(61) All his visage warm'd] Wanned, or turned pale, the reading of the quartos, presents an image as well adapted to the passion meant to be expressed, as that of our text. To the knack, and professional habit of modelling the features to the expression of any passion or character, that the purposes of the drama may require, our author refers in R. III. III. 5. Buck. "Tut, I can counterfeit" &c.

(62) His whole function suiting] i. e. "each power and faculty-the whole energies of soul and body :"

("Nature within me seems

"In all her functions weary of herself."

Sams. Agon. V. 596.)

i. e. using the term that imports " performance or the doing of a thing" for "the power or faculty by which the thing is done."

(63) With forms to his conceit] i. e. supplying each corporal feeling or passion, each faculty or energy of the soul, with material forms; i. e. with tone or gesture, expression or attitude, according to the ideas or unimbodied figures, that floated in his conceit or mind."

The construction of the sentence, after "that all his visage warmed," is [that] tears [should be] in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, [that there should be] a broken voice, and [that] his whole function [should be] suiting, i. e. agreeing, with &c.

(64) the cue] For the cue the quartos give that only. For cue see M. N. Dr. III. 1. Quince. It is hint or direction.

(65) Like John a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause.] A John a-dreams is any one, heavy, lethargic, stupid. The word is formed, as Jack a Lent, Jack a Lanthorn, John a Nokes, John a Drones, or a Droynes; and is found, as Steevens says, in Whetstone's Promos & Cassandra, 1578, and in Nashe's Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, 1596. He adds from the beginning of Arth. Hall's Iliad. B. II. 1581.

of.

"John dreaming God he callde to him, that God, chiefe God of il,

"Common cole carrier of every lye."

Unpregnant of, is not quickened with or having a lively sense See M. for M. IV. 4. Ang.; and Polon. supra.

(66)

I have heard,

That guilty creatures, sitting at a play] A number of these stories are collected together by Thomas Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication. STEEVENS.

ACT III.

(1) closely] i. e. privately. Having closely drawn a short dagger, hid of purpose." Reeves of the present miseries of Rushia, 4to. 1614. p. 27. "Done so closely and so secretly as-not discovered till the larum given." Ib. p. 39. If the king did closely or apertly studye or go about to breake or alter agreements &c. between H. VI. and Rich. D. of York. "That peccatum susurrans which, carried about in a still report, traduces thee but closelie, will in a little time become a peccatum clamans, a shrill and crying sinne." Hen. King's David's Enlargement. A Sermon, Oxf. 1625. p. 20. See K. John. IV. 1. Hub.

(2) Affront Ophelia] "To come face to face, v. encounter. Affrontare, Ital." Minshieu, 1617. Tis to confront.

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"There she comes,

Affront her, Synon. Heywood's Iron Age. Part II. Steevens cites the Alchymist:

"To day thou shalt have ingots and tomorrow
"Give lords the affront."

(3) Whether 'tis nobler-to suffer, or] Johnson says, that "this celebrated soliloquy, bursting from a man distracted with contrariety of desires and overwhelmed with the magnitude of his own purposes, is connected rather in the speaker's mind than on his tongue; and that he will endeavour to discover the train, and to show how one sentiment produces another.

We insist, on the contrary, that in its connexion it is beautifully perspicuous: neither can any thing disclose itself more naturally. It is not the train of thought, which is obvious enough, it can only be the grammatical thread, the want of regular deduction of this sort (the quick transitions and abruptness of the speech, which constitute its real merits) that technically may call for some unwinding or explanation; and here, as far as Johnson appears to us to have correctly given the sense, we shall transcribe it.

"If to die, were to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to end the miseries of our nature, such a sleep were devoutly to be wished; but if to sleep in death, be to dream, to retain our powers of sensibility, we must pause to consider, in that sleep of death what dreams may come. This consideration makes calamity so long endured; for who would bear the vexations of life, which might be ended by a bare bodkin, but that he is afraid of something in unknown futurity? This fear it is that gives efficacy to con

science, which by turning the mind upon this regard, chills the ardour of resolution, checks the vigour of enterprise, and makes the current of desire stagnate in inactivity."

"We may suppose that he would have applied these general observations to his own case, but that he discovered Ophelia." Neither, as has by the same writer been alleged (he says, the question is, whether, after our present state, we are to be or not to be), is any doubt here raised by Hamlet respecting a future state of existence; but solely what the condition of such existence is to be a consideration, which, he argues, operates to check the free course and bent of the mind; and entangles it, when discussing, whether it is more noble for a man, who is unfortunate in life, to kill himself, or endure misery?

:

A desire to be out of the world is one of the most strongly marked features of Hamlet's character. It is the first wish he utters when alone. "O that this too, too solid flesh would melt!" I. 2. But he is then restrained from any thing beyond a wish for suicide by religious scruples, by the sense that the law of God is against it. The inclination now returns upon him more forcibly (having more cause for such an impulse), and the prohibition of heaven does not enter into this question, does not make any part of his present consideration. It is here only, what he shall change this life for. This is the language and subject of a man's mind who is nearer to death, than he who only wishes that it were lawful to kill himself.

