Trumpets found. The dumb fhew follows.

• Enter a king and queen very lovingly, the queen embracing him, and be her. She kneels, and makes fhew of proteftation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; lays him down upon a bank of flowers; fhe, feeing him afleep, leaves him.

9 Enter a king and queen very lovingly ;] Thus have the blunde ing and inadvertent editors all along given us this stagedirection, though we are exprefly told by Hamlet anon, that the ftory of this introduced interlude is the murder of Gonzago duke of Vienna. The fource of this mistake is easily to be accounted for, from the stage's dreffing the characters. Regal coronets being at first ordered by the poet for the duke and dutchefs, the fucceeding players, who did not strictly obferve the quality of the perfons, or circumftances of the story, mistook 'em for a king and queen; and fo the error was deduced down from thence to the prefent times. THEOBALD.

Enter a duke and a dutchefs, with regal coronets,-] Regal coronets are improper for any perfonage below the dignity of a king. Regal, as a fubftantive, is the name of a mufical inftrument now out of use; but there is an officer of the house. hold, called Tuner of the Regals. The cornet is well known to be a mufical inftrument, and proper for proceflions.

Might we not then read, Enter a duke and dutchefs, with regals, cornets, &c. HAWKINS.

The regal is not entirely left in Germany, and is a small portable organ with keys. It appears from an account of the eftablishment of the household in the first year of the reign of Q. Mary (among the MSS. belonging to the Antiquary Society) that the king had a regal-maker, who had a falary of 161. per

annum,

Lord Bacon mentions organs and regals as inftruments of a fimilar construction. The latter are ftill used in the north parts of Sweden. The word rigabellum occurs in Du Cange, who thus defines it.Inftrumentum muficum, cujus ufus in adibus facris, antequam organa, Italis omnino familiaria effent.

The fubitance of this note was communicated to the Antiquary Society by the Hon. D. Barrington.

I have copied this order for the dumb fhew from the quarto. The folic, nor any other edition that I have ever seen (Theobald's and Warburton's alone excepted) mentions regal coronets: and to conclude, Theobald feems to have been difputing with himfelf about the propriety of a circumftance, which does not appear to have had exiftence, STEEVENS.

Лист

Anon comes in another man, takes off his crown, kiffes it, and pours poifon into the fleeper's ears, and exit. The queen returns; finds the king dead, and makes paffionate action. The poifoner, with fome two or three mutes, comes in again, feeming to condole with ber. The dead body is carried away. The poifoner wooes the queen with gifts; fhe feems harsh a while, but in the end accepts love. [Exeunt.

Oph. What means this, my lord?

I

Ham. Marry, this is miching malicho; it means mifchief.

Oph. Belike, this fhew imports the argument of the play?

Enter Prologue.

Ham. We fhall know by this fellow: the players Cannot keep counfel; they'll tell all.

I

Oph. Will he tell us what this fhew meant?

Ham. Ay, or any fhew that you'll fhew him.

Marry, this is miching MALICHO; it means mifchief.] The Oxford Editor, imagining that the fpeaker had here englished his own cant phrase of miching malicho, tells us (by his gloffary) that it ûgnifies mifchief lying bid, and that malicho is the Spanish malbeco; whereas it fignifies, Lying in wait for the poifoner. Which, the fpeaker tells us, was the very purpose of this reprefentation. It should therefore be read MALHECHOR Spanish, the poifoner. So mich fignified, originally, to keep hid and out of fight; and, as fuch men generally did it for the purpoles of lying in wait, it then fignified to rob. And in this fenfe Shakespeare ufes the noun, a micher, when speaking of prince Henry amongst a gang of robbers. Shall the bleed fun of heaven prove a micher? Shall the fon of England prove a thief? And in this fenfe it is ufed by Chaucer, in his tranflation of Le Roman de la Rofe, where he turns the word lierre (which is larron, voleur) by micher. WARBURTON.

I think Hanmer's expofition moft likely to be right. Dr. Warburton, to justify his interpretation, muft write, miching for malechor, and even then it will be harsh. JoHNSON. The quarto reads munching mallico. STEEVENS.

Be

Be not you afham'd to fhew 2, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Oph. You are naught, you are naught. I'll mark the play.

