So

grace and mercy at your most need help you! GHOST. [Beneath.] Swear.

HAM. Reft, reft, perturbed spirit! So, gentle

men,

tence in one form, and ended it in another. So, in All's well that ends well: "I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in ftratagem."

Again, in the fame play: "No more of this, Helena ;-left it be rather thought you affect a forrow, than to have:" where he ought to have written than that you have: or, left you rather be thought to affect a forrow, than to have.

Again, ibidem:

"I bade her-if her fortunes ever ftood
"Neceffitied to help, that by this token
"I would relieve her."

Again, in The Tempest :

"I have with fuch provifion in mine art
"So fafely order'd, that there is no foul-
"No, not fo much perdition as an hair
"Betid to any creature in the veffel."

See Vol. IV. p. 13, n. 6; and Vol. IX. p. 268, n. 9; and p. 396, n. 4.

Having used the word never in the preceding part of the fentence, [that you never fhall-] the poet confidered the negative implied in what follows; and hence he wrote-" or-to note," inftead of nor. MALONE.

I

This do you fwear, &c.] The folio reads,-this not to do, fwear, c. STEEVENS.

Swear is ufed here, as in many other places, as a diffyllable. MALONE.

Here again my untutored ears revolt from a new diffyllable; nor have I fcrupled, like my predeceffors, to fupply the pronoun -you, which muft accidentally have dropped out of a line that is imperfect without it. STEEVENS.

2 Reft, refi, perturbed spirit!] The fkill difplayed in Shakfpeare's management of his Ghoft, is too confiderable to be overlooked. He has rivetted our attention to it by a fucceffion of forcible circumftances:-by the previous report of the terrified centinels, by the folemnity of the hour at which the phantom walks, by its martial ftride and difcriminating armour, vifible only per incertam lunam, by the glimpfes of the moon,—by its long taciturnity, by its preparation to speak, when interrupted

With all

my

love I do commend me to you:

And what fo poor a man as Hamlet is

May do, to exprefs his love and friending to you,
God willing, fhall not lack. Let us go in together;
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.

The time is out of joint ;-O curfed fpite!
That ever I was born to fet it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.

[Exeunt.

by the morning cock,-by its myfterious referve throughout its first scene with Hamlet,-by his refolute departure with it, and the subsequent anxiety of his attendants,-by its conducting him to a folitary angle of the platform, by its voice from beneath the earth,—and by its unexpected burst on us in the clofet.

Hamlet's late interview with the spectre, muft in particular be regarded as a stroke of dramatick artifice. The phantom might have told his story in the prefence of the Officers and Horatio, and yet have rendered itself as inaudible to them, as afterwards to the Queen. But fufpenfe was our poet's object; and never was it more effectually created, than in the prefent inftance. Six times has the royal femblance appeared, but till now has been withheld from fpeaking. For this event we have waited with impatient curiofity, unaccompanied by laffitude, or remitted at tention.

The Ghoft in this tragedy, is allowed to be the genuine produ& of Shakspeare's strong imagination. When he afterwards avails himself of traditional phantoms, as in Julius Cæfar, and King Richard III. they are but inefficacious pageants; nay, the apparition of Banquo is a mute exhibitor. Perhaps our poet despaired to equal the vigour of his early conceptions on the fubject of preter-natural beings, and therefore allotted them no further eminence in his dramas; or was unwilling to diminish the power of his principal fhade, by an injudicious repetition of congenial images. STEEVENS.

The verb perturb is ufed by Holinfhed, and by Bacon in his Efay on Superfiition: " therefore atheism did never perturb ftetes." MALONE.

Poz. Give him this money, and these notes, Reynaldo.

REY. I will, my lord.

POL. You fhall do marvellous wifely, good Reynaldo,

Before you vifit him, to make inquiry

Of his behaviour.

REY.

My lord, I did intend it.

POL. Marry, well faid: very well faid.4 Look you, fir,

Inquire me first what Danskers 5 are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means, and where they

keep,

What company, at what expence; and finding,
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my fon, come you more nearer

3 Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.] The quartos read-Enter old Polonius with his man or two. STEEVENS.

well faid: very well faid.] Thus alfo, the weak and tedious Shallow fays to Bardolph, in The Second Part of King Henry IV. A& III. fc. ii: " It is well faid, fir; and it is well faid indeed too." STEEVENS.

Danfkers-] Danske (in Warner's Albion's England)
STEEVENS.

is the ancient name of Denmark.

Than your particular demands will touch it :6
Take you, as 'twere, fome diftant knowledge of him;
As thus, I know his father, and his friends,
And, in part, him ;-Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REY. Ay, very well, my lord.

POL. And, in part, him ;—but, you may say, not

well:

But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;
Addicted fo and fo;-and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none fo rank
As may difhonour him; take heed of that;
But, fir, fuch wanton, wild, and usual slips,
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

REY.

As gaming, my lord.

Poz. Ay, or drinking, fencing, fwearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing:-You may go fo far

come you more nearer

Than your particular demands will touch it:] The late editions read, and point, thus:

come you more nearer;

Then your particular demands will touch it:

Throughout the old copies the word which we now writethan, is conftantly written-then. I have therefore printedthan, which the context feems to me to require, though the old copies have then. There is no point after the word nearer, either in the original quarto, 1604, or the folio. MALONE.

7-drinking, fencing, fwearing,] I fuppofe, by fencing is meant a too diligent frequentation of the fencing-fchool, a refort of violent and lawless young men. JOHNSON.

Fencing, I fuppofe, means, piquing himfelf on his fkill in the ufe of the fword, and quarrelling and brawling, in confequence of that kill. "The cunning of fencers, fays Goffon, in his Schoole of Alufe, 1579, is now applied to quarreling: they thinke themfelves no men, if for ftirring of ftraw, they prove not their valure uppon fome bodies flethe." MALONE.

REY. My lord, that would difhonour him.

POL. 'Faith, no; as you may feason it in the charge.8

You must not put another fcandal on him,'
That he is open to incontinency;

That's not my meaning: but breathe his faults fo quaintly,

That they may feem the taints of liberty:
The flash and out-break of a fiery mind;
A favageness in unreclaimed blood,

Of general affault.3

And, I believe, it is a fetch of warrant :4
You laying these flight fullies on my fon,
As 'twere a thing a little foil'd i'the working,
Mark you,

8

'Faith, no; as you may feafon it &c.] The quarto readsFaith, as you may feafon it in the charge. MALONE.

9 another fcandal on him,] Thus the old editions. Mr. Theobald reads-an utter. JOHNSON.

another fcandal —] i. e. a very different and more scandalous failing, namely habitual incontinency. Mr. Theobald in his Shakspeare Restored proposed to read-an utter scandal on him; but did not admit the emendation into his edition.

MALONE.

1 That's not my meaning:] That is not what I mean when I permit you to accufe him of drabbing. M. MASON.

2

A favagenefs-] Savageness, for wildness. WARBUrton. 3 Of general affault.] i. e. fuch as youth in general is liable to. WARBURTON. And, I believe, it is a fetch of warrant :] So the folio. The quarto reads a fetch of wit. STEEVENS.