That from her working, all his vifage (18) warm'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his afpect,

A broken voice, and his whole function fuiting
With forms to his conceit, and all for nothing,-
For Hecuba?

What's

(18) Warm'd] Mr. Warburton reads, wan'd, i. e. turn'd pale or wan, for which he has the authority of the old quarto: the paffage here is very confufed, and the grammar very difficult to be made out: which is an inftance of the author's great knowledge of nature, in thus making Hamlet's language to express the present hurry and fluctuation of his mind: I have often doubted the words, with forms. The words, Ha? why I shou'd take it are from the folio: 'tis read in the other editions, yet I fhou'd take it any reader of taste will immediately fee the fuperior force and energy in the reading here adopted: he, as it were, deliberates with himself -Ha---why I fhould take even this, for it cannot be but I am, &c.Soon after which, he runs into a wild denouncing of revenge; and in the folio, ends with, Oh, vengeance, as it is here printed, which I admire the late editors have omitted; as to me, it conveys a great beauty. He is going on with his fiery and zealous indignation, and calls out Oh, vengeance to which, when he is preparing to fay fomething, by a most elegant break, he returns to himself, and as it were recollecting, criesWhy, what an afs am I ?———This is moft brave, &c.

Nothing can exceed the compliment Shakespear pays his own art, in the following lines: it is generally imagined he alludes to a story told of Alexander, a tyrant of Pherea in Thaly, who being prefent at a play of Euripides, called the Troades, was fo fenfibly touch'd that he withdrew from the theatre before the tragedy was concluded: being athamed, as he himself confeffed, that he, who never had any pity for thofe he murdered, thould weep at the fufferings of Hecuba and Andromache. The reader, if he turns back to the 24th page, will find a fpeech there expreffing the fame dread Hamlet entertains of this fpirit's being a wicked one fent to abufe him: Oreftes too, in the Electra of Euripides entertains the fame doubt that Hamlet does :

Oreftes. Αρ αυτ' αλατωρ ειπ απεικ σθεις θεω;
Eleftra. Ιερου καθίζων τριποδ'; εγω μεν ο δόχων

Oreft. Hath not fome evil spirit fpoke these things,
Affuming the gods likeness?

Elt. On his feat,

The facred tripod? I by no means think fo.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What wou'd he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for paffion
That I have? he would drown the ftage with tears,
And cleave the gen'ral ear with horrid fpeech,
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears; yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rafcal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my caufe,
And can fay nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whofe property and moft dear life
A damn'd defeat was made: am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across,
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face,
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i'th'throat,
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha! why, I fhould take it--for it cannot be,
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall

To make oppreffion bitter, or ere this

I fhould have fatted all the region kites

With this flave's offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorfelefs, treacherous, leacherous, kindlefs villain?
Oh, vengeance!-

Why, what an afs am I? This is most brave,
That I, the fon of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Muft, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a curfing like a very drab ;

A (19) feullion,-fie upon't-foh! about my brain!
I have heard that guilty creatures at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been ftruck fo to the foul, that prefently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions:

For

(19) A Scullion] The foregoing word, drab, feems to countenance faullion: like a drab, a fcullion, the very meanest and lowest of the vulgar. Mr. Theobald propofed, and the Oxford editor has adopted, cullion, i. e. a mean-fpirited, white-liver'd fellow, a bully, a stupid cuddon. Ital. Coglione.

For murder, tho' it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have thefe players
Play fomething like the murder of my father,
Before my uncle; I'll obferve his looks,
I'll tent him to the quick; if he but blench,
I know my courfe. The fpirit that I have seen
May be the devil; and the devil may have power
To affume a pleafing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weaknefs and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with fuch fpirits,)
Abufes me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this; the play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the confcience of the king,

ACT III. SCENE I.

Hypocrify.

We are oft to blame in this,

"Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's vifage, And pious action, we do fugar o'er

The devil himself.

King. O, tis too true:

How fmart a lafh that fpeech doth give my confcience!
The harlot's cheek beautied with plaft'ring art,

Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,
Than is my deed to my most painted word.

SCENE II. Life and Death weigh'd.

