N h A heart unfortified, or mind impatient; Incorrect does not mean untutored, as Warburton explains it ; but ill-regulated, not fufficiently fubdued. M. MASON. Not fufficiently regulated by a fenfe of duty and fubmiffion to the difpenfations of Providence. MALONE. • To reafon most abfurd;] Reafon is here used in its common fenfe, for the faculty by which we form conclufions from arguments. JOHNSON. 7 And, with no lefs nobility of love,] Nobility, for magnitude. WARBURTON. Nobility is rather generofity. JOHNSON. By nobility of love, Mr. Heath understands, eminence and diftinction of love. MALOne. So, afterwards, the Ghost, describing his affection for the Queen : "To me, whofe love was that of dignity" &c. STEEVENS. Do I impart toward you.] I believe impart is, impart myfelf, communicate whatever I can beftow. JOHNSON. The crown of Denmark was elective. So, in Sir Clyomon, In going back to school in Wittenberg, "And me poffefs for fpoufed wife, who in election an "To have the crown of Denmark here, as heir unto the fame." The King means, that as Hamlet ftands the fairest chance to be next elected, he will ftrive with as much love to enfure the crown to him, as a father would fhow in the continuance of heirdom to a fon. STEEVENS. I agree with Mr. Steevens, that the crown of Denmark (as in moft of the Gothick kingdoms) was elective, and not hereditary; though it must be customary, in elections, to pay fome attention to the royal blood, which by degrees produced hereditary fucceflion. Why then do the reft of the commentators fo often treat Claudius as an ufurper, who had deprived young Hamlet of his right by heirship to his father's crown? Hamlet calls him drunkard, murderer, and villain; one who had carried the election by low and mean practices; had― had "Popp'd in between the election and my hopes-." "From a fhelf the precious diadem stole, "And put it in his pocket :" but never hints at his being an ufurper. His discontent arofe from his uncle's being preferred before him, not from any legal right which he pretended to fet up to the crown. Some regard was probably had to the recommendation of the preceding prince, in electing the fucceffor. And therefore young Hamlet had "the voice of the king himself for his fucceflion in Denmark ;" and he at his own death prophecies that "the election would light on Fortinbras, who had his dying voice," conceiving that by the death of his uncle, he himself had been king for an inftant, and had therefore a right to recommend. When, in the fourth Act, the rabble wifhed to choose Laertes king, I underfland that antiquity was forgot, and cufton violated, by electing a new king in the life-time of the old one, and perhaps alfo by the calling in a stranger to the royal blood. BLACKSTONE. 9 to School in Wittenberg,] In Shakspeare's time there was an univerfity at Wittenberg, to which he has made Hamlet propofe to return. The univerfity of Wittenberg was not founded till 1502, confequently did not exift in the time to which this play is referred. MALONE. Our author may have derived his knowledge of this famous And, we beseech you, bend you to remain ' I QUEEN. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, I pray thee, stay with us, go not to Wittenberg. [Exeunt King, Queen, Lords, &c. POLONIUS, univerfity from The Life of Iacke Wilton, 1594, or The Hiftory of Doctor Fauftus, of whom the Second report (printed in the fame year) is faid to be "written by an English gentleman, ftudent at Wittenberg, an University of Germany in Saxony." I RITSON. bend you to remain —] i. e. fubdue your inclination to go from hence, and remain, &c. STEEVENS. 2 Sits Smiling to my heart:] Thus, the dying Lothario: "That fweet revenge comes fmiling to my thoughts." Sits Smiling to my heart] Surely it should be: Sits fmiling on my heart. RITSON. STEEVENS. To my heart, I believe, fignifics-near to, clofe, next to, my heart. STEEVENS. 3 No jocund health,] The King's intemperance is very ftrongly impreffed; every thing that happens to him gives him occafion to drink. JoHNSON. 4the king's roufe-] i. e. the King's draught of jollity. See Othello, Act II. fc. iii. STEEVENS, HAM. O, that this too too folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew !5 Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd His canon 'gainst felf-flaughter !6 O God! O God! How weary, ftale, flat, and unprofitable So, in Marlowe's Tragical Hiftorie of Doctor Fauftus: "He tooke his roufe with ftoopes of Rhennish wine." 3 RITSON. ·refolve itself into a dew !] Refolve means the fame as diffolve. Ben Jonfon uses the word in his Volpone, and in the fame fense: "Forth the refolved corners of his eyes." Again, in The Country Girl, 1647: my fwoln grief, refolved in these tears." Pope has employed the fame word in his verfion of the second Iliad, 44: Refolves to air, and mixes with the night." STEEVENS. Again, in Giles Fletcher's Ruffe Commonwealth, 1591: «In winter time, when all is covered with fnow, the dead bodies (fo many as die all the winter time) are piled up in a house in the suburbs, like billets on a woodstack, as hard with the froft as a very stone, 'till the fpring tide come and refolve the froft, what time every man taketh his dead friend and committeth him to the ground." REED. • Or that the Everlafting had not fix'd His canon 'gainft felf-flaughter!] The generality of the editions read-cannon, as if the poet's thought were,-Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, or arms of vengeance, against felf-murder. But the word which I reftored (and which was efpoufed by the accurate Mr. Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the true reading, i. e. that he had not restrained Suicide by his exprefs law and peremptory prohibition. THEOBALD. There are yet those who fuppofe the old reading to be the true one, as they fay the word fixed feems to decide very ftrongly in its favour. I would advife fuch to recollect Virgil's expreffion : -fixit leges pretio, atque refixit." STEEVENS. If the true reading wanted any support, it might be found in Cymbeline: Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fye on't! O fye! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to feed; things rank, and grofs in nature, Poffefs it merely. That it fhould come to this! But two months dead!-nay, not fo much, not two: So excellent a king; that was, to this, 'gainst felf flaughter "There is a prohibition fo divine, In Shakspeare's time canon (norma) was commonly spelt cannon. MALONE. 7 merely.] is entirely, abfolutely. See Vol. IV. p. 9, n. 3; and Vol. XVI. p. 139, n. 8. STEEVENS. 8 So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr:] This fimilitude at first fight seems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquifite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allufion is to the contention between those gods for the preference in mufick. WARBURTON. All our English poets are guilty of the fame falfe quantity, and call Hyperion Hyperion; at least the only inftance I have met with to the contrary, is in the old play of Fuimus Troes, 1633: Blow gentle Africus, "Play on our poops, when Hyperion's fon "Shall couch in weft." Shakspeare, I believe, has no allufion in the present inftance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate oppofite, the deformity of a Satyr. STEEVENS. Hyperion or Apollo is represented in all the ancient statues, &c. as exquifitely beautiful, the fatyrs hideously ugly.-Shakspeare may furely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the author of a collection of Epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface, is prefixed, writing thus : Pofthumus, not the laft of many more, "Afks why I write in fuch an idle vaine," &c. Laquei ridiculofi, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. fign. c. 3. MALONE. |