Que. Let not thy Mother loose her praiers Hamlet, Stay here with us, go not to Wittenberg.

Ham. I shall in all my best obey you Madam.

King. Spoke like a kinde and a most loving Sonne, And there's no health the King shall drinke to day, But the great Canon to the clowdes shall tell

The rowse the King shall drinke unto Prince Hamlet."

(5) SCENE II.

the funeral bak'd meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.] "The practice of making entertainments at funerals which prevailed in this and other countries, and which is not even at present quite disused in some of the northern counties of England, was certainly borrowed from the coena feralis of the Romans, alluded to in Juvenal's fifth satire, and in the laws of the twelve tables. It consisted of an offering of a small plate of milk, honey, wine, flowers, &c. to the ghost of the deceased. In the instances of heroes and other great characters, the same custom appears to have prevailed among the Greeks. With us the appetites of the living are consulted on this occasion. In the north this feast is called an arval or arvil-supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor, arval-bread.”— DOUCE.

(6) SCENE II.—

Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Ere ever I had seen that day.]

On this use of dear, some examples of which will be found at p. 449, Vol. I., Caldecott has a good note :—

"Throughout Shakespeare and all the poets of his and a much later day, we find this epithet applied to that person or thing, which, for or against us, excites the liveliest and strongest interest. It is used variously, indefinitely and metaphorically to express the warmest feelings of the soul; its nearest, most intimate, home and heartfelt emotions: and here no doubt, though, as everywhere else, more directly interpreted signifying 'veriest, extremest,' must by consequence and figuratively import 'bitterest, deadliest, most mortal.' As extremes are said in a certain sense to approximate, and are in many respects alike or the same, so this word is made in a certain sense to carry with it an union of the fiercest opposites: it is made to signify the extremes of love and hatred.

"But to suppose, with Mr. Tooke (Divers. of Purl. II. 409), that in all cases it must at that time have meant 'injurious,' as being derived from the Saxon verb dere, to hurt, is perfectly absurd. Dr. Johnson's derivation of the word, as used in this place, from the Latin dirus, is doubtless ridiculous enough: but Mr. Tooke has not produced a single instance of the use of it, i. e. of the adjective, in the sense upon which he insists; except, as he pretends, from our author. In the instance cited in this place by Mr. Steevens, in support of the extraordinary interpretation ('most consequential, important,') he has here and elsewhere put upon the word, 'A ring, that I must use in deere employment' (Rom. & Jul. sc. last), although the word is spelt after the fashion of the Saxon verb, it is impossible to interpret it 'injurious;' its meaning being most clearly, anxious, deeply interesting.' 'Deere to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart.' Jul. Cæs. II. 2, Bru. cannot admit of interpretation in any other sense than that in which Gray's Bard understood it,

'Dear as the ruddy drops, that warm my heart.' "In Tr. & Cr. V. 3, Andromache says,

'Consort with me in loud and deere petition.'

And in Hector's answer the word occurs thrice so spelt: 'Life every man holds deere; but the deere man Holds honour far more precious, decre, than life.'

And it is no less than impossible, in either of these instances, to put the sense of injurious' upon this word. With his mind possessed by the Saxon verb, to hurt, Mr.

In

Tooke seems altogether to have forgotten the existence of the epithet, which answers to the Latin word charus. the same sense it is used by Puttenham: The lacke of life is the dearest detriment of any other.' Arte of Engl. Poesie, 4to. 1589, p. 182. See 'dearly,' IV. 3, King; As you, &c. I. 3, Celia; and L. L. L. II. 1, Boyet; and dear guiltiness,' Ib. V. 2, Princess. We will add from Drayton's Moses his birth, 4to. 1630, B. I. that Sarah, about to expose her child, says, she has

her minde of misery compacted, That must consent unto so deere a murther.'

i. e. distressing or heart-rending."

(7) SCENE IV.—

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels.] "Wake" here means a wake-feast or watch-festival, originally a nocturnal entertainment held to celebrate the dedication of a church (vigilia); but it subsequently came to be used for any night revel. Rouse," in reality the Danish Ruus, a deep draught, act of intoxication, or surfeit in drinking, was employed by our old writers with great laxity; sometimes it is used indifferently with carouse, to signify a bumper,

"Cas. 'Fore heaven, they have given me a rouse already. Mon. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am a soldier." Othello, Act II. Sc. 3.

