With respect to begins' it is not the verb which is employed, but the substantive. Begins for beginnings-often thus set down in the earlier writers. "Let there be bad beginnings, and worse will soon follow;" by which he would say, crime is progressive. Thus Juvenal,

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus :

And thus the old proverb,

Bad begins

Lead to sins.

The sense of the lines-in which it must yet be owned there is a conceit-I believe to be this-[kind is contracted of kindred.] "I must be cruel in order to be kindred: in order to show that I am of the same blood with the King and Queen." The particular meaning of Hamlet, however, and as it attaches to his relatives, is-('thus bad begins') "thus my conduct towards my mother, and as far as language goes, may be termed cruel: it is in truth a bad beginning ("but worse remains behind,") but worse will comeI shall not rest here." By which he intimates the probable fall of the parties concerned in the murder of his father. B.

Ham. And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers, Make you to ravel all this matter out.

-reechy kisses,] Reechy is smoky. The author meant to convey a coarse idea, and was not very scrupulous in his choice of an epithet. The same, however, is applied with greater propriety to the neck of a cook-maid in Coriolanus. STEEV. "Reechy," in this place, is rather smoking, than smoky. "Reechy kisses" are hot, burning kisses. B.

Ham.

They must sweep my way,

And marshal me to knavery:

And marshal me to knavery.' Hamlet by knavery"

must mean subtilty, artifice. As the expression is equivocal, and as French words are common with our author, it would be better to read naiveté, cunning,' i. e. that cunning which his enemies may attempt to practise against him, or that which he may himself employ.

This appears to be what he would hint at, if we are to judge by the immediately following lines. Or he may have coined a word (naivery) which has exactly the sound of that in the text. B.

Ham. The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body.

The body is with the king,-] This answer I do not com prehend. Perhaps it should be, The body is not with the king, for the king is not with the body. JOHN.

Perhaps it may mean this. The body is in the king's house, (i. e. the present king's) yet the king (i. e. he who should have been king) is not with the body. Intimating that the usurper is here, the true king in a better place. Or it may meann—the guilt of the murder lies with the king, but the king is not where the body lies. The affected obscurity of Hamlet must excuse so many attempts to procure something like a meaning. STEEV.

The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The answer of Hamlet is not in reference to the body of Polonius. His words are certainly to be considered as a covert allusion to the nefarious practices of the king. Body' is here, and according to the scriptural signification, reality. The body is with the King,' i. e. "Claudius is actually king: he has the reality, the power." But the king is not with the body,' i. e. "Yet that power belongs not to him as lawful king: he has stolen the crown he possesses, and therefore, and in fact, the king, (for this is none) has not the reality." This, I think, is the conceit. B.

King.

Thou may'st not coldly set

Our sovereign process:

-set by

Our sovereign process,-] So Hanmer. The others have only

set. JOHN.

We should read jet, (jetter, French) i. e. reject, throw out my process or suit. B.

Ham. Two thousand souls, and twenty thousand ducats,

Will not debate the question of this straw;

Will not debate the question of this straw.' It would seem that 'debate' should here be rebate, i, e. check, interrupt, or put a stop to. B.

Oph. Larded all with sweet flowers ;

Which bewept to the grave did go,

With true-love showers.

Larded all with sweet flowers :] The expression is taken from cookery. JOHN.

'Larded all with sweet flowers.' Read farded, (fardé fr.) i. e. ornamented, bedecked. B.

Oph. By Gis, and by Saint Charity

Alack, and fie for shame!

By Gis, I rather imagine it should be read,
By Cis,

That is, by St. Cecily. JOHN.

-by Saint Charity,] Saint Charity is a known saint among the Roman Catholics. Spenser mentions her, Eclog.

5. 255:

"Ah! dear lord, and sweet Saint Charity!"

'Saint Charity,' is holy charity, an epithet which will not apply, indeed to alms-giving:-it belongs entirely to the theological virtue of universal love. B.

The rabble call him, lord;

Gen.
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every ward,

They cry, Choose we; Laertes shall be king!

The ratifiers and props of every word,] The whole tenor of the context is sufficient to show, that this is a mistaken reading. What can antiquity and custom, being the props of words, have to do with the business in hand? Or what idea is conveyed by it? Certainly the poet wrote:

The ratifiers and props of every ward.

The messenger is complaining that the riotous head had overborne the king's officers, and then subjoins, that antiquity and custom were forgot, which were the ratifiers and props of every ward, i. e. of every one of those securities that nature and law place about the person of a king. All this is rational and consequential. WARB.

With this emendation, which was in Theobald's edition, Hanmer was not satisfied. It is indeed harsh. Hanmer transposes the lines, and reads,

They cry, "Chuse we Laertes for our king;"

The ratifiers and props of every word,

Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds. I think the fault may be mended at less expense, by reading, Antiquity forgot, custom not known,

The ratifiers and props of every weal.

That is, of every government. JOHN.

The ratifiers and props of every word.] By word is here meant a declaration, or proposal; it is determined to this sense, by the inference it hath to what had just preceded,

The rabble call him lord, &c.

This acclamation, which is the word here spoken of, was made without regard to antiquity, or received custom, whose concurrence, however, is necessarily required to confer validity and stability in every proposal of this kind.

REV.

Sir T. Hanmer would transpose the two last lines. Dr. Warburton proposes to read, ward; and Dr. Johnson, weal instead of word. I should be rather for reading, work.

TYRW.

The ratifiers and props of every word,] In the first folio there is only a comma at the end of the above line; and will not the passage bear this construction ?-The rabble call him lord, and as if the world were now but to begin, and as if the ancient custom of hereditary succession were unknown, they, the ratifiers and props of every word he utters, cry, Let us make choice, that Laertes shall be king, ToL.

"The ratifiers and props of every word." There is not the least occasion for change. Word' is here authority, command. Read,

"The rabble call him lord :-
And as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,—
(The ratifiers and props of every word)-

They cry choose we: Laertes shall be king.'

i. e. "The rabble hail him lord: and as though antiquity and custom (which are the ratifiers and props of all authority) were wholly forgotten ;-They cry, Laertes shall be King." B.

King.

Do not fear our person; There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.

'Do not fear our person,

There's such divinity doth hedge a King, &c.' See the dialogue of Xenophon entitled Hiero, beginning àλx' épory; and in which Simonides says-" The Gods have attached, as it were, to the person of a King, a certain grace, a certain virtue which makes us look on him not only with admiration but with awe." B..

Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; and there's pansies, that's for thoughts.] There is probably some mythology in the choice of these herbs, but I cannot explain it. Pansies is for thoughts, because of its name, Pensées; but why rosemary indicates remembrance, except that it is an ever-green, and carried at funerals, I have not discovered. JOHN.

Rosemary has always been considered as an excellent cephalic. The reason why rosemary indicates remembrance, is, because it is supposed to strengthen the brain. It is well known that in inveterate head-achs, the memory is frequently lost. B.

SHAK.

I.

E