to make the matter favoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the author of affection: but call'd it, an honeft method, as wholesome as fweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One fpeech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Eneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's flaughter: If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me fee, let me fee ;

The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beaft,~'tis not fo; it begins with Pyrrhus.

The rugged Pyrrhus,-be, whofe fable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous borse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more difmal; head to foot
Now is he total gules3; horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, fons ;
Bak'd and impafted with the parching ftreets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light

1

9 that might indite the author-] Indite, for convict. WARB. indite the author of affection:] i, e. convict the author of being a fantastical affected writer. Maria calls Malvolio an affection'd afs, . e. an affected afs; and in Love's Labour's Loft, Nathaniel tells the Pedant, that his reasons "bave been witty without affection."

Again, in the tranflation of Caftiglione's Courtier, by Hobby, 1556: "Among the chiefe conditions and qualityes in a waiting-gentlewo→ man," is, "to flee affection or curiofity," STEEVENS.

- but call'd it, an boneft method,-] Hamlet is telling how much his judgment differed from that of others. One faid, there was no falt in the lines, &c. but called it an boneft method. The author probably gave it, but I called it an boneft method, &c. JOHNSON.

-an boneft method,-] Honeft for cbafe. WARBURTON.

2- as wholefome, &c.] This paffage was recovered from the quartos by Dr. Johnfon. STEEVENS.

3 Now is be total gules;] Gules is a term in the barbarous jargon peculiar to heraldry, and fignifies red. Shakspeare has it again in Timon & "With man's blood paint the ground; gules, gules." Heywood, in the fecond part of the Iron Age, has made a verb from it:

66

old Hecuba's reverend locks

"Be gul'd in flaughter." STEEVENS.

➡trick'd➡] i, e. fmeared, painted. An heraldick term. See

Vel. III. p. 358, n. 8. MALONE.

To their lord's murder: Roafted in wrath, and fire, And thus o'er-fixed with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandfire Priam feeks :-So proceeed you 3. Pol. Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion.

1. Play. Anon he finds him

Striking too fhort at Greeks; his antique fword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: Unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage, ftrikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell fword
The unnerved father falls. Then fenfeless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his bafe; and with a hideous crash
Takes prifoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! bis fword
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, feem'd i' the air to flick:
So, as a painted tyrants, Pyrrhus flood;
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.

But, as we often fee, against fome form,
A filence in the heavens, the rack ftand still,
The bold winds Speechless, and the orb below
As hufh as death: anon, the dreadful thunder

3 So proceed you.] Thefe words are not in the folio. MALONE. 4 But with the whiff and wind of bis fell sword

The unnerved father falls.] So, as Mr. Stevens has observed, in Dido, Queen of Caribage, a tragedy, by Marlowe and Nashe, 1594: Which he diidaining, whisk'd his fword about,

"And with the wind thereof the king fell down."

The king here spoken of is Priam. MALONE.

5 as a painted tyrant-] Shakspeare was probably here thinking of the tremendous perfonages often reprefented in old tapeftry, whofe uplifted fwords fick in the air, and do nothing. MALONE.

6

- as we often fee, against fome ftorm,

The bold winds fpeechless, and the orb below

As hush as death:] So, in Venus and Adonis:

"Even as the wind is bufb'd before it raineth."

This line leads me to fufpect that Shakspeare wrote the bold wind fpeechless. Many fimilar miftakes have happened in these plays, where one word ends with the fame letter with which the next begins. MALONE.

Doth

Doth rend the region: So, after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roufed vengeance fets him new a work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Marses armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
With less remorfe than Pyrrhus' bleeding word
Now falls on Priam.-

Out, out, thou ftrumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general fynod, take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!

Pol. This is too long.

Ham. It fhall to the barber's, with your beard.Pr'ythee, fay on:-He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he fleeps:-fay on: come to Hecuba.

1. Play. But who, ah woe! had feen the mabled queen

7-be's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry] A jig, in our poet's time fignified a ludicrous metrical compofition, as well as a dance. Here it is ufed in the former fenfe. So, in Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: <<< Frottola, a countrie jigg, or round, or countrie fong, or wanton veries. See Vol. X. p. 334, n. 3, and the Hiftorical Account of the English Stage, &c. in Vol. I. Part II. MALONE.

But who, ah woe!] Thus the quarto, except that it has a woe. A is printed instead of ab in various places in the old copies. Woe was formerly ufed adjectively for woeful. So,in Antony and Cleopatra: "Woe, woe are we, fir, you may not live to wear

"All your true followers out."