Again,

"Nor. I have took since supper,

A rouse or two too much, and, by the gods,
It warms my blood."

The Knight of Malta, Act III. Sc. 4.
While in a previous passage of the present play,-

"And the king's rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder,"-

it plainly imports not simply a deep draught, but the accompaniment of some outcry, similar, perhaps, to our "hip, hip, hurrah!"

Of "Wassail," from the Saxon was hael, abundant illustration will be found in the Variorum Shakespeare, and in Douce; but the expression, "swaggering up-spring reels," still admits of farther explanation. At one time it was generally believed to be a derogatory epithet applied by Hamlet to the upstart king, until Steevens proved by a quotation from Chapman's "Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany,"-

"We Germans have no changes in our dances;
An almain and an up-spring, that is all,”—

that a particular kind of dance was meant. Up-spring, indeed, is from the Anglo-Saxon, and also the Danish Opspringer, and the Low-Dutch Op-springen, to leap up; and the "upspring reels" we conceive to have been some boisterous dance in which the performers joined hands in a ring and then indulged in violent leaps and shoutings, somewhat in the manner of our leaping dances or Hoppings at a country wake.

(8) SCENE IV.—

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault.]

In "The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven," of Arthur
Dent, 1590, we have a dilatation of the same idea :-

"Phil. I do verily thus think, that as sin generally doth stain every man's good name, which all are chary and tender of; so especially it doth blot those which are in high places, and of special note for learning, wisdom, and godliness.

Theol. You have spoken most truly, and agreable to the Scriptures. For the Scriptures saith,' As a dead fly causeth the apo

thecary's ointment to stink, so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour:' where Solomon sheweth, That if a fly get into the apothecary's box of ointment, and die, and putrefy in it, she marreth it, though it be never so pretious: even so, if a little sin get into the heart, and break out in the forehead of a man of great fame for some singular gift, it will blear him, though he be never so excellent."

And Nash, in his "Pierce Penniless's Supplication to the Devil," 1592, complaining of drunkenness, observes:-"A mightie deformer of men's manners and features is this unnecessary vice of all others. Let him bee indued with never so manie vertues, and have as much goodly proportion and favour, as Nature can bestow upon a man, yet if hee be thirstie after his owne destruction, and hath no ioy nor comfort, but when he is drowning his soule in a gallon pot, that one beastly imperfection wil utterly obscure all that is commendable in him, and all his goode qualities sinke like lead downe to the bottome of his carrowsing cups, where they will lye, like lees and dregges, dead and unregarded of any man.'

(9) SCENE V.

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.]

"It was the popular belief that ghosts could not endure the light, and consequently disappeared at the dawn of day. This superstition is derived from our northern ancestors, who held that the sun and everything containing light or fire had the property of expelling demons and spirits of all kinds. With them it seems to have originated in the stories that are related in the Edda concerning the battles of Thor against the giants and evil demons, wherein he made use of his dreadful mallet of iron, which he hurled against them as Jupiter did his thunderbolts against the Titans. Many of the transparent precious stones were supposed to have the power of expelling evil spirits; and the flint and other stones found in the tombs of the northern nations, and from which fire might be extracted, were imagined, in like manner, to be efficacious in confining the manes of the dead to their proper habitations. They were called Thor's hammers."-DOUCE

(1) SCENE I.- Perpend.] Dr. Johnson's analysis of Polonius has been justly commended for its perspicacity and discrimination. It is certainly an admirable interpre tation, and leaves us at a loss to understand how a writer who exhibits such judgment and astuteness in the delineation of this particular character should have failed so signally in his appreciation of nearly every other one of Shakespeare's, which he has attempted to unfold.

"Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observation, confident in his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly represented as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from his repositories of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recovers the leading principle, and falls again into his former train. This idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phænomena of the character of Polonius."

