Next your Son gone, and he most violent author
Of his own juft remove; the people muddied,
Thick and unwhole fome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; (We've done but greenly,
In private to inter him ;) poor Ophelia,

Divided from herself, and her fair judgment;
(Without the which we're pictures, or mere beafts :)
Laft, and as much containing as all thefe,
Her brother is in fecret come from France:
Feeds on this wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With peftilent speeches of his father's death
Wherein neceffity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our perfons to arraign
In ear and ear. о my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Give me fuperfluous death!

[A noife within: Queen. Alack! what noife is this?

Enter a Meffenger.

Hing. Where are my Switzers? let them guard the

What is the matter?

Mes. Save yourself, my Lord.

The ocean, over-peering of his lift,

Eats not the flats with more impetuous hafte,

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,

[door.

O'er-bears your officers; the rabble call him Lord;
And as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, cuftom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every Ward; (65)

(60) The ratifiers and props of ev'ry word;] The whole tenour of the context is fufficient to fhew, that this is a mistaken reading. What can antiquity and custom, being the props of words, have to do with the bufinefs in hand? Or what idea is conveyed by it? Certainly, the Poet wrote;

The ratifiers and props of ev'ry ward;

The meffenger is complaining, that the riotous head had over-born the King's officers; and then fubjoins, that antiquity and cuftom were forgot, which were the ratifiers and props of every ward, i. e. of every one of thofe fecurities that nature and law place about the perfon of a King. All this is rational and confequential.

Mr. Warburton.

They

They cry,

"Chufe we Laertes for our King." Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the Clouds; "Laertes fhall be King, Laertes King!"

Queen. How chearfully on the falfe trail they cry! Oh, this is counter, you falfe Danish dogs.

Noife within.

Enter Laertes, with a Party at the Door.

King. The doors are broke.

Laer. Where is this King? Sirs! Stand you all with

All. No, let's come in.

Laer. I pray you, give me leave.

All. We will, we will.

Laer. I thank you; keep the door.

O thou vile King, give me my father.

Queen. Calmly, good Laertes.

[out.

[Exeunt.

[baftard;

Laer. That drop of blood that's calm, proclaims me

Cries cuckold to my father; brands the harlot

Ev'n here, between the chafte and unfmirch'd brow Of my true mother.

King. What is the caufe, Laertes,

That thy Rebellion looks fo giant-like?

Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's fuch divinity doth hedge a King,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of its will. Tell me, Laertes,

Why are you thus incens'd? Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.

Laer. Where is my father?

King. Dead.

Queen. But not by him.

King. Let him demand his fill.

Laer. How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with; To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackeft devil! (61) Con

(61) To bell, allegiance! vows, to the blackeft devil!] Laertes is a good character; but he is here in actual rebellion. Left, therefore, this character should feem to fanctify rebellion, instead of putting into his mouth a reasonable defence of his proceedings, fuch as the right the subject has of shaking off oppreffion, the ufurpation, and

the

Confcience and grace, to the profoundest pit !
I dare damnation; to this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come, what comes; only I'll be reveng'd
Moft throughly for my father.

King. Who fhall ftay you?

Laer, My will, not all the world;

And for my means, I'll hufband them fo well,
They shall go far with little.

King. Good Laertes.

If you defire to know the certainty

Of your dear father, is't writ in your revenge, (That fweep-ftake) you will draw both friend and foe, Winner and lofer?

Laer. None but his enemies.

King. Will you know them then?

Laer. To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arm8, And, like the kind life-rend'ring pelican,

Repaft them with my blood.

King. Why, now you speak

Like a good child, and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most fenfible in grief for it,
It fhall as level to your judgment pierce, [come in."
As day does to your eye. A noife within.] "Let her
Laer. How now, what noife is that?

