The clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' th' sere, i. e. those who are asthmatical, and to whom laughter is most uncasy. This is the case (as I am told) with those whose lungs are tickled by the sere or serum: but about this passage I am neither very confident, nor very solicitous. STEEV. The Clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere.' Sere means not serum, but dry, withered. The meaning of the passage is-" The Clown shall make those laugh, who are old, and not much disposed to it; whose lungs indeed are almost worn out." He shall tickle even these. We must read, the Clown shall make those laugh, tickled,-whose lungs are i' the sere.'

'Seare' in the ancient dialogue has the sense of burning. The meaning is obvious, I believe at any rate it must not be explained here. B.

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.
Ham. Buz, buz !

Buz, buz!-Mere idle talk, the buz of the vulgar. Joux. When Hamlet says "buz, buz!" he cannot mean by it mere idle talk, because he had already been informed by Guildernstern that the players were actually arrived. I understand the expression thus: - The Prince is vexed at the officious intrusion of Polonius into his presence, and exclaims," buz, buz! now shall I be tormented with your chattering." Polonius mistaking Hamlet, and thinking that he doubts the truth of his news, replies" upon mine honour," &c. B.

Ham. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-I am glad to see thee well-welcome, good friends.-O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanc'd since I saw thee last.

-valanc'd.] Valanc'd means overhung with a canopy or tester like a bed. The folios read valiant which seems right. The comedian was probably "bearded like a pard."

REMARKS.

"Why, thy face is valanced.' A face cannot well be said to be valiant: or if it be observed, that by the expression we are to understand a courageous look, we must yet ask why the player should be so represented?-Valanced is unquestionably the right word, though the meaning has been mistaken by the Editors. Valance is value, worth. Hamlet would say to the

Chaucer uses it in that sense.

player-"You are become of some value since I saw you: you are grown into reputation."

Valuance (old fr.) value. B..

Ham. 'Twas caviare to the general: but it was (as I receiv'd it, and others, whose judgments, in such matters, cried in the top of mine) an excellent play.

-cried in the top of mine-] i. e. whose judgment I had the highest opinion of. WARB.

I think it means only that were higher than mine. JoHN. Whose judgment, in such matters, was in much higher vogue than mine. REVISAL.

Perhaps it means only-whose judgment was more clamorously delivered than mine. We still say of a bawling actor, that he speaks on the top of his voice. STEEV.

-"Cried in the top of miue."-Either explication may do, except that of Mr. Steevens, which is totally repugnant to the tenor of the speech. B.

Ham. I remember, one said, there were no sallets in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the author of affection.

- there was no sallets, &c.] Such is the reading of the old copies. I know not why the later editors continued to adopt the alteration of Mr. Pope, and read, no salt, &c. STEEV.

"No sallets in the lines" is nonsense; and no salt in the lines is not right. The poet has here, as is very com

mon with him, adopted a French word, viz. saletés, i. e. smut, or smuttiness. Dire des saletés, is, to talk lewdly. Saletés having been at first printed without the accent, was read saletes, and thence arose the mistake. B.

-indite the author of affection :] i. e. convict the author of being a fantastical affected writer. See vol. ii. p. 492. vol. iv. p. 207. STEEV.

"Affection" is not, in this place, I believe, affected or fantastical. "No matter in the phrase that might indite the author of affection," seems to mean, that he was a cold, uninteresting writer, that he did not speak from the heart. B.

1 Play. But who, ah woe! had seen the mobled queen

the mobled queen—] Mobled or mabled signifies veiled. So Sandys, speaking of the Turkish women, says, their heads and faces are mabled in fine linen, that no more is to be seen of them than their eyes. Travels. WARB.

Mobled signifies huddled, grossly covered. JOHN.

The folio reads the inobled queen; and in all probability it is the true reading. This pompous but unmeaning epithet might be introduced merely to make her Phrygian majesty appear more ridiculous in the following lines, where she is represented as wearing a clout on her head; or, innobled queen may however signify the queen unnobled, i. e. divested of her former dignities. Mr. Upton would read mob-led queen; Magna comitante caterva. STEeev.

