Now Horatio's reply would have loft its poinancy, had Hamlet called his uncle, a paddock; for furely a toad or paddock is a much viler animal than an ass.

4

Again, in that well-known place where the ghost speaks to Hamlet, nothing, as it feems to me, should be altered but a trifling spelling:

" "Cut off even in the bloffoms of my fin, "Unhouzzled, disappointed, unaneal'd.”

UNHOUSEL'D, i. e. not having received the facrament. Houfel, is the eucharift or facrament. Sax. hull. Lat. boftiola: to housel, is to give

4

The word is ftill us'd in fome parts of England; from the AngloS. pada, bufo. Germ. padde. So in Macbeth. A& I.

66 I Witch. I come, I come Grimalkin.

66 2

A familiar calls with the voice of a cat. Witch. Padock calls."

Another familiar calls with the croaking of a toad.

This Paffage in Macbeth has not been rightly understood. 5 Mr. Theobald has very rightly explain'd this paffage : but why instead of disappointed he substitutes unappointed, I can't find any reafon; nor does he himself give any. In fome editions, without any authority or critical kill, they have printed,

Unhoufel'd, unanointed, unanneal'd.

the facrament to one on his death-bed: And Certes ones a year at left it is lawful to be boufeled. Chaucer in the parfon's tale, p. 212.

Spencer. B. 1. c. 12. ft. 37.

"His own two hands, for fuch a turn most fit, "The bouling fire did kindle and provide, "And holy water thereon sprinkled wide."

6

i. e. the facramental fire. Alluding to the ancient custom of marriages. DISAPPOINTED, having miffed of my appointment by the priest; not confeffed and been absolved. Appointment is fo used in Measure for Measure, Act III. Your best appointment make with speed; i. e. what reconciliation for your fins, what penance is appointed you. UNANNEIL'D, not having the last anneylynge, extreme unction: aneled, anoyled, from the Lat. oleo inutus. This word I find used by Holingfhed, in the life of

6 See Plutarch. In Quæft. Roman. And hence Ovid is to be explained in Epift. XIII. . 9. Hypermnestra to Lynceus.

"Me pater IGNE licet, QUEM NON VIOLAVIMUS, urat♪' And Lib. II. Art. Amat. . 597.

Ifta viri captent (fi jam captanda putabunt) "Quos faciunt juftos IGNIS et unda viros.”

K. John;

K. John; fpeaking of the interdiction laid on the King and this land by the Pope, he adds, "It was not fo ftreit, for there were diverfe

places occupied with divine fervice all that "time, by certeine priviledges purchased either

then or before. Children were also christened, "and men houseled and annoiled through all "the land, except fuch as were in the bill of "excommunication by name expreffed." I cannot here but admire the ignorance as well as boldness of those editors, who have changed this undoubtedly genuine reading.

In Othello, Ac V.

"I've rubb'd this young Quat almost to the sense "And he grows angry.

Iago is fpeaking of Roderigo, a quarrelfome and lewd young fellow. Now of all birds a Quail is the moft quarrelfome and lewd, a fit emblem of this rake. The Romans fought them as we fight our cocks. Ovid. Amor. L. II. eleg. VI.

Ecce coturnices inter fua praelia vivunt.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. Antony fays of Octavius, His quails ever beat mine. The lewdness of this bird is mention'd by Xenophon

in his memoirs of Socrates, L. II. c. 1. Oux καὶ ἄλλα ὑπὸ λανείας, οἷον οἵτε ΟΡΤΥΓΕΣ καὶ δι πέρδικες πρὸς τὴν τῆς θηλείας φωνὴν τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ καὶ τῇ ἐλπίδι τῶν ἀφροδισίων φερόμενοι, καὶ ἐξιςάμενοι τὸ τὰ δεινὰ αναλογίζεσθαι, τοῖς θηράτροις ἐμπίπτεσιν ; Are there not other creatures that by reason of their wantonnefs, as quails and partridges, whith thro' a lafcivious defire of their females run to their call, void of all fenfe of danger, and thus fall into the fportfmen's fnares? Hence it seems no bad etymology which fome give of this word quail, deriving it from the Greek xaλ, in allufion to it's calling for it's mate. In Troilus and Creffida, A&t V. young wanton wenches are metaphorically named quails. Therfites calls Agamemnon, An honeft fellow and one that loves quails. The quail therefore, male or female, is a juft emblem of the followers of Venus in either fex. But confidering it too as a fighting bird, how properly is it apply'd to Roderigo, who foolishly followed Desdemona, and at last, quarrelling with Caffio, was killed in the fray? Can we doubt then, but that Shakespeare originally intended to write,

"I've rubb'd this young quail almost to the sense, "And he grows angry

He intended, I fay, to write, 'as he perhaps then fpelt it, quale, and omitting the last letter, the tranfcriber

transcriber gave us a strange kind of word, which fome of the editors have alter'd into knot and quab: the meaning of which words, as applicable to this place, is not in my power to explain.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Act II,

"Antony. Say to me, whofe fortune fhall "rife higher,

"Caefar's or mine?

Soothsayer. "Caefar's. Therefore, O Antony, "ftay not by his fide.

"Thy Daemon (that's thy fpirit which keeps "thee) is

"Noble, couragious, high, unmatchable, "Where Caefar's is not. But near him thy "Angel

"Becomes A FEAR, as being o'erpower'd; and "therefore

"Make space enough between you."

A letter is here omitted, and we must read afeard. So the word is fpelt in Spencer, B. VI. c. I. ft. 19.

"Against him ftoutly ran, as nought AFEARD." 'Tis often used by Shakespeare. Merry Wives of Windfor, Act III. Slend. I care not for that,