he carried the order of the garter) seven or eight hours together at one meal." p. 294. "Thou dost out drink the youth of Norway at "One that rides post and is stopp'd by a cart.” Cotgrave's Treasury, 12mo. 1655, p. 181. In a collection of characters, entitled "Looke to it, for Ile stab ye," without date, we have "You that will drink Keynaldo unto deth, "The Dane that would carowse out of his boote." Whether from a quotation in Roger Ascham's Letters, with which Mr. Reed furnishes us, we may conjecture what the liquor was that was used so profusely on these occasions, we know not; but he tells us, that "The Emperor of Germany, who had his head in the glass five times as long as any of us, never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine." Mr. Ritson also instances, "He tooke his rouse with stoopes of Rhennish wine." Marlowe's Tragical Historie of Doctor Faustus. And to the visit in this country of the same monarch, of whom Howell spoke in his letters, Mr. Reed also refers the introduction of drunkenness (he might say that at least) into the court of James I. "From the day the Danish king came, untill this hour, I have been well nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sports of all kinds. The sports began each day in such manner and such sorte, as well nigh persuaded me of Mahomet's paradise. We had women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty as woud have astonish'd each sober beholder. I think the Dane hath strangely wrought on our good English nobles; for those, whom I never coud get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. I do often say (but not aloud) that the Danes have again conquered the Britains; for I see no man, or woman either, that can now command himself or herself." Sir John Harington to Mr. Secretary Barlow, 1606. Nuga Antiq. 12mo. 1779. II. 26. Wassail is a jovial feast. See L. L. L. V. 2. Bir. & Macb. I. 7. Lady M. Drains, is draws off in gullies. The use of kettledrums at their wassails is noticed in Cleveland's Fuscara. Tuning his draughts with drowsy hums, "As Danes carouse by kettle-drums." 8vo. 1682, p. 3. Bray, is harshly sound out. See "braying trumpets." K. John, III. 1. Blanch. "The triumph of his pledge," may be the victory consequent upon the acceptance of the challenge to this "heavy-headed revel," or may be only its pageant and scenic display. (80) The dram of ill Doth all the noble substance often dout, To his own scandal.] In this, the conclusion of the passage in brackets, taken from the quartos, there is doubtless much corruption: in those the two readings are ease and cale: the modern editors, interpreting cale, ill or evil, substitute the word base. Of a, they consider as a misprint for often; and doubt, as nothing more than another way of spelling dout, or extinguish, as we find it in H. V. Dauph. IV. 2; and IV. 7. Laert. And, as appears, they have shewn great skill in the conduct of the business. "To his own scandal," is to its own; i. e. working its own reproach; and such personifications, or changing either of these pronouns ad libitum, were frequent in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We have the use of the personal pronoun for the neutral, in III. 1. Haml. "Honesty translate beauty into his likeness:" where Mr. Steevens produces a marked instance' of it from the Fairy Queen. "Then forth it break; and with his furious blast "Confounds both land and seas, and skies doth overcast." B. III. c. 9. The sentiment above is also employed, as Mr. Malone observes, to point out the leading defect in Hotspur's character: oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, "Defect of manners, want of government, "Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain "Beguiling them of commendation." I. H. IV. Wor. III. 1. (81) Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, &c.] "Art thou a god, a man, or else a ghost? "Com'st thou from heaven, where bliss and solace dwell? Acolastus, 1600. The first known edition of this play is in 1604. See also William and the Werwolf, MS. King's College Libr. Cambridge: "Whether thou be a gode gost in goddis name that speakest, "Or any foul fiend fourmed in this wise, "And if we schul of the hent harme or gode." p. 36. and "What soever thou art y' thus dost com, "Ghoost, hagge, or fende of hell, "I the comaunde by him that lyves "Thy name and case to tell." B. Googe, Egl. IV. STEEVENS. (82) airs from heaven,] Gentle gales with health or healing on their wings. "Then her ambrosian mantle she assum'd, "With rich and odoriferous ayres perfum'd." Chapman's Homer's Hymn to Venus, fo. p. 93. "He breatheth in her face-she feedeth on the steame, "And calls it heavenly moisture, aire of grace." Ven. & Adonis, 4to. 1594. (83) such a questionable shape] So doubtful, that I will at least make inquiry to obtain a solution, is a plain and obvious sense: but our author, even in his gravest passages, and in the very crisis of his heroes' fate, is accustomed to make them play upon words; and as he has (As you, &c. III. 1. Ros.) used the adjective" unquestionable" in the sense of " averse to parley," the commentators are agreed, that it must here, where it is connected with "speak," mean "provoking parley:" following Theobald's application of the verb. "Live you, or are you ought "That man may question." Macb. III. 1. Macb. And he had said before, Sc. 2. "If it assume my noble father's person, (84) Let me not burst in ignorance] In that swelling agony of suspense, that struggle and convulsion of mind, which impelled him fearfully to break silence; as the equally perturbed spirit broke its confine or cerements. (85) In complete steel] From Olaus Wormius, c. 4, Mr. Steevens shews, it was the custom