1. Clown. How can that be, unless fhe drown'd herfelf in her own defence?

2. Clown. Why, 'tis found fo.

1. Clown. It must be fe offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myfelf wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three branches; it is, to aft, to do, and to perform 3: Argal, fhe drown'd herself wittingly.

2. Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1. Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here ftands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, fhortens not his own life.

2. Clown. But is this law?

1. Clown. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-queft law 4.

2. Cloron. Again, in Hamlet, A&t III. fc. iv. "Pol. He will come straight.". Again, in the Merry Wives of Windsor : " — we'll come and dress you' Araigbe." Again, in Orbells:

"Farewell, my Desdemona, I will come to thee fraight." STEEV. Again, in Troilus and Creffida: "Let us make ready ftraight."

MALONE.

3an at bath three branches; it is to at, to do, and to perform :] Ridicule on fcholaftic divifions without diftinction; and of distinctions without difference. WARBURTON.

4-crowner's queft-law.] I strongly fufpect that this is a ridicule on the cafe of Dame Hales, reported by Plowden in his Commentaries, as determined in 3 Eliz.

It seems, her husband Sir James Hales had drowned himself in a' river; and the queftion was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a leafe from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which he was poffeffed of, did not accrue to the crown: an inquifition was found before the coroner, which found him felo de fe. The legal and logical subtleties, arifing in the courfe of the argument of this cafe, gave a very fair op. portunity for a fneer at crowner's queft-law. The expreffion, a little before, that an act bath three branches, &c. is fo pointed an allufion to the cafe I mention, that I cannot doubt but that Shakspeare was acquainted with and meant to laugh at it.

It may be added, that on this occafion a great deal of fubtilty was ufed, to afcertain whether Sir James was the agent or the patient; or, in other words, whether be went to the water, or the water came to bim. The caufe of Sir James's madness was the circumstance of his having been, the judge who condemned lady Jane Gray. Sir J. Hawk.

VOL. IX.

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If

2. Clown. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, fhe fhould have been bury'd out of christian burial.

1. Clown. Why, there thou fay'ft: And the more pity; that great folks fhould have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even chriftian. Come; my fpade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardiners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profeffion.

2. Clown. Was he a gentleman?

1. Clown. He was the firft that ever bore arms. 2. Clown. Why, he had none.

1. Clown. What, art a heathen? How doft thou understand the fcripture? The fcripture fays, Adam digg'd; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another queftion to thee: if thou anfwer'ft me not to the purpose, confefs thyfelf

2. Clown. Go to.

1. Clown. What is he, that builds ftronger than either the mason, the fhipwright, or the carpenter?

2. Clown. The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

If Shakspeare meant to allude to the cafe of Dame Hales, (which indeed feems not improbable,) he must have heard of that cafe in converfation; for it was determined before he was born, and Plowden's Commentaries, in which it is reported, were not tranflated into English till a few years ago. Our authour's ftudy was probably not much encumbered with old French Reports. MALONI.

5

- their even chriftian.] So all the old books, and rightly. An old English expreffion for fellow-chriftians. THIRLEY.

So, in Chaucer's Jack Upland: "If freres cannot or mow not excufe 'hem of these questions afked of 'hem, it femeth that they be horrible giltie against God, and ther even chriftian;" &c. STEEVENS.

So King Henry the Eighth in his anfwer to parliament in 1546: "-you might say that I, beyng put in fo fpeciall a truft as I am in this cafe, were no truftie frende to you, nor charitable man to mine even chriftian,—." Hall's Chronicle, fol. 261. MALONE.

62. Clown.] This speech, and the next as far as-without arms, is not in the quartos. STEEVENS.

confefs thyfelf-] and be bang'd, the clown, I fuppofe, would have faid, if he had not been interrupted. This was a common proverbial fentence. See Othello, A&t IV. fc. i.—He might, however, have intended to say, confess thyself an ass. MALONE.

1. Clown.

1. Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to thofe that do ill: now thou doft ill, to fay, the gallows is built ftronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come.

2. Clown. Who builds ftronger than a mafon, a fhipwright, or a carpenter ?

1 Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke 7.

2. Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

1. Clown. To't.

2. Clown. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET, and HORATIO, at a diftance. 1. Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull afs will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are afk'd this question next, fay, a gravemaker; the houses that he makes, laft till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a ftoup of liquor. [Exit 2. Clown.

He digs, and fings.

In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very fweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet'.

7 Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.] If it be not fufficient to say, with Dr. Warburton, that the phrafe might be taken from hufbandry, without much depth of reading, we may produce it from a dittie of the workmen of Dover, preferved in the additions to Holinshed, p. 1546: "My bow is broke, I would unyoke,

"My foot is fore, I can worke no more." FARMER. Again, in Drayton's Polyolbion, at the end of Song I.