(20) To be, or not to be? that is the question ;Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer

The

(20) For a particular inftance of the difference betwixt the poet and the genius, let us go to two fpeeches upon the very fame fubject by thofe two authors: I mean the two famous foliloquies of Caro and Hamlet. The fpeech of the first is that of a fcholar, a philofopher, and a man of virtue: all the fentiments

་་

The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
(21) Or to take arms against a fea of troubles,

And

of fuch a fpeech are to be acquired by instruction, by reading, by converfation: Cato talks the language of the porch and academy. Hamlet, on the other hand, fpeaks that of the human heart, ready to enter upon a deep, a dreadful, a decifive act: his is the real language of mankind, of its highest to its lowest order; from the king to the cottager; from the philofopher to the peafant. It is a language which a man may speak without learning; yet no learning can improve, nor philofophy mend it. This cannot be faid of Cato's fpeech. It is dictated from the head rather than the heart; by courage rather than nature. It is the fpeech of pre-determined refolution, and not of human infirmity: it is the language of uncertainty, not of perturbation; it is the language of doubting; but of fuch doubts, as the fpeaker is prepared to cut afander if he cannot refolve them. The words of Cato are not like thofe of Hamki, the emanations of the foul; they are therefore improper for a foliloquy, where the difcourfe is fuppofed to be held with the heart, that fountain of truth. Cale feems instructed as to all his doubts: while irrefolute he appearsdetermined; and befpeaks his quarters, while he queftions whether there is lodging. How different from this is the conduct.cf Shakespear on the fame occafion! See Guthrie's Essay on Tragedy, p. 25, 26. and p. 97. Vol. II.

(21) Or to, &c.] The critics greatly difgufted at the impropriety of Shakespear's metaphors, and not conceiving what he could mean by taking arms against a fea, have either inferted in their text, or propofed, affail or affailing, and the like: but there is none fo frigid a reader of Shakespear, as to admit fuch alterations. Propriety in his metaphors, was never one of the concerns of our author: fo that if we were to correct every place where we find ill-jin'd metaphors, we may alter many of his finest paffages: the expreffion of taking arms, fignifies no more than putting ourselves in a ftate of oppofition and defence; by a fea of troubles, according to the common ufe of the word fea, in the poets and other writers, he expreffes no more than a confluence, a vast quantity, &c.-befides, a fia of troubles, is generally used to exprefs the approach of human ills, and the misfortunes that flow in upon us, and it was among the Greeks a proverbial expreffion, xaxwv baλacoa. Thus we may in a good meafure juftify the expreffion; at leaft it is plain enough to be understood, and I think we may with as much certainty. pronounce it genuine, as fome critics pronounce it falfe.

When I read over the Hippolitus of Euripides, I mark'd a paffage greatly fimilar to the following lines; and on reading Mr.

Whalley

And by oppofing end them? To die,-to fleep;
No more; and by a fleep, to say, we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural fhocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a confummation
Devoutly to be with'd. To die,-to fleep;

Whalley on Shakespear's learning, found he had likewife remarka it. "We come next," fays he, " to the celebrated foliloquy in the 3d act, which feems fo peculiarly the production of Shakefpear, that you would hardly imagine it can be parallel'd in all antiquity. Yet I will produce fome examples of the fame kind; one of which at least will fhew how nearly two great tragedians could think upon the fame fubject. A learned gentleman has taken notice of the conformity which there is between a paffage in Plato's apology for Socrates, and the following lines of this fpeech. The fentiment of Plato is to this purpofe; If, fays he, there be no fenfation after death, but as when one fleeps, and fees no dream, death were then an inestimable gain. And the verfes of the poet are thefe which follow;

No more

-To die! to fleep!

-and by a fleep to fay we end The heart-ach, Sc.-

To fleep! perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub, &

And the whole has a remarkable fimilitude with thefe verfés in the Hippolitus of Euripides;

How full of forrow are the days of man,

Of endless labour and unceafing woe!

And what fucceeds, our hopes but ill prefage,
For clouds conceal, and darkness rests upon it.
Yet ftill we fuffer light,, averse to life:

* Translation of Tryphiodorus, p. 76.

Still