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Ham. Mother, you have my father much offended. Queen. Come, come, you answer with an idle

tongue.

Ham. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Queen. Why, how now, Hamlet?
Ham. What's the matter now?

Queen. Have you forgot me?

Ham. No, by the rood, not fo;

You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife, But, 'would you were not fo! - You are my mother. Queen. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can

fpeak.

Ham. Come, come, and fit you down; you shall You go not, 'till I set you up a glass [not budge: Where you may fee the inmost part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder

[blocks in formation]

Queen. Oh me, what hast thou done?
Ham. Nay, I know not: is it the King?
Queen. Oh, what a rath and bloody deed is this!
Ham. A bloody deed; almost as bad, good mo-

ther,

As kill a King, and marry with his brother.
Queen. As kill a King?

Ham. Ay, Lady, 'twas my word.
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewel,

[To Polonius.

I took thee for thy betters; take thy fortune;
Thou findeft, to be too busy, is some danger.
Leave wringing of your hands; peace, fit you down,
And let me wring your heart, for fo I fhall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff:

If damned custom have not brazed it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Queen. What have I done, that thou darest wag

In noise so rude against me?

Ham. Such an act,

[thy tongue

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rofe
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And fets a blister there; makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths. Oh, fuch a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very foul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this folidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought fick at the act.

Queen. Ay me! what act,

That roars fo loud, and thunders in the index?
Ham. Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers:
See, what a grace was feated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten or command;
A ftation, like the herald Mercигy (49)

(49) A station, l'ke the herald Mercury, The Poet employs thi word in a sense different from what it is generally used to fignify; for it means here an attitude, a fi'ent posture, fixt demeanour of person, in oppofition to an active behaviour. So our Poet before, describing Octavia;

Cleo. What majesty is in her gate? Remember,
If e'er thou lookedst on majesty?

Meff. She creeps:

Her motion and her station are as one. Anto. and Cleop. And I ought to observe, (which feems no bad proof of our Author's learning and knowledge) that among the Latins, the word ftatio, in its first and natural fignification, implied flantis actin, i. e. a posture, or attitude. This Monf. Fresnoy, in his Art of Painting, has chose to express by pofitura:

New-lighted on a heaven-kiffing hill;
A combination, and a form indeed,
Where every God did feem to fet his feal,
To give the world afsurance of a man.
This was your husband,---Look you now, what fol-
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear, [lows;
Blafting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it Love; for, at your age,
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Senfe, fure, you

have, (50)

Querendasque inter pofituras, luminis, umbra,
Atque futurorum jam præfentire colorum
Par erit harmoniam

Which our Dryden has thus tranflated; "'Tis the business of a painter, in his choice of attitudes, to foresee the effect and harmony of the lights and shadows, with the colours which are to enter into the whole." And again, afterwards;

Mutorumque filens pofitura imitabitur actus.

Which I think may be thus rendered;
Still let the filent attitude betray

What the mute figure should in gesture say.

(50) fenfe, fure you have, &c.] Mr Pope has left out the quantity of about eight verses here, which I have taken care to replace. They are not, indeed, to be found in the two elder Folios, but they carry the stile, expreffion, and caft of thought, peculiar to our Author; and that they were not an interpolation from another hand needs no better proof than that they are in all the oldest Quartos. The first motive of their being left out, I am perfuaded, was to shorten Hemlet's speech, and confult the ease of the actor: and the reason why they find no place in the Folio impressions is, that they were printed from the playhouse caftrated copies. But, furely, this can be no authority for a modern editor to con spire in mutilating his author; fuch omiflions either must betray a want of diligence in collating, or a want of justice in the voluntary stifling.

Elfe could you not have motion: but, fure, that
Is apoplexed: for madness would not err; [fenfe
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thralled,
But it referved fome quantity of choice
To ferve in such a difference. What devil was't
That thus had cozened you at hoodman blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without fight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling fans all,
Or but a fickly part of one true sense
Could not fo mope.--

O shame! where is thy blush? rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutiny in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no thame, (51)
When the compulfive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And Reason panders WiH.

Queen. O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turnest mine eyes into my very foul,
And there I fee such black and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an incestuous bed,

(51) Proclaim no hame,

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge;
Since froft itself as actively does burn,

And reason pardons with] This is, indeed, the reading of fome of the older copies; and Mr Pope has a strange fatality, whenever there is a various reading, of efpoufing the wrong one. The whole tenour of the context demands the word degraded by that judicious editor;

And reafon panders will.

This is the reflection which Hamlet is making, "Let us not call it shame when heat of blood compels young people to indulge their appetites; fince froft too can burn; and age, at that feafon when judgment should predominate, yet feels the stings of inclination, and fuffers reason to be the band to appetite."

VOL. XII.

K

Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.-

Queen. Oh, fpeak no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears.
No more, fweet Hamlet.

Ham. A murderer, and a villain !---------
A flave, that is not twentieth part the tythe
Of your precedent Lord; a vice of kings;----(52)
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

That from a fhelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket.

Queen. No more.

Enter Ghost.

Ham. A king of shreds and patches----Save me! and hover o'er me with your wings,

[Starting up.

You heavenly guards! what would your gracious

[figure?

Queen. Alas! he's mad-----
Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
Th' important acting of your dread command?
O fay!

Ghoft. Do not forget: this vifitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But, look! amazement on thy mother fits;
O step between her and her fighting foul :

(52)A Vice of Kings;] This does not mean, a very vicious king; as on the other hand, in King Henry V. this grace of Kings, means this gracious King, this honour to royalty. But here I take it, a person, and not a quality, is to be understood. By a vice (as I have explained the word in several preceding notes) is meant that buffoon character which used to play the fool in old plays; so that Hamlet is here defigned to call his uncle, a ridiculous ape of majesty, but the mimiery of a king.

F

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