The folio reads-But who, O who, &c. MALONE.

9-the mabled queen-] The mabled queen, (or mobled queen, as it is fpelt in the quarto,) means, the queen attired in a large, coarse, and careless head-drefs. A few lines lower we are told fhe had "a clout upon that head, where late the diadem ftood." The word is used (as Dr. Warburton has obferved) by Sandys in his travels. Speaking of the Turkish women, he fays, "their heads and faces are mabled in fine linen, that no more is to be seen of them than their eyes."

To mab, (which in the North is pronounced mob, and hence the fpelling of the old copy in the present instance,) fays Ray in his Dict. of North Country words, is "to drefs carelefly. Mabs are flatterns."

The ordinary morning head-drefs of ladies continued to be diftinguifhed by the name of a mab, to almost the end of the reign of George the fecond. The folio reads-the inobled queen. MALONE. Mobled fignifies buddled, grofly covered. JOHNSON.

I meet with this word in Shirley's Gentleman of Venice: "The moon does mobble up herfelf." FARMER.

T3

Ham.

Ham. The mabled queen?

Pol. That's good; mabled queen is good.

1. Play. Run barefoot up and down, threat'ning the flames
With biffon rheum; a clout upon that bead,
Where late the diadem ftood; and, for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,

A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this bad feen, with tongue in venom freep'd,
'Gainft fortune's state would treafon bave pronounc'd :
But if the gods themselves did fee her then,
When he jaw Pyrrhus make malicious fport
In mincing with his word her husband's limbs ;
The inftant burst of clamour that she made,
(Unless things mortal move them not at all,)
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And paffion in the gods.

2

Pol. Look, whether he has not turn'd his colour, and has tears in's eyes.-Pr'ythee, no more.

Ham. 'Tis well; I'll have thee speak out the reft of this foon.-Good my lord, will you fee the players well bestow'd? Do you hear, let them be well ufed; for they are the abstract, and brief chronicles, of the time: After your death you were better have a bad epitaph, than their ill report while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will ufe them according to their defert.

Ham. Odd's bodikin, man, much better: Ufe every man after his defert, and who fhall 'fcape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: The lefs they deferve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Pol. Come, firs.

With biffon rbeum;-] Biffon or beefen, i. e. blind. A word ftill in ufe in fome parts of the north of England.

So in Coriolanus: "What harm can your biffon conspectuities glean out of this character?" STEEVENS.

2-made milch-] Drayton in the 13th Song of his Polyolbion gives this epithet to dew: "Exhaling the milch dew," &c, STIEVENS.

Ham.

Ham. Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.-Doft thou hear me, old friend; can you play the murder of Gonzago?

1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. We'll have it to-morrow night. You could, for a need, ftudy a fpeech of fome dozen or fixteen lines, which I would fet down, and infert in't? could you not? 1. Play. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Very well.-Follow that lord; and look you mock him not. [Exeunt POLONIUS and Players.] My good friends, [to Rof. and Guil.] I'll leave you till night you are welcome to Elfinore.

Rof. Good my lord!

[Exeunt Rof, and Guil. Ham. Ay, fo, God be wi' you :-Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peafant flave am I !

Is it not monftrous, that this player here 3,
But in a fiction, in a dream of paffion,
Could force his foul fo to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his vifage wann'd*;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in 's afpéct ',

A broken

3 Is it not monftrous, that this player bere,] It should feem from the complicated nature of such parts as Hamlet, Lear, &c. that the time of Shakspeare had produced many excellent performers. He would fcarce have taken the pains to form characters which he had no profpect of feeing reprefented with force and propriety on the stage. STEEV. 4 That, from ber working, all bis vifage wann'd,

Tears in his eyes, diftraction in's afpét,] Wan'd (wann'd it fhould have been spelt,) is the reading of the quarto, which Dr. Warbur ton, I think rightly, restored. The folio reads warm'd, for which Mr. Steevens contends in the following note.

"The working of the foul, and the effort to fhed tears, will give a colour to the actor's face, instead of taking it away. The vifage is always warm'd and flush'd by any unufual exertion in a passionate fpeech; but no performer was ever yet found, I believe, whofe feelings were of fuch exquifite fenfibility as to produce palenefs in any fituation in which the drama could place him. But if players were indeed poffeffed of that power, there is no fuch circumftance in the fpeech uttered before Hamlet, as could introduce the wanness for which Dr. Warburton contends."

Whether an actor can produce paleness, it is, I think, unneceflary to inquire. That Shakspeare thought he could, and confidered the (peech in queftion as likely to produce wanness, is proved decifively