatly divided in their opinions concerning the real excellence of the paffages quoted: it is not my business to determine any thing concerning them, when felecting the Beauties of Shakespea however, in deference to the judgment of our poet, I thought it incumbent upon me to quote the few lines following, which feem to merit all the commendation Shakespear gives them, but particularly the fimile:

-Then fenfelefs Ilum

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his bafe: and with a hideous crash
Takes prifoner Pyrrhus' ear.
For lo! his fword

Which was declining on the milky head

Of rev'rend Priam feem'd to stick i'th'air:

So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter
Did nothing.

But as we often fee, against some storm,

A filence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds fpeechlefs, and the orbs below
As hufh as death: anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region.So after, &c.

Mr. Warburton is of opinion, the play here mentioned was. Shakespear's own: compofed by him on the model of the Greek drama, with a design of restoring the chastness and regularity of the ancient ftage: but failing in the attempt, he was forced back to his old Gothic manner: for which he took this revenge upon his audience.

The reader, if he thinks it worth while, may fee more upon this fubject, in the 8th vol. of Warburton's edition of Shakespear page 267.