1 SCENE II.-" Seneca cannot be too heavy," &c. IN the second scene of the third act, Hamlet thus addresses Polonius :-"My lord, you played once in the university, you say?" It is to the practice amongst the students of our universities, in the time of Elizabeth, of acting Latin plays, that Hamlet alludes; and the frequency of such performances, as Warton remarks, may have suggested to Shakspere the names of Seneca and Plautus in the passage before us. In that very curious book, Braun's 'Civitates,' 1575, there is a Latin memoir prefixed to a map of Cambridge, in which these theatrical entertainments are described; and the fables of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca, are expressly mentioned as being performed by the students with elegance, magnificence, dignity of action, and propriety of voice and countenance. Malone says, "The most celebrated actors at Cambridge were the students of St. John's and King's colleges: at Oxford, those of Christ-church. In the hall of that college a Latin comedy, called Marcus Geminus, and the Latin tragedy of Progne, were performed before Queen Elizabeth in the year 1566; and, in 1564, the Latin tragedy of Dido was played before her majesty, when she visited the University of Cambridge. The exhibition was in the body or nave of the chapel of King's College, which was lighted by the royal guards, each of whom bore a staff-torch in his hand." The account of this visit of Elizabeth to Cambridge is to be found in Peck's 'Desiderata Curiosa,' vol. ii. page 25; and it appears from the subjoined passage, that there was great competition amongst the colleges for the theatrical recreation of her majesty :

:

"Great preparations and charges, as before in the other plays, were employed and spent about the tragedy of Sophocles, called Ajax Flagellifer, in Latin, to be this night played before her. But her highness, as it were tired with going about to the colleges, and with hearing of disputations, and overwatched with former plays, (for it was very late nightly before she came to them, as also departed from them,) and furthermore, minding early in the morning to depart from Cambridge and ride to a dinner unto a house of the Bishop of Ely, at Stanton, and from thence to her bed at Hinchinbrook (a house of Sir Henry Cromwell's, in Huntingdonshire, about twelve miles from Cambridge,) could not, as otherwise, no doubt, she would, (with like patience and cheerfulness, as she was present at the other,) hear the said tragedy; to the great sorrow, not only of the players, but of all the whole University."

2SCENE II." One fair daughter and no more," &c.

There is an old ballad, which was first printed in Percy's Reliques, under the title 'Jephthah, Judge of Israel,' and is there given as it "was retrieved from utter oblivion by a lady who wrote it down from memory, as she had formerly heard it sung by her father." A copy of the ballad has since been recovered; and is reprinted in Evans' Collection, 1810. The first stanza is as follows:"I have read that many years agoe, When Jepha, judge of Israel, Had one fair daughter and no more, Whom he loved passing well.

As by lot, God wot,

It came to passe most like it was,
Great warrs there should be,

And who should be the chiefe, but he, but he." The lines quoted by Hamlet almost exactly correspond with this copy. Hamlet, in the text of the quarto of 1611, calls the poem, The Pious Chanson; but in the quarto of 1604, and the folio of 1623, it is 'the Pons Chanson.' Pope says, this refers to the old ballads sung on bridges. believe Pons is a typographical error; for in the quarto of 1603, we find "the first verse of the godly ballet."

We

"There is one thing used of the Venetian women, and some others dwelling in the cities and towns subject to the signiory of Venice, that is not to be observed (I think) amongst any other women in Christendom, which is so common in Venice, that no woman whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad,- -a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colours, some with white, some red, some yellow. It is called a chapiney, which they wear under their shoes. Many of them are curiously painted; some also of them I have seen fairly gilt: so uncomely a thing (in my opinion), that it is pity this foolish custom is not clean banished and exterminated out of the city. There are many of these chapineys of a great height, even half a yard high, which maketh many of their women that are very short seem much taller than the tallest women we have in England. Also I have heard it observed among them, that by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her chapineys. All their gentlewomen. and most of their wives and widows that are of any wealth, are assisted and supported either by men or women, when they walk abroad, to the end they may not fall. They are borne up most commonly by the left arm, otherwise they might quickly take a fall."

of a choppine;"--he was growing into a man. Hamlet hopes, therefore, that his " voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring; "-that his voice be not broken, as the technical phrase is, and he be therefore unfitted for women's parts;-be no longer current in those parts. Our readers who have seen the coins of the 16th century, or have noticed our representations of them, will have observed that the head of the sovereign is invariably contained within a circle, between which and the rim the legend is given. The test of currency in a coin was, that it should not be cracked within the circle, or ring. If the crack, to which the thin coins of that age were particularly liable, extended beyond the ring, the money was no longer considered good. We learn, from two tracts quoted by Douce, that it was customary for usurers to buy up the "uncurrent gold," at a price lower than the nominal value of the coin, and then require the unhappy borrowers to take them at their standard rate.

