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Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg'd away.' But that I am forbid To tell the fecrets of my prifon-house,

thirty," &c. Before I had read the Perfones Tale of Chaucer, I fuppofed that he meant rather to drop a ftroke of fatire on facerdotal luxury, than to give a serious account of the place of future torment. Chaucer, however, is as grave as Shakspeare. So, likewife at the conclufion of an ancient pamphlet called The Wyll of the Devyll, bl. 1. no date:

"Thou fhalt lye in froft and fire "With fickneffe and hunger;" &c. Again, in Love's Labour's Loft:

" — love's fafting pain." STEEVENS.

This paffage requires no amendment. As fpirits were fuppofed to feel the fame defires and appetites that they had on earth, to faft might be confidered as one of the punishments inflicted on the wicked. M. MASON.

9 Are burnt and purg'd away.] Gawin Douglas really changes the Platonic hell into the "punytion of faulis in purgatory:" and it is obfervable, that when the ghost informs Hamlet of his doom there,

"Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature

"Are burnt and purg'd away,—"

The expreffion is very fimilar to the Bishop's. I will give you his verfion as concifely as I can; " It is a nedeful thyng to fuffer panis and torment;-Sum in the wyndis, fum under the watter, and in the fire uthir fum: thus the mony vices

"Contrakkit in the corpis be done away
"And purgit,".

Sixte Book of Eneados, fol. p. 191.
FARMER.

Shakspeare might have found this expreffion in The Hyftorie of Hamblet, bl. 1. F. 2. edit. 1608: "He fet fire in the foure corners of the hal, in fuch fort, that of all that were as then therein not one escaped away, but were forced to purge their finnes by fire." MALONE. Shakspeare talks more like a Papift, than a Platonist; but the language of Bishop Douglas is that of a good Proteftant:

"Thus the mony vices

"Contrakkit in the corpis be done away
"And purgit.'

Thefe are the very words of our Liturgy, in the commendatory prayer for a fick perfon at the point of departure, in the office for the vifitation of the fick;-"Whatfoever defilements it may have contracted-being purged and done away." WHALLEY.

I could a tale unfold, whofe lightest word
Would harrow up thy foul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like ftars, ftart from their
fpheres;2

Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine: 3
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood:-List, list, O list!—
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,-

HAM. O heaven!

GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.4

2 Make thy two eyes, like ftars, start from their spheres;] So, in our poet's 108th Sonnet:

How have mine eyes out of their Spheres been fitted,

"In the distraction of this madding fever!" MALONE. 3-fretful porcupine:] The quartos read-fearful &c. Either epithet may ferve. This animal is at once irafcible and timid. The fame image occurs in The Romaunt of the Rofe, where Chaucer is defcribing the perfonage of danger:

"Like fharpe urchons his heere was grow."

An urchin is a hedge-hog.

The old copies, however, have-porpentine, which is frequently written by our ancient poets instead of porcupine. So, in Skialetheia, a collection of Epigrams, Satires, &c. 1598:

"Porpentine-backed, for he lies on thornes." STEEVENS. 4 Revenge his foul and moft unnatural murder.] As a proof that this play was written before 1597, of which the contrary has been afferted by Mr. Holt in Dr. Johnfon's Appendix, I must borrow, as ufual, from Dr. Farmer: "Shakspeare is faid to have been no extraordinary actor; and that the top of his performance was the Ghoft in his own Hamlet. Yet this chef d'oeuvre did not please: I will give you an original ftroke at it. Dr. Lodge published in the year 1596, a pamphlet called Wit's Miferie, or the World's Madness, difcovering the incarnate Devils of the Age, quarto. One of thefe devils is, Hate-virtue, or forrow for another man's good fucceffe, who, fays the doctor, is a foule lubber, and looks as pale as the vizard of the Ghaft, which cried fo miferably at the theatre, Hamlet revenge." STEEVENS.

HAM. Murder?

GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this moft foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAM. Hafte me to know it; that I, with wings as swift

As meditation, or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST.
I find thee apt;
And duller fhould'ft thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

I fufpect that this ftroke was levelled not at Shakspeare, but at the performer of the Ghoft in an older play on this subject, exhibited before 1589. See An Attempt to afcertain the order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

5 As meditation, or the thoughts of love,] This fimilitude is extremely beautiful. The word meditation is confecrated, by the myfticks, to fignify that ftretch and flight of mind which afpires to the enjoyment of the fupreme good. So that Hamlet, confidering with what to compare the fwiftnefs of his revenge, chooses two of the moft rapid things in nature, the ardency of divine and human paffion, in an enthufiaft and a lover. WARBURTON.

