plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit; together with most weak hams. All which, Sir, though I moft powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honefty to have it thus fet down; for yourself, Sir, fhall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol. Though this be madnefs, yet there's method

in't.

Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham. Into my grave?

Pol. Indeed, that is out o' the air:
How pregnant fometimes his replies are!
A happiness that often madness hits on,
Which fanity and reafon could not be
So profperously deliver'd of. I'll leave him,
And fuddenly contrive the means of meeting
Between him and my daughter.

My honourable lord, I will moft humbly
Take my leave of you.

[Afide.

Ham. You cannot, Sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. Thefe tedious old fools!

Enter Rofencrantz and Guildenstern.

Pol. You go to feek lord Hamlet; there he is.

Rof. God fave you, Sir.

Guil. Mine honour'd lord!

[Exit.

Rof. My most dear lord!

Ham. My excellent good friends! How doft thou, Guildenstern?

Oh, Rofencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

Nothing could be finer imagined for Hamlet, in his circumftances, than the bringing him in reading a defcription of the evils of long life. WARBURTON.

There was no tranflation of Juvenal extant fo early; thofe who have seen Mr. Farmer's pamphlet will hardly believe that Shakespeare was able to have read the original. STEEVENS.

0 3

Rof.

Rof. As the indifferent children of the earth. Guil. Happy, in that we are not over-happy: On fortune's cap we are not the very button. Ham. Nor the foals of her fhoe?

Rof. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

Guil. 'Faith, in her privates we.

Ham. In the fecret parts of fortune? Oh, most true; fhe is a ftrumpet. What news?

Ref. None, my lord, but that the world's grown honeft.

Ham. Then is doomfday near: but your news is not true. Let me queftion more in particular: what have you, my good friends, deferved at the hands of fortune, that fhe fends you to prison hither? Guil. Prifon, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Rof. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one o' the worst.

Rof. We think not fo, my lord.

Ham. Why then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it fo. To me, it is a prison.

Rof. Why, then your ambition makes it one: 'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. Oh God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite fpace, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition: for the very fubftance of the ambitious is merely the fhadow of a dream,

the fhadow of a dream.] Shakespeare has accidentally inverted an expreffion of Pindar, that the ftate of humanity is guias orap, the dream of a shadow. JOHNSON.

Ham,

Ham. A dream itself is but a fhadow.

Rof. Truly, and I hold ambition of o airy and light a quality, that it is but a fhadow's fh adow.

Ham. 3 Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs and out-ftretch'd heroes, the beggars' fhadows. Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I cannot reason.

Both. We'll wait upon you. Ham. No fuch matter. I will not fort you with the rest of my fervants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am moft dreadfully attended. But in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elfinour?

Rof. To vifit you, my lord; no other occafion.

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you: and fure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear at a half-penny. Were you not fent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free vifitation? Come, deal juftly with me: come, come; nay, fpeak.

Guil. What should we fay, my lord?

Ham. Any thing-but to the purpose. You were fent for; and there is a kind of confeffion in your looks, which your modefties have not craft enough to colour. I know the good king and queen have fent for you.

But let me con

Rof. To what end, my lord? Ham. That you must teach me. jure you by the rights of our fellowship, by the confonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our everpreferved love, and by what more dear a better propofer could charge you withal; be even and direct with me, whether you were fent for, or no? Rof. What say you?

[To Guilden.

1 Then are our beggars, bodies;-] Shakespeare feems here to defign a ridicule of thefe declamations against wealth and greatness, that feem to make happiness confift in poverty.

Q 4

JOHNSON.
Ham.

Ham. Nay, then I have an eye

love me, hold not off.
Guil. My lord, we were fent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; fo fhall my anticipatio prevent your discovery, and your fecrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. 5 I have of late (but wherefore I know not) loft all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes fo heavily with my difpofition, that this goodly frame, the earth, feems to me a steril promontory; this moft excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majeftical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and peftilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reafon ! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how exprefs and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehenfion how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quinteffence of duft? Man delights not me— nor woman neither; though by your fmiling you feem to fay fo.

Rof. My lord, there was no fuch stuff in my thoughts. Ham. Why did you laugh when I faid man delights not me?

Rof. To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what lenten entertainment the players fhall receive from you; we coted them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you fervice.

Ham

Nay, then I have an eye of you :-] An eye of you means, I have a glimpse of your meaning. STEEVENS.

I have of late, &c.] This is an admirable defcription of a rooted melancholy fprung from thicknefs of blood; and artfully imagined to hide the true caufe of his diforder from the penetration of thefe two friends, who were fet over him as pies. WARBURTON.

"We coted them on the way,-] To cete (as has been already obferved) is to overtake. I meet with this word in The Return from Parnaffus, a comedy, 1606.

Ham. He that plays the king fhall be welcome; his majefty fhall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight fhall ufe his foil and target: the lover fhall not figh gratis: the humorous man 7 fhall end his part in peace: the clown fhall make those laugh whofe lungs are tickled o' the fere and the lady fhall fay her mind freely, or the blank verfe fhall halt for't. What players are they?

Rof. Even thofe you were wont to take delight in, the tragedians of this city.

Ham. How chances it they travel? their refidence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways. Rof. 9 I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

Ham. Do they hold the fame eftimation they did when I was in the city? are they fo follow'd? Rof. No, indeed, they are not.

marry we prefently coted and outflript them."

I have obferved the fame word to be ufed in feveral more of the old plays. So in the Second Part of Marfion's Antonio and Mellida, 1602.

66

-quick obfervation fend

"To cote the plot."

STEEVENS.

7fball end his part in peace :—] After thefe words the folio adds, the clown fhall make thofe laugh whofe lungs are tickled o' th' fere. WARBURTON.

This paffage I have omitted, for the fame reafon, I fuppofe, as the other editors: I do not understand it. JOHNSON.

The clown fhall make thofe laugh whose lungs are tickled a' th' fere, i. e. those who are afthmatical, and to whom laughter is moft uneafy. This is the cafe (as I am told) with those whofe lungs are tickled by the fere or ferum; but about this paffage I am neither very confident, nor very folicitous. STEEVENS. the lady fhall, &c.] The lady fhall have no obftruction, unless from the lameness of the verfe. JOHNSON.

8

I think, their inhibition-] I fancy this is tranfpofed: Hamlet enquires not about an inhibition, but an innovation; the answer therefore probably was, I think, their innovation, that is, their new practice of ftrolling, comes by the means of the late inhibition.

JOHNSON.

"Ham.