5 SCENE II.-"'T was caviare to the general."

This word is caviarie in the folio, following the Italian caviaro. Florio, in his New World of Words,' has "Cariaro, a kind of salt black meat made of roes of fishes, much used in Italy." In Sir John Harrington's 33rd epigram, we find the word forming four syllables, and accented, as written by Shakspere :

"And caveare, but it little boots."

This preparation of the roes of sturgeons was formerly much used in England amongst the refined classes. It was imported from Russia,

SCENE I.-A Room in the Castle.

Ros. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players We o'er raught on the way: of these we told him;

And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: They are about the court;
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Pol.
'Tis most true:
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties,
To hear and see the matter.

King. With all my heart; and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclin'd.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
King.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too:
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 't were by accident, may here
Affront" Ophelia.

Her father, and myself (lawful espials,)
Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;

Affront, encounter, confiont.

"The devil himself. King.

O, 't is too true! how smart
A lash that speech doth give my conscience."

b Pope wished to print, "a siege of troubles." Surely the metaphor of the sea, to denote an overwhelming flood of troubles, is highly beautiful. It is thoroughly Shaksperian; for we find, in Pericles, "a sea of joys;"-in Henry VIII., "a sea of glory; "-in Tarquin and Lucrece, "a sea of care." In Milton, we have, "in a troubled sea of passion tost." (Par. Lost x. 718.)

c This passage was sometimes printed thus:"To die ;-to sleep ;

No more?"

No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'t is a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the
rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect,
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin ? who would thesed fardels

e

bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away, f
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia :-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Oph.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well."
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

Ham. No, no. I never gave you aught. Oph. My honour'd lord, I know right well you did;

Proud, in the quartos. In the folio we have "the poor man's contumely,"-the contumely which the poor man bears. We retain the reading of the quartos, for the tran sition is abrupt from the wrong which the oppressor inflicts to the contumely which the poor man suffers.

b Dispriz'd, in the folio; in quartos, despis'd.

c Bodkin, a small sword Cæsar is spoken of, by old writers, as slain by bodkins.

d These, in folio, but not in quartos.

Grunt. So the originals. The players, in their squeamishness, always give us groan; and, if they had not the terror of the blank verse before them, they would certainly inflict perspire upon us. Grunt is used for loud lament by Turberville, Stonyhurst, and other writers before Shakspere. We have the word direct from the Anglo-Saxon grunan. f Away, in folio in quartos, awry.

g This repetition" well, well, well," has been rejected by the earlier editors. It is not in the quartos.

Ham. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I lov'd you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord.

d

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no way but in 's own house. Farewell.

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens !

Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go; farewell: Or, if thou

Your honesty, in the folio; in the quartos, you.

b With honesty. This is the reading of the quartos. Tu folio has "your honesty."

Heaven and earth, in the folio; in the quartos, earth and heaven.

No way, in folio; in quartos, no where.

wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another; you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures,* and make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to, I'll no more on 't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET.

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword:

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observ'd of all observers ! quite, quite, down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Re-enter KING and POLONIUS.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend;

Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger: Which to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down: He shall with speed to England,

For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on 't?
Pol. It shall do well; but yet do I believe,

a The reading of the folio is, "I have heard of your prattlings too, well enough. God hath given you one pace," &c. The context in some degree justifies the change of the folio. "You jig and you amble"-you go trippingly and mincingly in your gait (as the daughters of Sion are said, in Isaiah, to "come in tripping so nicely with their feet"-may refer to pace, as "you lisp and you nickname God's creatures," may to prattlings. Nevertheless, we think, with Johnson, that Shakspere wrote both-paintings and face first, prattlings and pace latest. As a question of taste, we prefer to retain the first reading.