Start up, and stand on end: O, gentle fon!
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience: whereon do you look?
Ham. On him, on him! look you, how pale he
glares!

His form and caufe conjoin'd, preaching to ftones
Would make them capable: do not look on me,
Left with this piteous action you convert
My ftern effects; then what I have to do,

Will want true colour, tears, perchance, for blood.
Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Ham. Do you fee nothing there?

[Pointing to the Ghoft.

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is, I fee.

Ham. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing but ourselves.

Ham. Why, look you there! look how it steals (33) away!

My father in his habit as he liv'd !

Look where he goes, even now, out at the portal.

[Exit Ghoft.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain, This bodilefs creation, ecftafy

Is very cunning in.

Ham. What ecftafy?

My pulfe, as yours, doth temperately keep time:
And makes as healthful mufic: 'tis not madness
That I have uttered, bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your foul,
That not your trefpafs, but my madness, fpeaks;
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unfeen: confefs yourfelf to heaven,
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.

Queen

(33) Steals-Some are for reading talks, and in fome later editions I find that word: he uses this word before, fpeaking of the Ghoft: however, fteals, is very justifiable.

241

Queen. O, Hamlet, thou haft cleft my heart in twain,
Ham. Then throw away the worfer part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.
Good-night, but go not to my uncle's bed;
Affume a virtue if you have it not.

That monster custom, who all fenfe doth eat
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,
That to the ufe of actions fair and good
He likewife gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on refrain to-night,
And that fhall lend a kind of eafinefs

To the next abftinence, the next more eafy;
For use can almost change the ftamp of nature,
And mafter e'en the devil, or throw him out
With wond'rous potency.

Once more, good-night,
And when you are defirous to be bleft,

I'll bleffing beg of you.

Queen. What fhall I do?

Ham. Not this by no means that I bid Let the fond king tempt you to bed again,

you

do;

Pinch wanton on your cheek: call you his mouse;
And let him for a pair of reeky kiffes,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,

That I effentially am not in madness,

But mad-in craft; 'twere good you let him know.

Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou haft faid to me.

Ham. I muit to England, you know that?
Queen. Alack, I had forgot,

"Tis fo concluded on.

Ham. There's letters feal'd, and my two school◄ fellows,

Whom I will truft as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate, they muft fweep my way,
And marthal me to knavery: let it work,--

For 'tis the fport to have the engineer

Hoift with his own petar, and't shall
VOL. II.

M

go

hard

But

But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow 'em at the moon..

Hamlet's Reflection on his own Irrefolution.

How all occafions do inform against me,
And fpur my dull revenge? What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to fleep and feed? a beast, no more.
(34) Sure he has made us with fuch large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reafon

To ruft in us unus'd: now whether it be
Beftial oblivion, or fome craven fcruple

Of thinking too precifely on th' event,

(A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward;) I do not know Why yet I live to fay this thing's to do,

Sith

(34) Sure hc, &c.] This, fays Mr. Theobald, is an expression purely Homeric;

Λεύσσει

Αμα προσσω και οπίσσω

Turns on all hands its deep difcerning eyes,
Sees what befel, and what may yet befall,

Concludes from both, and best provides for all.

And again,

Ο γαρ οιος ορα προσσω και οπίσσω.

Skill to difcern the future by the past.

Pope, B. 3. 150.

Pope, B. 18. 294.

The short scholiaft on the last paffage, gives us a comment, that very aptly explains our author's phrafe: For it is the part of an understanding man to connect the reflection of events to come with fuch as are paft, and fo to foresee what fhall follow. This is as our author phrases it, boking before and after.

Sith I have caufe, and will, and strength, and means
To do't. Examples grofs as earth exhort me;
Witness this army of fuch mafs and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whofe fpirit with divine ambition puft,
Makes mouths at the invifible event,
Expofing what is mortal and unfure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an egg-fhell. 'Tis not to be great,
Never to ftir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,

When honour's at the stake. How ftand I then,
That hath a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
(Excitements of my reason and my blood,).
And let all fleep, while to my fhame I fee
The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That for a phantafy and trick of fame

Go

to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the flain? O then from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

SCENE V. Sorrows rarely fingle.

(35) O, Gertrude, Gertrude! When forrows come, they come not fingle fpies, But in battalions.

SCENE VI. The Divinity of Kings..

Let him go, Gertrude: do not fear our perfon: There's fuch divinity doth hedge a king

(36) That

(35) 0, Gertrude, &c.] Doctor Young, in his Night Thoughts (Night the 3d) has plainly borrowed this thought;

Woes clufter, rare are folitary woes:

They love a train, they tread each other's heels.

(

(36) That treafon can but peep to what it wou'd, Acts little of its will.

SCENE X. Defcription of Ophelia's Drowning

(37) There is a willow grows aflant a brook, That fhews his hoar leaves in the glaffy stream,

There

(36) See Winter's Tale. So, in the Maid's Tragedy it is faid;

As you are mere man,

I dare as eafily kill you for this deed,
As you dare think to do it: but there is
Divinity about you, that ftrikes dead

My rifing paffions, as you are my king, &c.

See Act 3. in the Two Noble Kinsmen.

(37) There is, &c.] The character of the jailor's daughter is as beautiful and every way comparable to this of Ophelia: it may be no difagreeable entertainment to any reader to compare them together: I fhall only fubjoin the following account given of her by her woocr.

As I late was angling

In the great lake, that lies behind the palace,

From the fair fhore, thick fet with reeds and fedges,
As patiently I was attending fport,

I heard a voice, a fhrill one; and attentive

I gave my ear, when I might well perceive

'Twas one that fung, and by the smallness of it,
A boy or woman, I then left my angle

To his own skill, came near, but yet perceiv'd not
Who made the found, the rufhes and the reeds

Had fo encompafs'd it: I laid me down

And liften'd to the words fhe fung, for then
Thro' a fmall glade cut by the fisherman

I faw it was your daughter.

She fung much, but no fenfe; only I heard her
Repeat this often; Palamon is gone,

Is gone to th' wood to gather mulberries,
I'll find him out to-morrow.

His fhackles will betray him, he'll be taken,
And what fhall I do then? I'll bring a beavy
A hundred black-eyed maids, that love as I do,
With chaplets on their heads, with daffadillies,

With