2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight the crowner hath set on her, and finds it christian burial.

1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1. Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, she drowned herself wittingly. 2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands 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, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law.

2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity; that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

2 Clo. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms.

2 Clo. Why, he had none.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged; Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee:

d

straight:] i. e. Immediately.

an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform :] Ridicule on scholastick divisions, without distinction; and of distinctions without dif ference. WARBURTON.

e

THIRLEY.

their even christian.] An old English expression for fellow-christian.

if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself-f

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

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

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill now thou dost ill, to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor.

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought, it was very sweet,

[Exit 2 Clown.

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove

O, methought, there was nothing meet.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

f — confess thyself] And be hanged, the clown I suppose would have said, if he had not been interrupted. This was a common proverbial sentence.-MALONE.

In youth, when I did love, &c.] The three stanzas, sung here by the gravedigger, are extracted, with a slight variation, from a little poem, called The aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey.

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

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness. Ham. "Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,

And hath shipped me into the land,

As if I had never been such.1

[Throws up a Scull.

Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

Good-morrow,

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord? This might be my lord Such-a-one, that praised my lord Such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them? mine ake to think on't.

1 Clo. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

h Thus in the original:

For age with stealing steps

[Sings.

[Throws up a Scull.

"Hath claude me with his crowch;

"And lusty youthe away he leapes,

"As there had beene none such."-STEEVENS,

to play at loggats with them?] This is a game played in several parts of England even at this time. A stake is fixed into the ground; those who play, throw loggats or pins of wood at it, and he that is nearest the stake wins. -STEEVENS.

* Thus in the original:

"A pick-axe and a spade,

"And eke a winding sheet;

"A house of clay for to be made,

"For such a guest most meet."-STEEVENS.

Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits' now, his quillets," his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce" with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too.

Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance in that. I will speak to this fellow :-Whose grave's this, sirrah?

1 Clo. Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't. 1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

the sconce-] i. e. The head.

statutes,] A species of security for money, affecting real property, whereby the lands of the debtor, are conveyed to the creditor, till out of the rents and profits of them his debt may be satisfied.-MALONE.

P double vouchers, &c.] A recovery with double voucher is the one usually suffered, and is so denominated from two persons (the latter of whom is always the common cryer, or some such inferior person,) being successively voucher, or called upon, to warrant the tenant's title. Both fines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to convert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts of parliament, but) statutes-merchant and staple, particular modes of recog nizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereby become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recognizances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a purchase deed.-RITSON.

-assurance in that.] A quibble is intended. Deeds, which are usually written on parchment, are called the common assurances of the kingdom.-MALONE.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest. 1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.-How long hast thou been a grave maker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.

Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born :' he that is mad, and sent into England.

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there. Ham. Why?

1 Clo. "Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

we must speak by the card,] The card is the mariner's compass, or more properly the paper on which the points of the wind are marked. To speak by the card is to speak with great exactness, true to a point.-NARES.

6

picked,] i. e. Spruce, affected. It is a metaphor taken from birds, who dress themselves by picking out or pruning their broken or superfluous feathers.-STEEVENS.

111

that young Hamlet was born:] By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty years old, and knew Yorick well, who had been dead twentytwo years. And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as a very young man, one that designed to go back to school, i.e. to the university of Wittenberg. The poet in the fifth act had forgot what he wrote in the first. -BLACKSTONE.