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Ham. In the fecret parts of fortune? O, most true; fhe is a ftrumpet. What news?

Rof. None, my lord; but that the world's grown honeft. Ham. Then is dooms-day near: But your news is not

Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deferved at the hands of fortune, that the fends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prifon, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Rof. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

Rof. We think not fo, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 'tis none to you; for there is no thing either good or bad, but thinking makes it fo: to me it is a prifon.

Rof. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have had dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very fubftance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.

Rof. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality, that it is but a fhadow's fhadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our mo

3 Let me, &c.] From here to the word attended in p. 261, 1.7, (as Mr. Steevens has obferved,) is wanting in the quarto. MALONE. 4 the shadow of a dream.] Shakipeare has accidentally inverted an expreffion of Pindar, that the state of humanity is ona rag, the dream of a fhadow. JOHNSON.

So Davies:

"Man's life is but a dreame, nay, less than fo,
"A shadow of a dreame." FARMER.

So, in the tragedy of Darius, 1603, by Lord Sterline:

"Whole beit was but the shadow of a dream." STEEVENS. 5 Then are our beggars, bodies;-] Shakspeare feems here to defign a ridicule of thofe declamations against wealth and greatness, that seem to make happiness confift in poverty. JOHNSON.

narchs,

narchs, and out-ftretch'd heroes, the beggars' fhadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason. Ros. Guil. We'll wait upon you.

Ham. No fuch matter: I will not fort you with the reft of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am moft dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elfinore?

Rof. To vifit you, my lord; no other occafion.

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and fure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a half-penny. Were you not fent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free vifitation? Come, come; deal juftly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we fay, my lord?

Ham. Any thing-but to the purpose. You were fent for; and there is a kind of confeffion in your looks, which your modefties have not craft enough to colour; I know, the good king and queen have fent for you.

Ref. To what end, my lord?

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the confonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preferved love, and by what more dear a better propofer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent for, or no?

Rof. What fay you?

Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of me, hold not off.

Guil. My lord, we were fent for.

[to Guil.

you ;-if

you love

Ham. I will tell you why; fo fhall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your fecrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, (but, where

fore

too dear, a balf-penny.] i. e. a half-penny too dear: they are

worth nothing. The modern editors read-at a half-penny.

MALONE.

Nay, then I bave an eye of you ;-] An eye of you means, I have

a glimpse of your meaning. STEEVENS.

7 I have of late, &c.] This is an admirable defcription of a rooted melancholy fprung from thickness of blood; and artfully imagined to

S3

hide

fore, I know not,) loft all my mirth, forgone 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, look you, this brave o'er-hanging fir mament, 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 a man! How noble in reason! 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 not me,-nor woman neither; though, by your fmiling, you feem to fay fo.

Rof. My lord, there was no fuch stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh then, when I faid, Man des lights not me?

Rof. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment' the players fhall receive from you: we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to offer you service.

Ham.

hide the true cause of his disorder from the penetration of these two friends, who were fet over him as fpies. WARBURTON.

8 — this brave o'er-banging firmament,] Thus the quarto. The folio reads, this brave o'er-hanging, this, &c. STEEVENS.

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this most excellent canopy, the air, this majestical roof fretted

with golden fire,] So, in our authour's 2 1ft fonnet:

"As those gold candles, fix'd in heaven's air."

Again, in the Merchant of Venice:

Look, how the floor of beaven

"Is thick inlaid with patins of bright gold!" MALONE. lenten entertainment-] i. e. fparing, like the entertainments given in Lent. So, in the Duke's Mftrefs, by Shirley, 1638: 66 - to maintain you with bifket,

"Poor John, and half a livery, to read moral virtue
"And lenten lectures." STEEVENS.

2 We coted them on the way;-] To cote is to overtake. I meet with this word in The Return from Parneffus, a comedy, 1606:

"marry we presently coted and outftript them.” Again, in Warner's Albions England, 1602, book 6, chap. 30: "Gods and goddeffes for wantonnefs out-cored."

Ham. He that plays the king, fhall be welcome; his majefty fhall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight fhall use his foil, and target: the lover fhall not figh gratis; the humorous man fhall end his part in peace: the clown fhall make those laugh, whose lungs are tickled o' the fere; and the lady shall say her mind freely 3, or

Again, in Drant's translation of Horace's satires, 1567:

For he that thinks to coat all men, and all to overgoe." Chapman has more than once used the word in his verfion of the 23d Iliad.