(2) SCENE II. [Reads.] For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion.] In this passage, famous rather from the discussion it has occasioned than for any sublimity of reflection or beauty of language, we adopt the now almost universally accepted correction of Warburton-"a god" for "a good" of the old editions. At the same time we dissent toto cælo from the reasoning by which he and other commentators have sought to connect"For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion," with what Hamlet had previously said. The circumstance of the prince coming in reading, that he evinces the utmost intolerance of the old courtier's interruptions, and rejoices in his departure, serve, in our opinion, to show that Shakespeare intended the actor should manifest his wish to be alone, after the

words, "Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand," in the most unmistakeable manner, by walking away and appearing to resume his study:-that then, finding Polonius still watching him, he should turn sharply round with the abrupt question, "Have you a daughter?" It is this view of the stage business which prompted us to print the passage above, as something read, or affected to be read, by Hamlet,-an innovation-if it be one, (for we are ignorant whether it has been suggested previously)— that will the more readily be pardoned, since the passage as usually exhibited has hitherto defied solution.

(3) SCENE II.-Ay, that they do, my lord; Hercules and his load too.] The allusion is doubtless, as Steevens surmised, to the Globe Theatre on the Bankside, the sign of which was, Hercules carrying the Globe; and the "aiery of children," against whom this satire was levelled, were, as he observes, "the young singing men of the Chapel Royal or St. Paul's; of the former of whom, perhaps, the earliest mention occurs in an anonymous puritanical pamphlet, 1569, entitled, "The Children of the Chapel stript and whipt:'-' Plaies will never be supprest, while her maiesties unfledged minions flaunt it in silkes and sattens; They had as well be at their popish service in the devil's garments,' &c. Again, ibid. Even in her maiesties chapel do these pretty upstart youthes profane the Lordes day by the lascivious writhing of their tender limbes, and gorgeous decking of their apparell, in feigning bawdie fables gathered from the idolatrous heathen poets,' &c.

Concerning the performances and success of the latter in attracting the best company, I also find the following passage in Jack Drum's Entertainment, or Pasquil and Katherine,' 1601 :—

'I sawe the Children of Powles last night. And troth they pleasde me prettie, prettie well, The Apes in time will do it hansomely.

I like the audience that frequenteth there With much applause: a man shall not be choakte With the stench of garlicke, nor be pasted To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer. 'Tis a good gentle audience.'"

(4) SCENE II.-It came to pass, as most like it was.] Ham let quotes from the opening stanza of an ancient ballad,

still preserved, and which will be found in Evans's Collection, 1810:

"I have read that many years agoe,
When Jepha, judge of Israel,
Had one fair daughter and no more,
Whom he loved passing well.

As by lot, God wot,

It came to passe, most like it was,

Great warrs there should be,

And who should be the chiefe; but he, but he."

The subject appears to have been popular. In the Stationers' Registers, 1567-8, a ballad entitled "The song of Jefphas dowghter at his [her?] death," is licensed to Alexander Lacy; in 1624, another called "Jeffa, Judge of Israel," was entered on the same records; and from Henslowe's Diary, we learn that in May, 1602, Decker and Chettle were engaged in writing a tragedy based on the story of Jephthah.

(5) SCENE II.— A chopine.] Chopines or chapines were clogs with enormously thick soles, which the ladies of Spain and Italy wore on their shoes when going abroad. Coryat's account of those he saw in Venice is this: "There is one thing used of the Venetian women, and some others dwelling in the cities and townes subject to the signory of Venice, that is not to be observed (I thinke) amongst any other women in Christendome: which is so common in Venice, that no woman whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad; a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colors, some with white, some redde, some yellow. It is called a Chapiney, which they weare under their shoes. Many of them are curiously painted; some also of them I have seen fairely gilt: so uncomely a thing (in my opinion) that it is pitty this foolish custom is not cleane banished and exterminated out of the citie. There are many of these Chapineys of a great heigth, even halfe a yard high, which maketh many of their women that are very short seeme much taller then the tallest women we have in England. Also I have heard that this is observed amongst them, that by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her Chapineys. All their gentlewomen, and most of their wives and widowes that are of any wealth, are assisted and supported eyther by men or women, when they walke abroad, to the end they may not fall. They are borne up most commonly by the left arme, otherwise they might quickly take a fall."Crudities, p. 262.

