Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honefty?

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will fooner transform honefty from what it is, to a bawd, than the force of honefty can tranflate beauty into its likeness. This was fometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe fo. Ham. You fhould not have believed me: for virtue cannot fo inoculate our old ftock, but we shall relifh of it. I lov'd you not.

Oph. I was the more deceiv'd.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of finners? I am myself indifferent honeft; but yet I could accufe me of fuch things, that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences 7 at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them fhape, or time to act them in. What fhould fuch fellows, as I, do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be fhut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell. Oph. Oh, help him, you sweet heavens !

Ham. If thou doft marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chafte as ice, as pure as fnow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to

7 -at my beck,-] That is, always ready to come about me. With more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.] What is the meaning of thoughts to put them in? A word is dropt out. We should read,

-thoughts to put them in NAME.

This was the progrefs. The offences are firft conceived and named, then projected to be put in act, then executed. WAR B. To put a thing into thought, is to think on it. JOHNSON.

a nunnery;

a nunnery; farewell: or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wife men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,

and quickly too.

Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers reftore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lifp, and nick-name God's creatures, and 9 make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to; I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I fay, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married. already, all but one, fhall live; the reft fhall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit Hamlet. Oph. Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, foldier's, fcholar's, eye, tongue, fword;

The expectancy and rofe of the fair state,

The glafs of fashion, and the mould of form,
The obferv'd of all obfervers! Quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That fuck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now fee that noble and moft fovereign reafon,
Like fweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form, and feature of blown youth,

I have heard of your painting too, well enough, &c.] This is according to the quarto; the folio, for painting, has prattlings, and for face, has pace, which agrees with what follows, you jig, you amble. Probably the author wrote both. I think the common reading beft. JOHNSON.

make your wantonnefs your ignorance.] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to miftake by ignorance. JOHNSON.

3

The courtier's, foldier's, fcholar's eye, tongue, fword;] The poet certainly meant to have placed his words thus:

The courtier's, fcholar's, foldier's, eye, tongue, fword;

otherwife the excellence of tongue is appropriated to the foldier, and the fcholar wears the word. WARNER.

2-the mould of form,] The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. JOHNSON.

2

Blafted

Blafted with ecftafy 3. Oh, woe is me!
To have feen what I have feen; fee what I fee.

Enter King and Polonius.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. Something's in his foul, O'er which his melancholy fits on brood;

And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the difclofe
Will be fome danger; which, how to prevent,
I have in quick determination

Thus fet it down. He fhall with fpeed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the feas, and countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel

This fomething-fettled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brain ftill beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It fhall do well. But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of this grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia ?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet faid;
We heard it all.

My lord, do as you please.

But, if you hold it fit, after the play

[Exit Ophelia.

Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him
To fhew his griefs; let her be round with him;
And I'll be plac'd, fo please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If the find him not,
To England fend him; or confine him where
Your wifdom beft fhall think.

King. It fhall be fo.

Madness in great ones muft not unwatch'd go. [Exeunt.

3 with ecftafy.] The word ecftafy was anciently used to fignify fome degree of alienation of mind.

So G. Douglas, tranflating-ftetit acri fixa dolore.

"In ecftofy the flood, and mad almaist."

So in Macbeth:

66

on the torture of the mind to lie

"In reftlofs ecfaly." STEEVENS.

SCENE

SCENE IL

A ball.

Enter Hamlets and two or three of the players.

Ham. Speak the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town-crier had fpoke my lines. Nor do not faw the air too much with your hand, thus; but ufe all gently for in the very torrent, tempeft, and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothnefs. Oh, it offends me to the foul, to hear a robuftious periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of 3 the groundlings; who, for the moft part, are capable of nothing but

3

-the groundlings ;- -] The meaner people then feem to have fat below, as they now fit in the upper gallery, who, not well understanding poetical language, were fometimes gratified by a mimical and mute reprefentation of the drama, previous to the dialogue. JOHNSON.

Before each act of the tragedy of Jocafta, tranflated from Euripides, by Geo. Gafcoigne and Fra. Kinwelmerfh, the order of these dumb fhews is very minutely defcribed. This play was prefented at Gray's Inn by them in 1566. The dumb fhews included in it are chiefly emblematical, nor do they exhibit a picture of one fingle fcene, which is afterwards performed on the ftage. In fome other pieces I have obferved, that these exhibitions ferved to introduce fuch circumstances as the limits of a play would not admit to be reprefented. In fhort, they fometimes fupplied deficiencies, and, at others, filled up the space of time which was necessary to pass while bufinefs was fuppofed to be tranfacted in foreign parts. With this method of preferving the unity of time, our ancestors appear to have been fatisfied. Ben Jonfon mentions the groundlings with equal contempt. "The understanding gentlemen "of the ground here." The groundling, in its primitive fignification, means a fish which always keeps at the bottom of the water, STEEVENS.

VOL. X.

е

inex

4 inexplicable dumb fhews, and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing 5 Termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Play. I warrant your honour.

6

Ham. Be not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special obfervance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing; whofe end, both at the firft, and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and 7 preffure. Now this over-done, or come tardy off, though it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the cenfure of which one must in your allowance o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praife, and that highly ( not to fpeak it profanely) that neither having the accent of chriftian, nor the gait of chriftian, pagan, or man, have so fo

4-inexplicable dumb fhews,-] I believe the meaning is, fhews, without words to explain them. JOHNSON.

Rather, I believe, fhews which are too confusedly conducted to explain themfelves. STEEVENS.

5

Termagant;] Termagant was a Saracen deity, very clamorous and violent in the old moralities. PERCY.

Termagant is mentioned by Spenfer in his Fairy Queen, by Chaucer in The Tale of Sir Topas, and by B. and Fletcher in King or no King, as follows:

This would make a faint fwear like a foldier, and a foldier "like Termagant." STEEVENS.

6 -age and body of the time,-] The age of the time can hardly pafs. May we not read, the face and body, or did the author write, the page? The page fuits well with form and preffure, but ill with body. JOHNSON.

7 preffure.] Refemblance, as in a print. JOHNSON.

8

(not to speak it profanely)-] Profanely feems to relate, not to the praife which he has mentioned, but to the cenfure which he is about to utter. Any grofs or indelicate language was called profane. JOHNSON.

ftrutted