ftrutted and bellow'd, that I have thought fome of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably. Play. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us. Ham. Oh, reform it altogether. And let thofe that play your clowns fpeak no more than is fet down for them for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary queftion of the play be then to be confidered. That's villainous; and fhews a moft pitiful ambition in the fool that ufes it. Go, make you ready. [Exeunt Players. Enter Polonius, Rofencrantz, and Guildenstern. How now, my lord? will the king hear this piece of work? Pol. And the queen too, and that prefently. Ham. Bid the players make haste. Will you two help to haften them? Both. We will, my lord. Ham. What, ho, Horatio! Enter Horatio to Hamlet. [Exit Polonius. [Exeunt. Hor. Here, fweet lord, at your service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man, As e'er my converfation cop'd withal. Hor. Oh my dear lord Ham. Nay, do not think I flatter: For what advancement may I hope from thee, To feed and cloath thee? Should the poor be flatter'd? And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 2 -the pregnant hinges of the knee,] I believe the fenfe of pregnant in this place is, quick, ready, prompt. JOHNSON. Q 2 Where I Where thrift may follow fawning. Doft thou hear? Haft ta'en with equal thanks. And bleft are those, As 3 Vulcan's ftithy. Give him heedful note; And, after, we will both our judgments join Hor. Well, my lord. If he fteal aught, the whilft this play is playing, Ham. They are coming to the play; I must be idle: get you a place. my dear foul-] Perhaps, my clear foul. JOHNSON. 2 Whofe blood and judgment] According to the doctrine of the four humours, defire and confidence were feated in the blood, and judgment in the phlegm, and the due mixture of the humours made a perfect character. JOHNSON. • —Vulcan's frithy.] Stithy is a smith's anvil. JOHNSON. Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and others. King. How fares our coufin Hamlet? Ham. Excellent, i' faith; of the camelion's dish. I eat the air, promife-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons fo. King. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine. Ham. No, nor mine now, my lord. - You play'd once i' the university, you say? [To Polenius. Pol. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. Ham. And what did you enact? Pol. I did enact Julius Cæfar: I was kill'd i' the Capitol, Brutus kill'd me. Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill fo capital a calf there. Be the players ready? Rof. Ay, my lord; 5 they stay upon your patience. Queen. Come, hither, my dear Hamlet, fit by me. Ham. No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. Pol. Oh ho! do you mark that? Ham. Lady, fhall I lie in your lap? Oph. No, my lord. [Lying down at Ophelia's feet. Ham. I mean, my head upon your lap? Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. 6 Do you think I meant country matters? -nor mine now, -] A man's words, fays the proverb, are his own no longer than he keep them unfpoken. JOHNSON. 5 they stay upon your patience.] May it not be read more intelligibly, They stay upon your pleafure. In Macbeth it is, Noble Macbeth, we flay upon your leifure." JOHNS. Do you think I meant country matters ?] I think we must read, Do you think I meant country manners? Do you imagine that I meant to fit in your lap, with fuch rough gallantry as clowns use to their laffes? JOHNSON. Q3 Oph. Oph. I think nothing, my lord. Ham. That's a fair thought to lie between maid's legs. Oph. What is, my lord? Oph. You are merry, my lord. Oph. Ay, my lord. Ham. Oh! your only jig-maker. What should a man do, but be merry? For, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within thefe two hours. Oph. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Ham. So long? 7 Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a fuit of fables. Oh heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? then there's 7-Nay, then let the devil wear black, FOR I'll have a fuit of fables. The conceit of thefe words is not taken. They are an ironical apology for his mother's cheerful looks: two months was long enough in confcience to make any dead hulband forgotten. But the editors, in their nonfenfical blunder, have made Hamict fay just the contrary. That the devil and he would both go into mourning, though his mother did not. The true reading is this, Nay, then let the devil wear black, 'FORE I'll have a fuit of fable. Fore, i. e. before. As much as to fay, Let the devil wear black for me, I'll have The Oxford Editor defpifes an emendation fo ezfy, and reads it thus, Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a fuit of ERMINE. And you could expect no leis, when fuch a critic had the dreffing of him. But the blunder was a pleafant one. The fen els editors had wrote fables, the fur fo called, for fable, black. And the critic only changed this fur for that; by a like figure, the common people fay, You rejoice the cockles of my heart, for the mufcles of my heart; an unlucky mike of one fhell-fifh for another. WARBURTON. none. I know not why our editors fhould, with fuch implacable anger, perfecute our predeceffors. O re poi pass, the dead, it is true, can make no refiftance, they may be attacked with great fecurity; but fince they can neither feel nor mend, the fafety of mauling them feems greater than the pleasure ; nor perhaps would it much misbefcem us to remember, amidit our triumphs over the nonfenfical and the fenfeless, that we like 247 there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r-lady, he muft build churches then; or elfe fhall he fuffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horfe; whofe epitaph is, For ob, for ob, the bobby-horfe is forgot. wife are men; that debemur morti, and, as Swift obferved to Burnet, fhall foon be among the dead ourselves. I cannot find how the common reading is nonfenfe, nor why Hamlet, when he laid afide his drefs of mourning, in a country where it was bitter cold, and the air was nipping and eager, fhould not have a fuit of fables. I fuppofe it is well enough known, that the fur of fables is not black. JOHNSON. A fuit of the fables was the richest dress that could be worn in Denmark. STEEVENS. 8 — fuffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horfe ;-) Amongst the country may-games there was an hobby-horfe, which, when the puritanical humour of thofe times oppofed and difcredited thefe games, was brought by the poets and balladmakers as an inftance of the ridiculous zeal of the fectaries: from thefe ballads Hamlet quotes a line or two. WARBURTON. oh, the hobby-horfe is forgot.] In a fmall black letterbook, intitled, Playes Confuted, by Stephen Goffen, I find the bobby-horfe enumerated in the lift of dances. "For the devil (fays this author) "beefide the beautie of the houses, and the ftages, fendeth in gearith apparell, mafkes, vauting, tumbling, dauncing of gigges, galiardes, morifces, hobbi-horses,” &c. and in Green's Tu quoque, this expreffion occurs, 66 "The other hobby-hore I perceive is not forgotten." In TEXNOTAMIA, or The Marriage of the Arts, 1618, is the following ftage-direction. "Enter a hobby-borf dancing the morrice," &c. Again, in B. and Fletcher's Women Pleafed. Soto. Shall the hobby-horfe be forgot then, "The hopeful hobby-horfe, fhall he lie founder'd ?” This fcene, in which this paffage is, will very amply confirm all that Dr. Warburton has faid concerning the bobby-borje. So in Ben Jonfon's Entertainment for the Queen and Prince at Althorpe. "But fee, the hobby-horfe is forget. "To fupply his want with faces, "And fome other buffoon graces." STEEVENS. |