(6) SCENE II.-Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.] Hamlet, it must be remembered, is addressing the youth who personated the female characters, and simply expresses a hope that his voice has not grown too manly to pass current for a woman's; there is not the slightest ground for suspecting any covert allusion. "It is to be observed," says Douce, "that there was a ring or circle on the coin, within which the sovereign's head was placed; if the crack extended from the edge beyond this ring, the coin was rendered unfit for currency. Such pieces were hoarded by the usurers of the time, and lent out as lawful money. Of this we are informed by Roger Fenton in his "Treatise

of Usury,' 1611, 4to. p. 23. A poore man desireth a goldsmith to lend him such a summe, but he is not able to pay him interest. If such as I can spare (saith the goldsmith) will pleasure you, you shall have it for three or four moneths. Now, hee hath a number of light, clipt crackt peeces (for such he useth to take in change with consideration for their defects :) this summe of money is repaid by the poore man at the time appointed in goo lawful money. This is usurie.' And, again: It is a common custom of his [the usurer's] to buy up crackt angels at nine shillings the peece. Now, sir, if a gentleman (on good assurance) request him of mony, good sir (saith hee, with a counterfait sigh) I would be glad to please your worship, but my good mony is abroad, and that I have, I dare not put in your hands. The gentleman thinking this conscience, where it is subtilty, and being beside that in some necessity, ventures on the crackt angels, some of which cannot flie, for soldering, and paies double interest to the miser under the cloake of honesty."" -LODGE'S Wit's Miserie, 1596, 4to. p. 28.

(7) SCENE II.- 'Twas caviare to the general.] The play was of too peculiar a relish, like caviare, for the palate of the multitude. Caviare is a preparation of sturgeon's roe; and the taste for it was considered a mark of refinement in Shakespeare's day: thus Mercury, in "Cynthia's Revels," Act II. Sc. 1, describing a coxcomb, says: "He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare," &c.

(8) SCENE II.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ.]

There is a curious illustration of this passage in T. Heywood's "Apology for Actors," 1612, and the same story is related in an old tragedy, called "A Warning for Fair Women," 1599:

"At Lin, in Norfolke, the then Earl of Sussex players acting the old History of Feyer Francis, and presenting a woman who, insatiately doting on a yong gentleman (the more securely to enjoy his affection), mischievously and secretly murdered her husband, whose ghost haunted her; and, at divers times, in her most solitary and private contemplations, in most horrid and feareful shapes, appeared and stood before her. As this was acted, a toune's woman (till then of good estimation and report), finding her conscience (at this presentment) extremely troubled, suddenly skritched and cryd out, Oh! my husband, my husband! I see the ghost of my husband fiercely threatning and menacing me! At which shrill and unexpected outcry, the people about her, moov'd to a strange amazement, inquired the reason of her clamour, when presently, un-urged, she told them that seven yeares ago she, to be possest of such a gentleman (meaning him), had poysoned her husband, whose fearefull image personated it selfe in the shape of that ghost. Whereupon the murdresse was apprehended, before the justices further examined, and by her voluntary confession after condemned. That this is true, as well by the report of the actors as the records of the towne, there are many eyewitnesses of this accident yet living vocally to confirme it."

(1) SCENE II.-I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod.] In many of the early miracle plays, one of the most prominent characters was a roaring, hectoring tyrant, who made "all split," and was alike the terror and the admiration of the multitude; in some cases, this truculent monster represented Termagant, a supposed god of the Saracens ; but more frequently he was Herod of Jewry. An extract from the ancient Pageant, performed at Coventry by the Shearmen and Taylors, in 1534, but the composition of which is of much earlier date, well exemplifies the saying, when any one rants and tears a passion to tatters, that he outherods Herod. The entrance of Herod is announced in unintelligible French; after which the monarch proceeds in this wise :

"Qui statis in Jude et Rex iseraell

And the myght tyst conquerowre that eyer walkid on grownd
For I am evyn he thatt made bothe hevin & hell

And of my mighté powar holdith vp the world rownd
Magog and madroke bothe thes did I confownde
And wt this bryght bronde there bonis I brak on sund'r
Thatt all the wyde worlde on those rappis did wond'r
I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thund'r

Ytt ys throgh my furé that they soche noyse dothe make
My feyrefull contenance the clowdis so doth incumbur
That oftymes for drede thereof the verre yerth doth quake
Loke when I wt malés* this bryght bronde doth schake
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe
I ma them dystroie wt won worde of my mow the
To reycownt vnto you myn innewmerabull substance
Thatt were to moche for any tong to tell