Prol. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here ftooping to your clemency,

We beg your bearing patiently.

Ham. Is this a prologue, or the pofy of a ring?
Oph. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Ham. As woman's love.

Enter a Duke and a Dutchess.

Duke. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone
round

Neptune's falt wafh, and Tellus' orbed ground;
And thirty dozen moons with borrowed 3 fheen
About the world have times twelve thirty been,
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,
Unite commutual in moft facred bands.

Dutch. So many journeys may the fun and moon
Make us again count o'er, ere love be done.
But woe is me, you are fo fick of late,

So far from cheer, and from your former ftate,
That I distrust you; yet though I diftruft,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women fear too much, 4 even as they love.

2

Be not you afham'd to fhew, &c.] The converfation of Hamlet with Ophelia, which cannot fail to difguft every modern reader, is probably fuch as was peculiar to the young and fashionable of the age of Shakespeare, which was, by no means, an age of delicacy. The poet is, however, blameable; for extravagance of thought, not indecency of expreffion, is the characteristic of madnefs, at leaft, of fuch madness as fhould be reprefented on the fèene. STEEVENS.

Scen] Splendor, lufire. JOHNSON.

4. -even as they love.] Here feems to be a line loft, which fhould have rhymed to love. JoHNSON.

And

And women's fear and love hold quantity;
In neither ought, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know; 5 And as my love is fiz'd, my fear is so.

[Where love is great, the littleft doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.] Duke. 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and fhortly

too :

My operant powers their functions leave to do,
And thou fhalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, belov'd; and, haply, one as kind
For husband fhalt thou-

Dutch. Oh, confound the reft!

Such love muft needs be treafon in my breaft:
In fecond husband let me be accurft!

None wed the fecond, but who kill the first.
Ham. That's wormwood.

Dutch. The intances, that fecond marriage move,
Are base refpects of thrift, but none of love.
A fecond time I kill my husband dead,

When fecond husband kiffes me in bed.

Duke. I do believe you think what now you fpeak;
But what we do determine, oft we break;
Purpose is but the flave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity:

Which now, like fruit unripe, fticks on the tree,
But fall, unfhaken, when they mellow be.

And as my love is fix'd, my fear is fo.] Mr. POPE fays, I read fix'd; and, indeed, I do fo: becar fe, I obferve, the quarto of 1605 reads, cis'd; that of 1611, cft; the folio in 1632, fiz; and that in 1623, fz'd: and because, befides, the whole tenor of the context demands this reading: for the lady evidently is talking here of the quantity and proportion of her love and fear; not of their continuance, duration, or stability. Cleopatra expreffes herself much in the fame manner, with regard to her grief for the lofs of Antony.

The inftances,-] The motives. JOHNSON.

Moft

Most neceffary 'tis, that we forget

To pay ourselves 7 what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in paffion we propof,
The paffion ending, doth the purpofe lose;
8 The violence of either grief or joy,

Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on flender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor 'tis not ftrange,
That even our loves fhould with our fortunes change.
For 'tis a queftion left us yet to prove,

Whether love leads fortune, or elfe fortune love.
The great man down, you mark, his favorite flies;
The poor advanc'd, makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
For who not needs, fhall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly feafons him his enemy.

But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills, and fates, do fo contrary run,

That our devices ftill are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think, thou wilt no fecond husband wed;
But die thy thoughts, when thy first lord is dead.
Dutch. Nor earth to give me food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repofe, lock from me, day and night!
[To defperation turn my truft and hope!

9 An anchor's cheer in prifon be my fcope!]

7 what to ourselves is debt:] The performance of a refolution, in which only the refolver is interested, is a debt only to himself, which he may therefore remit at pleasure.

The violence of either grief or joy,

JOHNSON.

Their own enactures with themselves deftroy:] What grief or joy enact or determine in their violence, is revoked in their abatement. Enctures is the word in the quarto; all the mo dern editions have enactors. JOHNSON.

9 An anchor's cheer in prison be my Scope!] May my whole liberty and enjoyment be to live on hermit's fare in a prifon. Anchor is for anchoret. JOHNSON.

Each