Guild. We will provide ourselves:
Most holy and religious fear it is,
To keep those many, many bodics fafe,
That live and feed upon your Majesty.

Rof. The fingle and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That fpirit on whose weal depends and rests
The lives of many. The cease of Majesty
Dies not alone, but, like a gulf, doth draw,
What's near it with it. It's a mafly wheel
Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whofe huge spokes ten thoufand leffer things
Are mortized and adjoined; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty confequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Ne'er alone
Did the King figh; but with a general groan.

King. Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage; For we will fetters put upon this fear, Which now goes too free-fopted.

Both. We will haste us.

[Exeunt Gentlemen.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. My Lord, he's gone to his mother's closet; Behind the arras I'll convey myself To hear the process. I'll warrant she'll tax him And, as you faid, and wifely was it faid, [home. 'Tis meet that fome more audience than a mother (Since nature makes them partial,) should o'er-hear The fpeech, of vantage. Fare you well, my Liege;

on that play. Perhaps, too, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, where all the editions read,

Why, woman, your husband is in his old lines again;

I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

[Exit

King. Thanks, dear my Lord.
Oh! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven,
It hath the primal, eldest course upon't; (46)
That of a brother's murder. Pray I cannot,
Though inclination be as sharp as will; (47)

(46) It hath the primal, eldest curse upon'ts

A brother's murder. Pray I cannot,] The last verse, 'tis evident, halts in the measure; and, if I don't mistake, is a little lame in the sense too. Was a brother's murder the eldeft curse? Surely it was rather the crime that was the cause of this eldest curse. We have no assistance, however, either to the sense or numbers from any of the copies. All the editions concur in the deficiency of a foot ; but if we can both cure the meafure, and help the meaning, without a prejudice to the Author, I think the concurrence of the printed copies should not be fufficient to forbid a conjecture. I have ventured at two fupplemental syllables, as innocent in themselves as neceffary to the purposes for which they are introduced;

That of a brother's murder.

(47) Though inclination be] This line has lain, under the fufpicion of many nice observers; and an ingenious gentleman started, at a heat, this very probable emendation:

Though, inclination be as sharp as 'twill.

The variation from the traces of the letter is very minute, at with an apoftrophe before it only being added, which might very eafily have flipt out under the printer's hands; fo that the change will not be difputed, fuppofing there is a neceffity for it; which however is submitted to judgment. 'lis certain the line, as it stands in all the editions, has fo strongly the air of a flat tautology, that it may deserve a short comment, and to have the difference betwixt inclination and will afcertained. The word inclination, in its use with us (as my friend Mr Warburton defines it to me) is taken in these three acceptations. First, in its exact philofophical fenfe, is fignifies the drawing or inclining the will to determine itfelf one certain way; according to this fignification the line is nonfenfe; and is the same as to affirm, that the part is as big as the whole. In the next place, inclination fignifies the will, and then it is the most abfurd tautology. But, lafily,

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent:
And, like a man to double bufiness bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this curied hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? whereto ferves Mercy,
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer, but this two-fold force,
To be fore-stalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardoned being down? then I'll look up;
My fault is past. - -But oh, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!---
That cannot be, fince I am still poffefs'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned, and retain th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above :
There, is no shuffling; there, the action lyes
In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
Oh wretched state! oh bosom black as death!

Oh limed foul, that, ftruggling to be free,
Art more engaged! help, angels! make assay!
Bow, ftubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of
Be foft as finews of the new-born babe!

[iteel, All may be well. [The King retires and kneels.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. Now might I do it pat, now he is praying, And now I'll do't and fo he goes to heaven.-And so am I revenged? that would be scanned; A villain kills my father, and for that 1, his fole son, do this fame villain send To heaven-O, this is hire and falary, not revenge. He took my father grofly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; And how his audit stands, who knows, fave Heaven? But in our circumstance and course of thought, 'Tis heavy with him. Am I then revenged, To take him in the purging of his foul, When he is fit and feafoned for his paffage? Up, fword, and know thou a more horrid bent; (48) When he is drunk, afsleep, or in his rage, Or in th' incestuous pleasure of his bed;

(48) Up, fword, and know thou a more horrid time.] This is a fophifticated reading, warranted by none of the copies of any authority. Mr Pope fays, I read conjecturally;

At gaming, swearing, or about fome act
That has no relish of falvation-in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven;
And that his foul may be as dämned and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays;
This phyfic but prolongs thy fickly days. (Exit.

The King rifes, and comes forward.

King. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;

Words, without thoughts, never to Heaven go.

[Exit.

SCENE changes to the Queen's Apartment.
Enter Queen and POLONIUS.

Pol. He will come straight; look you lay home to him:

Tell him, his pranks have been too bread to bear with;

And that your Grace hath fereened, and stood be

tween

Much heat and him. I'll filence me e'en here;Pray you, be round with him.

Ham. [within.] Mother, mother, mother.

Queen. I'll warrant you, fear me not,

Withdraw, I hear him coming.

[Polonius hideshimself behind the Arras.

Enter HAMLET.

[ed.

Ham. Now, mother, what's the matter?
Queen. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offend-

I think myself obliged to repeat this confession, that I may not be accused of plagiarifm, for an emendation which I had made before ever I saw a fingle page of that book.