For all the whole orent ys vnd'r myn obbeydeance
And prynce am I of purgatorre & cheff capten of hell
And those tyraneos trayturs be force ma I compell
Myne eйmyis to vanquese & evyn to dust them dryve
And wt a twynke of myn iee not won to be lafte alyve
Behold my contenance and my colur

Bryghtur then the sun in the meddis of the dey
Where can you haue a more grettur succur

Then to behold my person that ys soo gaye

My fawcun and my fassion with my gorgis araye

He thatt had the grace all wey thereon to thynke

Lyve then myght all wey withowt othur meyte or drynke
And thys my tryomfande fame most hylist dothe a bownde
Throgh owt this world in all reygeons abrod
Reysemelyng the favour of thatt most myght Mahownd
From Jubytor be desent † and cosyn to the grett god
And namyd the most reydowndid king eyrodde
Wyche thatt all pryncis hath vnder subjeccion
And all there whole powar under my proteccion
And therefore my hareode ‡ here callid calcas
Warne thou eyery porte that noo schyppis a ryve
Nor also aleond & stranger throg my realme pas
But they for thére truage do pay markis fvve
Now spede thé forth hastelé

For they thatt wyll the contraré

Apon a galowse hangid schalbe

And be Mahownde of me thé gett noo grace."

The above is copied verbatim from the Pageant, as it is given in Sharp's "Dissertation on the Pageants, &c. anciently performed at Coventry," with the exception of some contractions which render the original obscure.

(2) SCENE II. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them:- -a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.] In the 1603 quarto there follows here a passage supposed to have been levelled at the famous clown, William Kemp:

"And then you have some agen, that keepes one sute Of jeasts, as a man is knowne by one sute of Apparell, and Gentlemen quotes his jeasts downe

In their tables, before they come to the play, as thus:

Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige? and, you owe me
A quarters wages: and my coate wants a cullison:
And, youre beere is sowre: and, blabbering with his lips,
And thus keeping in his cinkapase of jeasts,

When, God knows, the warme Clowne cannot make a jest,
Unless by chance, as the blinde man catcheth a hare."

(3) SCENE II.-And never come mischance between us twain] In the quarto of 1603, the preceding dialogue between Gonzago and Baptista is a mere bald sketch of the subsequent version:

"Duke. Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone, Since happy time joyn'd both our hearts as one : And now the blood that fill'd my youthful veines, Runnes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines, Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare, Is now a burthen that age cannot beare: And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due, To heaven must I, and leave the earth with you. Dutchesse. O say not so, lest that you kill my heart, When death takes you, let life from me depart.

Duke. Content thy selfe, when ended is my date, Thou maist (perchance) have a more noble mate, More wise, more youthfull, and one.

Dutchesse. O speake no more, for then I am accurst,
None weds the second, but she kils the first:

A second time I kill my Lord that's dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

Ham. O wormewood, wormewood!

Duke. I doe beleeve you sweete, what now you speake, But what we doe determine oft we breake,

For our demises stil are overthrowne,

Our thoughts are ours, their end's none of our owne:

So thinke you will no second husband wed,

But die thy thoughts, when thy first Lord is dead.

Dutchesse. Both here and there pursue me lasting strife,

If once a widdow, ever I be wife," &c.

(4) SCENE II.-O, the recorders.] The best, indeed the only reliable description of these instruments, is that furnished by Mr. W. Chappell in his delightful work, called 'Popular Music of the Olden Time:"

66

"Old English musical instruments were commonly made of three or four different sizes, so that a player might take any of the four parts that were required to fill up the harmony. So Violins, Lutes, Recorders, Flutes, Shawms, &c. have been described by some writers in a manner which (to those unacquainted with this peculiarity) has appeared irreconcileable with other accounts. Shakespeare (in Hamlet) speaks of the Recorder as a little pipe, and says, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder;' but in an engraving of the instrument, it reaches from the lip to the knee of the performer; and among those left by Henry VIII. were Recorders of box, oak, and ivory, great and small, two base recorders of walnut, and one great base recorder. Recorders and (English) Flutes are to outward appearance the same, although Lord Bacon, in his Natural History, cent. iii. sec. 221, says the Recorder hath a less bore, and a greater above and below. The number of holes for the fingers is the same, and the scale, the compass, and the manner of playing, the same. Salter describes the recorder, from which the instrument derives its name, as situate in the upper part of it, i.e. between the hole below the mouth and the highest hole for the finger. He says, 'Of the kinds of music, vocal has always had the preference in esteem, and in consequence, the Recorder, as approaching nearest to the sweet delightful ness of the voice, ought to have first place in opinion, as we see by the universal use of it confirmed.'"