Enter Ophelia, fantastically drest with straws and flowers.
O heat, dry up my brains! tears, feven times falt,
Burn out the fenfe and virtue of mine eye!
By heav'n thy madness fhall be paid with weight,
'Till our scale turn the beam. O rofe of May!

the tyranny of the King, &c. Shakespeare gives him nothing but ab-
furd and blafphemous fentiments fuch as tend only to inspire the
audience with horror at the action. This conduct is exceeding nice.
Where, in his plays, a circumftance of rebellion is founded on hiftory,
or the agents of it infamous in their characters, there was no danger
in the representation: but as here, where the circumstance is ficti
tious, and the agent honourable, he could not be too cautious. For
the jealoufy of the two reigns, he wrote in, would not difpenfe with
lefs exactnefs.
Mr. Warburton.

Dear maid, kind fifter, fweet Ophelia !
O heav'ns, is't poffible a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Nature is fine in love; and where 'tis fine, (62)
It fends fome precious inftance of itself

After the thing it loves.

Oph. They bore him bare-fac'd on the bier,
And on his grave reigns many a tear ;
Fare ye well, my dove!

(62) Nature is fine in love,] Mr. Pope seems puzzled at this paffage, and therefore in both his editions fubjoins this conjecture. Perhaps, fays he,

Nature is fire in love, and where 'tis fire,

It fends fome precious incenfe of itself
After the thing it loves.

I own, this conjecture to me imparts no fatisfactory idea. Nature is fuppos'd to be the fire, and to furnish the incenfe too: had love been fuppos'd the fire, and nature fent out the incenfe, I should more readily have been reconcil'd to the fentiment. But no change in my opinion, is neceffary to the text; I conceive that this might be the Poet's meaning. "In the paffion of love, nature becomes more ex"quifite of fenfation, is more delicate and refin'd; that is, natural "affection, rais'd and fublim'd into a love-paffion, becomes more "inflamed and intenfe than ufual; and where it is fo, as people in "love generally fend what they have of moft value after their "lovers; fo poor Ophelia has fent her most precious senses after the object of her inflam'd affection." If I mistake not, our Poet, has. play'd with this thought, of the powers being refin'd by the paffion, in feveral other of his plays. His clown in As You Like it, feems. fenfible of this refinement; but, talking in his own way, interprets it a fort of frantickness.

We, that are true lovers, run into ftrange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, fo is all nature in love mortal in folly.

Again, in Troilus and Creffida, the latter expreffes herself concern. ing grief, exactly as Laertes does here of nature,

The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I tafte;

And in its fenfe is no less strong than that

Which caufeth it.

But Jago, in Othello, delivers himself much more directly to the purpofe of the fentiment here before us.

Come hither, if thou bee'ft valiant; as they fay, base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to, them.

Laer.

Laer. Hadft thou thy wits, and didft perfuade revenge, It could not move thus.

Oph. You must fing, down a down, and you call him a-down-a. O how the wheel becomes it! it is the falfe fteward that ftole his master's daughter.

Laer. This nothing's more than matter.

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there's panfies, that's for thoughts. Laer. A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

Oph. There's fennel for you, and columbines; there's rue for you, and here's fome for me. We may call it herb of grace o' Sundays: you may wear your rue with a difference. There's a daify; I would give you fome violets, but they withered all when my father dy’d: they fay, he made a good end;

For bony fweet Robin is all my joy.

Laer. Thought, and affliction, paffion, hell itself, She turns to favour, and to prettiness.

Oph. And will be not come again?

And will be not come again?

No, no, he is dead, go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

His beard was as white as fnow,

Al flaxen was his pole :

He is gone, he is gone, and we caft away mont,
Gramercy on his foul!

And of all christian fouls! God b'w'ye. [Exit Oph.
Laer. Do you fee this, you Gods!

King. Laertes, I must commune with your grief, Or you deny me right: go but a-part,

Make choice of whom your wifeft friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me ;
If by direct or by collateral hand

They find us touch'd, we will our Kingdom give,
Our Crown, our life, and all that we call ours,
To you in fatisfaction.
But if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us;

And