"Here I'll unyoke awhile and turne my steeds to meat.” Again, in P. Holland's Tranflation of Pliny's Nat. Hift. p. 593: "-in the evening, and when thou dost unyoke." STEEVENS. Cudgel thy brains no more about it;] So, in The Maydes Metamorpbofis, by John Lily, 1600 :

"In vain, I fear, I beate my brains about,

"Proving by fearch to find my miftreffe out." MALONE, 9 In youth when I did love, &c.] The three ftanzas, fung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a flight variation, from a little poem, called The Aged Lover renounceth love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who flourished in the reign of king Henry VIII. and who was beheaded in 1547, on a strained accusation of treason.

Ccz

THEOBALD.

Ham.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his bufinefs? he fings at grave-making.

Hor. Cuftom hath made it in him a property of eafi

nefs.

Ham. Tis e'en fo: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. :

1. Clown. But age, with his ftealing steps,

Hath clawed me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me into the land,

[fings.

As if I had never been fuch, [throws up a scull. Ham. That fcull had a tongue in it, and could fing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the firit murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches 3; one that would circumvent God, might it not? Hor.

1-nothing meet.] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1604, reads: O me thought there a was nothing a meet. MALONE.

The original poem from which this ftanza is taken, like the other fucceeding ones, is preferved among lord Surrey's poems; though, as Dr. Percy has obferved, it is attributed to lord Vaux by George Gafcoigne. See an epiftle prefixed to one of his poems, printed with the reft of his works, 1575. By others it is fuppofed to have been written by Sir Thomas Wyatt.

I lotbe that I did love;

In youth that I thought fwete:
As time requires for my bebove,

Methinks they are not mete.

All thefe difficulties, however, (fays the Rev. Thomas Warton, Hift. of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 45.) are at once adjusted by Mfs. Harl. in the British Museum, 1713-25, in which we have a copy of Vaux's poem, beginning, I iotbe that I did love, with this title: "A dyttie or fonet made by the lord Vaus, in the time of the noble quene Marye, repréfenting the image of death."

The entire fong is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. STEEVENS.

2 As if I bad never been fuch.] Thus, in the original:

3

For age with ftealing steps

Hath claude me with his crowch;

And lufy youthe away be leapes,

As there bad bene none fuch. STEEVENS.

which this afs now o'er-reaches ;] Thus the quarto, 1604. The

folio reads o'er-offices. MALONE.

2

Over-reaches

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could fay, Good-morrow, fweet lord! How doft thou, good lord? This might be my lord fuch-a-one, that prais'd my lord fuch-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en fo: and now my lady Worm's'; chaplefs, and knock'd about the mazzard with a fexton's fpade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to fee't. Did thefe bones coft no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ache to think on't. 1. Clown.

Over-reaches agrees better with the fentence: it is a strong exaggeration to remark, that an afs can over-reach him who would once have tried to circumvent-. I believe both the words were Shakspeare's. An author in revifing his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new obfervations have produced new fentiments, eafily introduces images which have been more newly impreffed upon him, without obferving their want of congruity to the general texture of his original defign. JOHNSON.

4 This might be my lord fuch-a-one, that prais'd my lord fuch-a one's borse, when be meant to beg it ;] So, in Timon of Athens, Ã& I. : my lord, you gave

"Good words the other day of a bay courfer

"I rode on; it is yours, because you lik'd it." STEEVENS. 5 - and now my lady Worm's;] The fcull that was my lord Such-aone's, is now my lady Worm's. JOHNSON.

6 -to play at loggats with them?] So Ben Jonfon, Tale of a Tub, A& IV. fc. vi.

"Now are they toffing of his legs and arms,
"Like loggats at a pear-tree."

So, in an old collection of epigrams, fatires, &c.

"To play at loggats, nine holes, or ten pinnes."

It is one of the unlawful games enumerated in the ftatute of 33 of Henry VIII. STEEVENS.

Loggeting in the fields is mentioned for the first time among other "new and crafty games and plays," in the ftatute 33 Henry VIII. c. 9. Not being mentioned in former acts against unlawful games, it was probably not practifed long before the ftatute of Henry the Eighth was made.

MALONE.

A loggat-ground, like a skittle-ground, is ftrewed with afhes, but is more extensive. A bowl much larger than the jack of the game of bowls is thrown firft. The pins, which I believe are called loggats, are much thinner and lighter at one extremity than the other. bowl being first thrown, the players take the pins up by the thinner

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