(4) Or to take arms against a sea of troubles] i. e. " provide means of resistance against an overwhelming flood." This mode of speaking is proverbial, and has been so, in all ages and languages neither can any metaphor be conceived more apt than that of the sea, to convey the idea of an overwhelming mass or multitude: and "multitudinous" our author denominates it in II. 2. Macb. in which place Steevens tells us, that " a sea of heads" is a phrase employed by one of our legitimate poets. With the closest analogy we say, a flood of transport, a torrent of abuse; a peck, a world of troubles. He uses it himself every where and in every form; and the integrity of his metaphor is that which, by him, is of all things the least thought of. In Timon, IV. 2. he speaks of a sea of air." And in I. 1. a flood of visitors." Poet. In Pericles, V. 1. of "a sea of joys." In H. VIII. III. 2. of “ a sea of glory." In Tarq. and Lucr. of " a sea of care." In R. C.'s Hen. Steph. Apol. for Herodotus, fol. 1608. p. 159. (and few books have more of the phraseology of Shakespeare), we have “a sea of sorrow" and it is not a dissimilar, but a more licentious and less common figure, that Leonato uses when he says, he will "bring Benedict and Beatrice into a mountain of affection with each other." M. ado &c. II. 1. We shall produce instances of the popular use of this figure to express both this feeling and its opposite; and one also of its use in early times to express a great quantity generally. 1." Comforteth me a midde the

main seas of my sorrowes and heavinesse." Cicero to P. Lentulo, Abr. Flemming's Panoplie of Epistles, 4to. 1570. p. 4. “Me in summo dolore consolatur.' Epist. 1. 6. "I am replenished therefore with seas of pleasure." Cicero to Appio Pulchro. Ib. p. 16. Itaque capio magnam voluptatem." Epist. III. 10.—2. "Had not this, as ye would saie an hougemain sea of thynges stil freshe and freshe comyng to mynde, enforced and driven me to blowe retreacte and to recule backe." Nic. Udall's Erasmus's Apopthegmes, 12mo. 1542. Pref. III. b.

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It will perhaps be some relief to the weary reader to see a proper note upon this subject and to those who retain a memory and just sense of that which they must not expect to see and hear again, it must be peculiarly gratifying to know, that it proceeds from the pen of one, whose living comments upon Shakespeare have never been equalled, and throughout all time, as is most probable, never will.

"His language, like his conceptions, is strongly marked with the characteristic of nature: it is bold, figurative, and significant his terms rather than his sentences are metaphorical: he calls an endless multitude a sea, by a happy allusion to the perpetual succession of wave to wave; and he immediately expresses opposition, by taking up arms' which being fit in itself, he was not solicitous to accommodate it to his first image. This is the language in which a figurative and rapid conception will always be expressed; this is the language both of the prophet and the poet, of native eloquence and divine inspiration." -David Garrick's Oration in honour of Shakespeare's Jubilee.

(5) To die—to sleep-no more] This passage is ridiculed in Beaumont and Fletcher's Scornful Lady.

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be deceased, that is, asleep, for so the word is taken, "To sleep, to die; to die, to sleep; a very figure, sir," &c. &c.

Thy best of rest is sleep;

THEOBALD.

"And that thou oft provok'st: yet grossly fear'st

Thy death, which is no more.'

Here Johnson, who not unfrequently took alarms not very philosophical, indignantly charges our author not only with false reasoning and vulgarity but also with impiety, forgetting that Cicero spoke a language nearly identical" habes somnum imaginem mortis, eumq quotidie induis, et dubitas quin sensus in morte nullus sit cum in ejus simulacro videas esse nullum sensum. Tusc. Disp. lib. 1; and that the highest and most venerable authorities in speaking of good men, that have passed away, describe them as having fallen asleep. If Shakespeare has gone rather further than this and in the exercise of his art has put into the mouth of one of his Persona Dramatis every topic of persuasion to effect a most important object, the mere circumstance of that Person (the Duke) having assumed the

habit and character of a Friar cannot affect the question, or subject the author to the charge of impiety even supposing the sentiments expressed to be liable to such imputation. It may be said therefore of the Doctor's remarks upon this passage that although in prosecution of a cause and object that cannot be too much respected, this was the mere dictate of precipitation and over zeal.

(6)

might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin]

i. e. " dismiss himself, obtain his discharge or acquittance (for which quietus is the technical term in the Exchequer, on settling sheriffs' accounts, &c.) by the mere point of a dagger."

"The antique, death,

"Comes at the last; and with a little pin

"Bores thro' his castle wall." R. II. II. 2. King R.

Our Chronicles from Rastell 1529, (see edit. 4to. 1811. p. 17.) as well as most other writers for more than a century afterwards, speak of Cæsar as slain by bodkins; so it is, says Steevens, in the margin of Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1614, and to this point he further cites :

"Is a most dang'rous weapon; since I read
"Of Julius Cæsar's death, I durst not venture
"Into a taylor's shop, for fear of bodkins."

Randolph's Muses' Looking-Glass. 1638. Out with your bodkin,

"Your pocket dagger, your stilletto."

B. & Fl. Custom of the Country. "there will be a desperate fray between two, made at all weapons, from the brown bill to the bodkin." Sapho & Phaon, 1591 and in his comment on speaking daggers" at the end of Sc. 2, A. III., he instances from the Return from Parnassus, 1606,"speaking bodkins." "From boddiken or small body." SKINNER.

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(7) To grunt and sweat] Language is in its nature flux and variable above all things, and of course open to the inroads of fashion and refinement. Were we, because this word, as gripe, crack, &c., has lost its rank and dignity in modern use, to displace and expunge it from the pages of our earlier writers, we should do injury as well to the character of such author's style, as to the integrity and history of the language itself.

Steevens shews that this word was heretofore adapted to the expression both of the solemn and the tender.

"Round about I heard

"Of dying men the grunts."

Turberville's Ov. Canace to Macareus.