*See "The Genteel Companion for the Recorder," by Humphrey Salter, 1683.

D D

(5) SCENE IV.-POLONIUS hides behind the arras.] The incident of Polonius concealing himself to overhear the conversation between Hamlet and the Queen, was suggested by the "Hystorie of Hamblet."-"Meane time the counsellor entred secretly into the queenes chamber, and there hid himselfe behind the arras, not long before the queene and Hamblet came thither, who being craftie and pollitique, as soone as hee was within the chamber, doubting some treason, and fearing if he should speake severely and wisely to his mother touching his secret practices he should be understood, and by that means intercepted, used his ordinary manner of dissimulation, and began to come like a cocke beating with his armes (in such manner as cockes use to strike with their wings) upon the hangings of the chamber; whereby, feeling something stirring under them, he cried, A rat, a rat! and presently drawing his sworde, thrust it into the hangings; which done, pulled the counsellor (halfe dead) out by the heeles, made an end of killing him," &c.

(6) SCENE IV.-HAMLET dragging out the body of POLONIUS.] The earliest quarto has, "Exit Hamlet with the dead body;" the folio, "Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius." It is remarkable that, while nearly every department of our early literature has been ransacked to supply illustrations of Shakespeare's language and ideas, so little has been done towards their elucidation from the history of his own stage. When Hamlet, at the termination of the present scene, says, "I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room," the commentators very properly reply to the objections of those who, unacquainted with old language, complain of the grossness of expression, that the word guts was not by any means so offensive to delicacy formerly as it is considered now. It was commonly used, in fact, where we should employ entrails, and in this place really signifies no more than lack-brain or shallow-pate. But a little consideration of the exigences of the theatre in Shakespeare's time, which not only obliged an actor to play two or more parts in the same drama, but to perform such servile offices as are now done by attendants of the stage, would have enabled them to show that the line in question is a mere interpolation to afford the player an excuse for removing the body. We append a few examples where the same expedient is adopted for the same purpose. Among them the notable instance of Sir John Falstaff carrying off the body of Harry Percy on his back, an exploit as clumsy and unseemly as Hamlet's "tugging' out Polonius, and, like that, perpetuated on the modern stage only from sheer ignorance of the circumstances which originated such a practice :

"Plan. Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
And what I do imagine, let that rest.—
Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
Will see his burial better than his life.-
Here lies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort:" &c.

"Henry VI." Part I. Act IV. Sc. 7. Death of Talbot and his son. Vol. II. p. 321 :—

"Pucelle. For God's sake, let him have 'em; to keep them here, They would but stink and putrefy the air. Char. Go, take their bodies hence. Lucy.

I'll bear them hence," &c.

"Henry VI." Part II. Act IV. Sc. 10. Death of Jack Cade. Vol. II. p. 385:

"Iden. Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee! And as I thrust thy body in with my sword, So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave, And there cut off thy most ungracious head, Which I will bear in triumph to the king, Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.

[Exit."

"Henry VI." Part III. Act V. Sc. 6. Death of Henry. Vol. II. p. 449 :

"Glo. Clarence, thy turn is next; and then the rest; Counting myself but bad, till I be best.

I'll throw thy body in another room,

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom."

"Richard III." Act III. Sc. 4. Death of Clarence. Vol. II. p. 528:

"1 Murd. Now must I hide his body in some hole Until the duke take order for his burial."

"Troilus and Cressida," Act V. Sc. 9. Death of Hector. Vol. III. p. 318:

"Achil. Come, tie his body to my horse's tail; Along the field I will the Trojan trail."

"Julius Cæsar," Act III. Sc. 2. Cæsar's body exhi bited in the Forum :