Couch we a while, and mark. [retiring with Horatio. Laer. What ceremony else? A very noble youth: Mark. 1. Prieft. Her obfequies have been as far enlarg'd Laer. Muft there no more be done? We should profane the service of the dead, 8 Prieft.] This prieft in the old quarto is called door. STIEVENS. + -as we bave warranty:] Is there any allufion here to the coroner's warrant, directed to the ministers and churchwardens of a parish, and permitting the body of a person who comes to an untimely end, to receive christian burial? WHALLEY. 9- allow'd ber virgin crants,] Thus the quarto, 1604. For this unufual word the editor of the first folio fubftituted rites. By a more attentive examination and comparison of the quarto copies and the folio, Dr. Johnson, I have no doubt, would have been convinced that this and many other changes in the folio were not made by Shakspeare, as is fuggefted in the following note. MALONE. I have been informed by an anonymous correfpondent, that crants is the German word for garlands, and I fuppofe it was retained by us from the Saxons. To carry garlands before the bier of a maiden, and to hang them over her grave, is still the practice in rural parishes. Crants therefore was the original word, which the author, difcovering it to be provincial, and perhaps not understood, changed to a term more intelligible, but lefs proper. Maiden rites give no certain or definitive image. He might have put maiden wreaths, or maiden gærlands, but he perhaps bestowed no thought upon it; and neither genius nor practice will always fupply a hafty writer with the most proper diction. JOHNSON. In Minthew's Dictionary, fee Beades, where roofen krans means fertum rofaceum; and such is the name of a character in this play. TOLLET. Of bell and burial.] Burial, here, fignifies interment in confecrated ground. WARBURTON, То To fing a requiem2, and fuch reft to her Laer. Lay her i' the earth ;- Ham. What, the fair Ophelia ! Queen. Sweets to the fweet: Farewel! [feattering flowers. I hop'd, thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife; I thought, thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, And not have ftrew'd thy grave. Laer. O, treble woe Fall ten times treble on that cursed head, [leaps into the grave. Ham. [advancing] What is he, whose grief Bears fuch an emphafis? whofe phrase of forrow Conjures the wand'ring ftars, and makes them ftand Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I, Hamlet the Dane. [leaps into the grave. Laer. The devil take thy foul! [grappling with him. I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat; Yet have I in me fomething dangerous, Which let thy wifdom fear: Hold off thy hand. King. Pluck them asunder. Queen. Hamlet, Hamlet! All3. Gentlemen, 2 To fing a requiem,-] A Requiem is a mafs performed in Popish churches for the reft of the foul of a perfon deceafed. The folio reads -fing fage requiem. STEEVENS. 3 All, &c.] This is restored from the quartos. STEEVENS. Hor. Hor. Good my lord, be quiet. [The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave. Ham. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, Until my eye-lids will no longer wag. Queen. O my fon! what theme? Ham. I lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love Make up my fum.-What wilt thou do for her? Queen. For love of God, forbear him. Ham. 'Zounds, fhew me what thou'lt do: Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't faft? woul't tear thyfelf? Woul't drink up eifel4? eat a crocodile? I'll 4 Woul't drink up eifel ?] Woul't is a contraction of wouldeft, [wouldeft thou] and perhaps ought rather to be written woult. The quarto, 1604, has efil. In the folio the word is fpelt efile. Eifil or eifel is vinegar. The word is ufed by Chaucer, and Skelton, and by Sir Thomas More, Works, p. 21. edit. 1557: « with fowre pocion "If thou paine thy taft, remember therewithal "How Chrift for thee tafted eifil and gall." The word is also found in Minfheu's Dictionary, 1617, and in Coles's Latin Dictionary, 1679. Our poet, as Dr. Farmer has obférved, has again employed the the fame word in his 111th fonnet : like a willing patient, I will drink "Potions of cyfell 'gainst my strong infection; "No bitterness that I will bitter think, "Nor double penance, to correct correction." Mr. Steevens fupposes, that a river was meant, either the rel, or Defil, or Weifel, a confiderable river which falls into the Baltick ocean. The words, drink up, he confiders as favourable to his notion. "Had Shakspeare," he obferves, "meant to make Hamlet fay, Wilt thou drink vinegar, he probably would not have ufed the term drink up, which means, totally to exhauft. In King Richard II. A&t II. fc. ii. (he adds) a thought in part the fame occurs: the task he undertakes, "Is numb'ring fands, and drinking oceans dry." But I must remark, in that paffage evidently impoffibilties are pointed out. Hamlet is only talking of difficult or painful exertions. Every man can weep, fight, faft, tear himself, drink a potion of vinegar, and eat a piece of a diffected crocodile, however disagreeable; for I have no doubt that the I'll do't.-Doft thou come here to whine? Queen. This is mere madness": And thus a while the fit will work on him; When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, Ham. the poet ufes the words eat a crocodile, for eat of a crocodile. We yet ufe the fame phraseology in familiar language. On the phrafe drink up no ftrefs can be laid, for our poet has em ployed the fame expreffion in his 114th fonnet, without any idea of entirely exbaufting, and merely as fynonymous to drink : "Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you, "Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery? Again, in the fame fonnet : 'tis flattery in my feeing, "And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.” Again, in Timon of Athens: "And how his filence drinks up his applause." In Shakspeare's time, as at prefent, to drink up, often meant no more than fimply to drink. So, in Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598 a "Sorbire, to fip or fup up any drink." In like manner we fometimes fay, "when you have swallow'd down this potion," though we mean no more than" when you have fwallow'd this potion." MALONE. 5 This is mere madness : &c.] This speech in the first folio is given to the king. MALONE. 6 When that ber golden couplets are difclos'd,] To difclofe was anciently used for to batch. So, in the Booke of Huntynge, Hauking, Fyfyng, &c. bl. I. no date: "First they ben eges; and after they ben difclofed haukes; and commonly goshaukes ben difclofed as fone as the choughes." To exclude is the technical term at prefent. During three days after the pigeon has batched her couplets, (for the lays no more than two eggs,) the never quits her neft, except for a few moments in queft of a little food for herself; as all her young require in that early state, is to be kept warm, an office which the never entrufts to the male. STEEVENS. The young neftlings of the pigeon, when first disclosed, are callow, only covered with a yellow down: and for that reason stand in need of being cherished by the kindly warmth of the hen, to protect them from the Ham. Hear you, fir; What is the reason that you use me thus ? [Exit. Strengthen your patience in our last night's speech; [to Laertes. We'll put the matter to the prefent push.— A Hall in the Castle. Enter HAMLET, and HORATIO. [Exeunt Ham. So much for this, fir: now fhall you fee the other ; You do remember all the circumstance ? Hor. Remember it, my lord! Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, Worfe the chillness of the ambient air, for a confiderable time after they are hatched. HEATH. The word difclofe has already occurred in a fenfe nearly allied to batch, in this play: "And I do doubt, the hatch and the difclofe "Will be fome danger." MALONE. 7 Sir, in my beart there was a kind of fighting, That would not let me fleep; &c.] So, in Troilus and Creffida: "Within my foul there doth commence a fight, "Of this ftrange nature," &c. The Hyftorie of Hamblet, bl. let. furnished our authour with the fcheme of fending the prince to England, and with most of the cir cumftances described in this fcene: [After the death of Polonius] "Fengon [the king in the prefent play] could not content himselfe, but ftill his mind gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him fome trick of legerdemaine. And in that conceit, fecking to bee rid of him, determined to find the meanes to |