The expectancy and rofe of the fair ftate,
The glafs of fashion, and the mould of form",
The obferv'd of all obfervers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That fuck'd the honey of his musick vows,
Now fee that noble and most fovereign reafon,
Like fweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blafted with ecftafy 3: O, woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, fee what I fee!
Re-enter King, and POLONIUS.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madnefs. There's fomething in his foul,
O'er which his melancholy fits on brood;

And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose *,
Will be fome danger: Which for to prevent,

I have, in quick determination,

Thus fet it down; He fhall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the feas, and countries different,
With variable objects, fhall expel

This fomething-settled matter in his heart;

8

the mould of form,] The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. JOHNSON.

9- most deject-] So, in Heywood's Silver Age, 1613:

-What knight is that

"So paffionately deject?" STEEVENS.

I-out of tune-] Thus the folio. The quarto-out of time. STEEV. These two words in the hand-writing of Shakspeare's age are almoft indiftinguishable, and hence are frequently confounded in the old copies. See Vol. IV. p. 40, n. 1. MALONE.

2-and feature-] Thus the folio. The quartos read ftature. STEEV. 3-with ecftafy: The word ecftafy was anciently used to fignify fome degree of alienation of mind.

So G. Douglas, tranflating-ftetit acri fixa dolore:

"In eeftafy the ftood, and mad almait." STEEVENS.

See Vol. IV. p. 361, n. 9. MALONE.

4

the difclofe,] This was the technical term. So, in the Maid of Honour, by Maffinger;

"One aierie with proportion ne'er difclofes
"The eagle and the wren." MALONE,

Whereon his brains ftill beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It fhall do well: But yet do I believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia ?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet faid;
We heard it all.-My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To fhew his grief; let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, fo please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England fend him; or confine him, where
Your wifdom beft fhall think.

King. It fhall be fo:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go. [Exeunt,

A Hall in the fame.

Enter HAMLET, and certain Players.

Ham. Speak the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town-crier fpoke my lines. Nor do not faw the air too much with your hand, thus; but ufe all gently: for in the very torrent, tempeft, and (as I may fay) whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothnefs. O, it offends me to the foul, to hear a robuftious perriwig-pated fellow tear a paffion

to

5-be round with him;] To be round with a perfon, is to repri mand him with freedom. So, in A Mad World my Mafters, by Middleton, 1640; "She's round with her i'faith." MALONE.

6-perriwig-pated-] This is a ridicule on the quantity of falfe hair worn in Shakspeare's time, for wigs were not in common ufe till the eign of Charles II. In the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Julia lays"I'll get me fuch a colour'd perriavig."

Goff, who wrote feveral plays in the reign of James I. and was no mean fcholar, has the following lines in his tragedy of the Courageous Turk, 1632:

to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb thews, and noife: I would have

How now, you heavens,

"Grow you to proud you must needs put on curl'd locks,
"And clothe yourselves in perriwigs of fire?"

fuch

Players, however, feem to have worn them moft generally. So, in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609: "as none wear hoods but monks and ladies; and feathers but fore-horses, &c;-none perriwigs but players and pictures." STEEVENS.

7-the groundlings ;-] The meaner people then feem to have fat below, as they now fit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were fometimes gratified by a mimical and mute reprefentation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. JOHNSON.

Before each act of the tragedy of Jocafia, tranflated from Euripides, by Geo. Gascoigne and Fra. Kinwelmerth, the order of thefe dumb fhews is very minutely defcribed. This play was prefented at Gray's Inn by them in 1566. The mute exhibitions included in it are chiefly emblematical, nor do they difplay a picture of one fingle fcene which is afterwards performed on the ftage. In fome other pieces I have obferved, that they ferve to introduce fuch circumftances as the limits of a play would not admit to be reprefented. Thus in Herod and Antipater, 1622:

"Intreat your worthy patience to contain
"Much in imagination; and, what words
"Cannot bave time to utter, let your eyes,

"Out of this DUMB SHOW, tell your memories."

In short, dumb fhews fometimes fupplied deficiencies, and, at others, filled up the space of time which was neceffary to pafs while bufinefs was fuppofed to be tranfacted in foreign parts. With this method of preferving one of the unities, our ancestors appear to have been fatisfied.

Ben Jonfon mentions the groundlings with equal contempt. "The understanding gentlemen of the ground here."