to bury the Danish kings, as it was their heroes in ancient times, with their armour and other warlike accoutrements. This accentuation of the word cómplete occurs frequently in our author and his contemporaries. See M. for M. I. 4. Duke. (86) Making-we fools of nature] Similar licenses in using the nominative for the accusative, and vice versa, as him for he, and she for her, and ye for you, occur throughout our author. Offending the rule of grammar, the present instance, it must be admitted, without adverting to the niceness and curiosity of modern times, offends also the ear. It must at the same time be allowed, that considering the unsettled state of the orthography of that day, a loose practise, of which there are to be found examples in the most elegant and learned writers, cannot justly be charged upon Shakespeare as vulgar and ignorant. In the comic and burlesque style, Dr. Lowth says, this license may perhaps be allowed. Gramm. 1783. p. 32, 3: yet in some of the instances to which he excepts, so far from being offensive, it recommends itself to the ear, and even appears necessary to effect and those instances would be considered as much less exceptionable than the use of himself as a nominative case, were not the ear by custom familiarized to it. But, after all, we are writing upon the pages of Shakespeare: and in speeches of any length, Shakespeare, careless of rule and rapid in conception, pours along in his flow of thought with perfect indifference to the grammatical connexion of his sentences, so that his ideas cohere; often changes the person; and possessed altogether with his subject, and with the image he has conceived kept as full before the reader's mind as his own, while placed by his feelings in the middle of one sentence, he is found by his reader in the beginning of another. (87) I do not set my life at a pin's fee] At the worth of investiture into lands holden of a superior lord, to no greater an amount. In his Com. on the Commentators Mr. Pye says, "Gold and fee are the old terms for money and land. See the Pepys Collections, or Percy's Reliques, passim." 8vo. 1807, p. 316. In Newton's Lemnie's Touchst. of Complexions, we have "Nor house, nor land, nor gold, nor fee." And the same idea we find in M. for M. 66 12mo 1581. p. 2. b. 'Life I'd throw down as frankly as a pin." III. 1. Isab. (88) beetles o'er his base] Projects darkly. Mr. Steevens cites Sidney's Arcadia, B. I. "Hills lifted up their beetle brows, as if they would overlooke pleasantnesse of their under prospect." (89) deprive your sovereignty of reason] "Dispossess, displace, dethrone the sovereignty of your reason; the princely power of reason, seated in your mind." So that he throws his image forcibly before his reader, Shakespeare leaves it to him to arrange more than his pronouns and articles, and grammatically thread his meaning. "Nobility of love," Haml. I. 2. King, is a similar phraseology. (90) The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain, That looks so many fathoms to the sea, And hears it roar beneath.] Of itself unaided, and without other or further suggestion, raises horrible and desperate conceits in the mind. The whole of this passage from the quartos, as well as the preceding lines, "Tempt to the dreadful summit of the cliff, "That beetles o'er his base into the sea," shew the strong impression which this scenery had made upon our author's mind. It is Dover Cliff again; or the same image, recalling that picture to our minds. D (91) As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve] Pindar's Nemean Odes are still called Neuea, not Neuela. Pye's Comm. on Comment. 1807. p. 313. (92) confin'd to fast in fires] Mr. Smith cites Urry's Chauc. Parson's Tale, p. 193. " And moreover the misese of hell, shall be in defaute of mete and drinke." And Mr. Steevens Nash's Pierce Penniless his Supplication to the Devil, 1595, "Whether it be a place of horror, stench and darkness, where men see meat, but can get none, and are ever thirsty." And The Wyll of the Devyll, bl. 1. no date: "Thou shalt lye in frost and fire "With sicknesse and hunger;" &c. (93) Are burnt and purg'd away] Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into the "punytion of saulis in purgatory" and it is observable, that when the Ghost informs Hamlet of his doom there, the expression is very similar to the Bishop's. I will give you his version as concisely as I can: "It is a nedeful thyng to suffer panis and torment;-Sum in the wyndis, sum under the watter, and in the fire uthir sum: thus the mony vices "Contrakkit in the corpis be done away "And purgit."-Sixte Booke of Eneados, fol. p. 191. FARMER. These last," contracted, purged and done away," are the very words of our Liturgy, in the commendatory prayer for a sick person at the point of departure, in the office for the visitation of the sick. WHALLEY. (94) Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres] "How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted, "In the distraction of this madding fever!" Sonn. 108. MALONE. (95) this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood] Such promulgation of the mysteries of eternity must not be made to beings of a day. The term eternal is used with much license by our author. See "eternal cell," V. 2. Fortinbr. (96) As meditation, or the thoughts of love] As the course and process of thought generally, or the ardent emotions and rapid flights of love. We have "I'll make him fly swifter than meditation," in the prologue to Wily Beguiled. It was not improbably, therefore, a common saying. (97) That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf] "In indolence and sluggishness, by its torpid habits contributes to that morbid |