The comment on the word meditation is fo ingenious, that I hope it is juft. JOHNSON.

And duller shouldft thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in eafe on Lethe wharf,] Shakspeare, apparently through ignorance, makes Roman Catholicks of thefe Pagan Danes; and here gives a defcription of purgatory; but yet mixes it with the Pagan fable of Lethe's wharf. Whether he did it to infinuate to the zealous Proteftants of his time, that the Pagan and Popish purgatory ftood both upon the fame footing of credibility, or whether it was by the fame kind of licentious inadvertence that Michael Angelo brought Charon's bark into his picture of the Last Judgement, is not eafy to decide. WARBURTON.

That rots itself in eafe &c.] The quarto reads-That roots itfelf. Mr. Pope follows it. Otway has the fame thought:

- like a coarse and ufelefs dunghill weed "Fix'd to one fpot, and rot just as I grow."

The fuperiority of the reading of the folio is to me apparent: to be in a crefcent ftate (i. e. to root itself) affords an idea of activity; to rot better fuits with the dulness and inaction to which the

Would't thou not ftir in this. Now, Hamlet,

hear:

'Tis given out, that, fleeping in my orchard,

A ferpent ftung me; fo the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged procefs of my death

Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,
The ferpent, that did fting thy father's life,
Now wears his crown.

HAм. O, my prophetick foul! my uncle!

GHOST. Ay, that inceftuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit,' with traitorous gifts, (O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power So to feduce!) won to his fhameful luft The will of my moft feeming-virtuous queen: O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! From me, whose love was of that dignity,

Ghoft refers. Beaumont and Fletcher have a thought fomewhat fimilar in The Humorous Lieutenant:

"This dull root pluck'd from Lethe's flood." STEEVENS.

That roots itself in eafe &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-That rots itself &c. I have preferred the reading of the original copy, becaufe to root itfelf is a natural and easy phrafe, but "to rot itself," not English. Indeed in general the readings of the original copies, when not corrupt, ought in my opinion not to be departed from, without very ftrong reafon. That roots itself in eafe, means, whofe fluggish root is idly extended.

The modern editors read-Lethe's wharf; but the reading of the old copy is right. So, in Sir Afton Cockain's poems, 1658,

P. 177:

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fearing these great actions might die,

Neglected caft all into Lethe lake." MALONE. That Shakspeare fuppofed-rots itself, to be English, is evident from his having ufed the fame phrafe in Antony and Cleopatra: - lackeying the varying tide,

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"To rot itfelf with motion."

See Vol. XII. p. 447• STEEVENS.

7

his wit,] The old copies have wits. The fubfequent line fhews that it was a mifprint. MALONE.

That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To thofe of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,

Though lewdness court it in a fhape of heaven;
So luft, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will fate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.R

But, foft! methinks, I fcent the morning air;
Brief let me be:-Sleeping within mine orchard,"
My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my fecure hour thy uncle ftole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

fate itself in a celeftial bed,

And prey on garbage.] The fame image occurs again in Cymbeline:

9

Juliet:

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ravening first

"The lamb, longs after for the garbage." STEEVENS. mine orchard,] Orchard for garden. So, in Romeo and

"The orchard walls are high, and hard to climb.”

STEEVENS.

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,] The word here used was more probably defigned by a metathefts, either of the poet or tranfcriber, for henebon, that is, henbane; of which the most common kind (byofcyamus niger) is certainly narcotick, and perhaps, if taken in a confiderable quantity, might prove poisonous. Ġalen calls it cold in the third degree; by which in this, as well as opium, he feems not to mean an actual coldness, but the power it has of benumbing the faculties. Diofcorides afcribes to it the property of producing madnefs (voxvas avans). Thefe qualities have been confirmed by feveral cafes related in modern obfervations. In Wepfer we have a good account of the various effects of this root upon moft of the members of a convent in Germany, who eat of it for fupper by mistake, mixed with fuccory;-heat in the throat, giddinefs, dimness of fight, and delirium. Cicut. Aquatic. c. xviii. GREY,

So, in Drayton's Barons' Wars, p. 51:

"The pois'ning henbane, and the mandrake drad."

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