Again, in The Cafe is Alter'd, 1609:-" a rude barbarous crew, that have no brains, and yet grounded judgments; they will hifs any thing that mounts above their grounded capacities."

In our early play-houfes the pit had neither floor nor benches. Hence the term of groundlings for those who frequented it.

The groundling, in its primitive fignification, means a fish which always keeps at the bottom of the water. STEEVENS.

8- are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shews, and noife:] i. c. have a a capacity for nothing but dumb fhews; underftand nothing elfe. So, in Heywood's Hiftory of Women, 1624: "I have therein

imitated

fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant; it out. herods Herod': Pray you, avoid it.

1. Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham

imitated our bistorical and comical poets, that write to the stage; who, left the auditory fhould be dulled with ferious discourses, in every act prefent fome zany, with his mimick gefture to breed in the leís capable mirth and laughter." See Vol. VI. p. 525, n. 7. MALONE.

- inexplicable dumb fhews,] I believe the meaning is, fhews, without words to explain them. JOHNSON.

Rather, I believe, fhews which are too confufedly conducted to explain themselves.

I meet with one of thefe in Heywood's play of the Four Prentices of London, 1632, where the Presenter fays,

"I muft entreat your patience to forbear

"While we do feaft your eye, and ftarve your ear.
"For in dumb fhews, which were they writ at large
"Would ask a long and tedious circumftance,

"Their infant fortunes I will foon exprefs:" &c.

Then follow the dumb fhews, which well deferve the character Hamlet has already given of this fpecies of entertainment, as may be seen from the following paffage: "Enter Tancred, with Bella Franca richly attired: the somewhat affecting him, though she makes no show of it." Surely this may be called an inexplicable dumb fhew." STEEVENS. 9 Termagant;] Termagant was a Saracen deity, very clamorous and violent in the old moralities. PERCY.

Termagant is mentioned by Spenfer in his Fairy Queen, and by Chaucer in The Tale of Sir Topas; and by B. and Fletcher in A King and no King, as follows:

"This would make a faint fwear like a foldier, and a foldier like Termagant."

Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611:

- fwears, God bless us,

"Like a very Termagant."

Again, in The Picture, by Maffinger :

a hundred thoufand Turks

"Affail'd him, every one a Termagaunt." STEEVENS.

· out-berods Herod :] The character of Herod in the ancient

myfteries was always a violent one:

See the Conventrie Ludus among the Cotton M. Vefpafian D. VIll.

"Now I regne lyk a kyng arayd ful rych,

"Rollyd in rynggs and robys of array,
"Dukys with dentys I dryve into the dych;
"My dedys be ful dowty demyd be day,"

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own difcretion be your tutor: fuit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'er-ftep not the modesty of nature: for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing, whofe end,

Again, in the Chester Whitfun Plays, Mís. Harl. 2013:

"I kynge of kynges, non foe keene,

"I fovraigne fir, as well is feene,

"I tyrant that maye bouth take and teene
"Caftell tower, and towne;

"I welde this worlde withouten wene,

"I beate all thofe unbuxome beene;
"I drive the devills alby dene
"Deepe in hell adowne.

"For I am kynge of all mankinde,
"I byd, I beate, I lofe, I bynde;
"I mafter the moone; take this in mynde
"That I am most of mighte.

"I ame the greatest above degree,
"That is, that was, or ever shall be;
"The fonne it dare not shine on me,
"And I byd him goe downe.

"No raine to fall fhall now be free,
"Nor no lorde fhall have that liberty
"That dare abyde and I byd fleey,
"But I fhall crake his crowne."

See the Vintner's Play, p. 67.
Chaucer defcribing a parish clerk, in his Miller's Tale, fays,

"He playeth Herode on a fkaffold high."

The parish clerks and other fubordinate ecclefiafticks appear to have been our first actors, and to have reprefented their characters on dif tinct pulpits or scaffolds. Thus, in one of the stage-directions to the 27th pageant in the Coventry collection already mentioned; " What tyme that proceffion is entered into yt place, and the Herowdys takyn his fcbaffalde, and Annas and Cayphas their fchaffaldys," &c. STEEV. To the inftances given by Mr. Steevens of Herod's lofty language, may be added thefe lines from the Coventry plays among the Cotton Mís. p. 92.

Of bewte and of boldnes I ber evermor the belle,
"Of mayn and of myght I mafter every man;
"I dynge with my dowtinefs the devyl down to helle,
"For bothe of hevyn and of earth I am kynge certayn."

MALONE.

both