In the latter end of the reign of King Charles II. the rabble that attended the Earl of Shaftesbury's partizans was first called mobile vulgus, and afterwards, by contraction, the mob ; aud ever since the word mob has become proper English. Consequently Mr. Upton's supposition must fall to the ground. ToL.

the mobled Queen.' The commentators are all on a wrong scent. I am persuaded that Shakspeare has here coined a word from mobilis Lat. without knowing the particular meaning of the Latin term. By mobiled queen, --he means the moved, agitated, queen, as the context will clearly show. B.

1 Play. Run bare-foot up and down, threat'ning

the flames

With bisson rheum ;

With bisson rheum ;-] bisson or beesen, i. c. blind. A word still in use in some parts of the north of England.

So in Coriolanus: "What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this character?" STEEV.

But the printed word bisson or bessen is no doubt received in the sense of blind. What can be understood of blind rheum threat'ning the flames?' The Poet no doubt wrote "besien rheum." Besien is found in early writers and signifies trouble, uneasiness, grief. The meaning of the passage is That the queen ran about seeming as though she would extinguish the flames with her tears: the tears which were occasioned by her extraordinary grief. In Coriolanus, bisson certainly means, as the commentators have set down, blind: or I should rather say dim, or dull. 'Bisson' conspectuities-" dull in apprehension."

Ham. Yet I;

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams,

Like John-a-dreams,-] John-a-dreams, i. e. of dreams, means only John the dreamer; as nick-name, I suppose, for any ignorant silly fellow. Thus the puppet formerly thrown at during the season of lent was called Jack-a-lent, and the ignis fatuus, Jack-a-lanthorn. John-a-drognes however, if not a corruption of this nick-name, seems to have been some well known character, as I have met with more than one allusion to him. So, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, by Nashe, 1596: "The description of that poor John-a-droynes his man, whom he had hired, &c." John-a-droynes is likewise a foolish character in Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra, 1578, who is seized by informers, has not much to say in his defence, and is cheated out of his money. STEEV.

"John-a-droynes"-Droyne is in all probability drone, i. e. dull, slothful, sluggish. Dreams is apparently wrong.

B..

Ros. Niggard of question; but, of our demands, Most free in his reply.

Niggard of question: but of our demands,

Most free in his reply.] This is given as the description of the conversation of a man whom the speaker found not forward to be sounded; and who kept aloof when they would - bring him to confession: but such a description can never påss but at cross-purposes. Shakspeare certainly wrote it just the other way:

Most free of question; but of our demands,
Niggard in his reply.

That this is the true reading, we need but turn back to the preceding scene, for Hamlet's conduct, to be satisfied. WARB. "Niggard, &c." This evidently should be-" free of question." The change must therefore be made as proposed by Warburton. B.

Ham. Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by opposing, end them?

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.] Without question Shakspeare wrote,

i. e. assault. WARB.

against assail of troubles,

Mr. Pope proposed siege. I know not why there should be so much solicitude about this metaphor. Shakspeare breaks his metaphors often, and in this desultory speech there was less need of preserving them. JOHN.

The change which Mr. Pope would recommend, may be justified from a passage in Romeo and Juliet, scene the last: "You-to remove that sicge of grief from her-" STEEV. The same metaphor is used by Marston, in the Second Part of Antonio and Mellida, 1602:

"Whom fretful galls of chance, stern fortune's siege." MAL. Shakspeare resembles Eschylus in the sudden breaks of, his metaphors. To take up arms against a sea of troubles, is in the manner of our author. Were we to admit siege for sea, we might improve the picture; but we should endanger the likeness. Io says, in the Prometheus vinctus of Eschylus,

v. 885.

I talk

"My confused words strike at random against a sea of troubles, or the waves of misery;" by which she means, confusedly in my misfortunes. S. W.

"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles." of troubles" is assuredly wrong. I therefore read

“A sea