In the laws of courfing, fays Mr. Tollet, "a cote is when a greyhound goes endways by the fide of his fellow, and gives the hare a turn." This quotation feems to point out the etymology of the verb to be from the French coté, the fide. STEEVENS.

2 the clown fhall make thofe laugh whofe lungs are tickled o' the fere ;] i. e. those who are afthmatical, and to whom laughter is moft uneasy. This is the cafe (as I am told) with those whofe lungs are tickled by the fere or ferum: but about this paffage I am neither very confident, nor very folicitous.

The word feare occurs as unintelligibly in an ancient Dialogue be tweene the Comen Secretary and Jealowfy, touchynge the unftablenes of barlottes, bl. 1. no date:

"And wyll byde whyfperynge in the eare,

"Thynke ye her tayle is not lyght of the feare."

The fere is likewise a part about a hawk. STEEVENS.

Thefe words are not in the quarto. I am by no means satisfied with the explanation given, though I have nothing fatisfactory to propose. I believe Hamlet only means, that the clown fhall make thofe laugh who have a difpofition to laugh; who are pleased with their entertain ment. That no asthmatick disease was in contemplation, may be inferred from both the words ufed, tickled and lungs; each of which feems to have a relation to laughter, and the latter to have been confidered by Shakspeare, as (if I may so express myself,) its natural seat. So, in Coriolanus:

"-with a kind of fmile,

"Which ne'er came from the lungs,-,"

Again, in As you Like it:

When I did hear

"The motley fool thus moral on the time,

"My lungs began to crow like chanticleer."

O' the fere, or of the fere, means, I think, by the fere; but the word fere I am unable to explain, and fufpect it to be corrupt. Perhaps we fhould read-the clown fhall make those laugh, whofe lungs are tickled o' the fcene, i. e. by the scene. A fimilar corruption has happened in another place, where we find fcare for scene. See Vol. I. p. 291, n. 3• MALONE.

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the lady fhall fay ber mind, &c.] The lady fhall have no obftruction, unless for the lameness of the verse. JOHNSON. S 4

the

the blank verfe fhall halt for't.-What players are

they?

Rof. Even thofe you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.

Ham. How chances it, they travel? their refidence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Rof. I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Ham.

4 How chances it, they travel?] To travel, in Shakspeare's time was the technical word, for which we have fubftituted to ftroll. So, in the Office-book of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels to king Charles the First, a manufcript of which an account is given in Vol. I. Part the fecond: "1622. Feb. 27, for a certificate for the Palfgrave's fervants to travel into the country for fix weeks, 10s." Again, in Ben Jonson's Poetafter, 1601; "If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travell, with thy pumps full of gravell, any more, after a blinde jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boords and barrel-heads to an old crackt trumpet." These words are addressed to a player. MALONE,

5 I think, their inhibition, &c.] I fancy this is tranfpofed: Hamlet enquires not about an inhibition, but an innovation; the answer therefore probably was, I think, their innovation, that is, their new practice of ftrolling, comes by means of the late inhibition. JOHNSON.

The drift of Hamlet's queftion appears to be this. How chances it they travel?i. e. How happens it they are become frollers?Their refidence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.-i. e. to bave remained in a fettled theatre, was the more bonourable as well as the more lucrative fituation. To this, Rofencrantz replies-Their inbibition comes by means of the late innovation.-i. e. their permiffion to act any longer at an established boufe is taken away, in confequence of the NEW CUSTOM of introducing perfonal abuse into their comedies. Several companies of actors in the time of our author were filenced on account of this licentious practice. See a dialogue between Comedy and Envy at the conclufion of Mucedorus 1598, as well as the Preludium to Ariftippus, or the Jovial Pbilofopber, 1630, from whence the following paffage is taken: "Shews having been long intermitted and forbidden by authority, for their abuses, could not be raifed but by conjuring." Shew enters, whipped by two furies, and the prologue fays to her :

-with tears wash off that guilty fin,

"Purge out thofe ill-digefted dregs of wit,
"That ufe their ink to blot a spotless name:
"Let's have no one particular man traduc'd,—

fpare the perfons," &c.

Alteration therefore in the order of the words feems to be quite un

neceffary. STEEVENS,

There

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