stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again; come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Yaughan, and fetch me a stoup of liquor.

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,

Methought, it was very sweet,

[Exit 2 Clown.

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easi

ness.

Ham. Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

4 In youth, when I did love, &c] The three stanzas, sung here by the grave-digger, are extracted, with a slight variation, from a little poem, called The aged Lover renounceth Love, written by Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, but it has been since attributed to lord Vaux; and Mr. T. Warton says, that there is in the British Museum, a copy of Vaux's 's poem, beginning, I lothe that I did love, with the title, "A dyttie or sonet made by the lord Vaus, in the time of the noble quene Marye, representing the image of death."

The entire song is published by Dr. Percy, in the first volume of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,
Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a Scull.

Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say, Good-mor row, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord? This might be my lord Such-a-one, that praised my lord Such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with them 5? mine ache to

think on't.

1 Clo. A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,

For-and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

[Throws up a Scull.

Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quil

3

A stake is fixed into

to play at loggats with them?] This is a game played in several parts of England even at this time the ground; those who play, throw loggats and he that is nearest the stake wins.

quiddits, &c.] i. e. subtilties.

or pins of wood at it,

8

lets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? ha?

Hor. Not a jot more, my lord.

Ham. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
Hor. Ay, my lord, and of calves-skins too.

Ham. They are sheep, and calves, which seek out assurance in that.1 I will speak to this fellow :Whose grave's this, sirrah?

7

8

1 Clo. Mine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet.

[Sings.

his quillets,] Quillets are nice and frivolous distinctions.
the sconce―] i. e. the head.

9 his double vouchers, &c.] A recovery with double voucher is the one usually suffered, and is so denominated from two persons (the latter of whom is always the common cryer, or some such inferior person,) being successively voucher, or called upon, to warrant the tenant's title. Both fines and recoveries are fictions of law, used to convert an estate tail into a fee simple. Statutes are (not acts of parliament, but) statutes-merchant and staple, particular modes of recognizance or acknowledgment for securing debts, which thereby become a charge upon the party's land. Statutes and recognizances are constantly mentioned together in the covenants of a purchase deed.

1 -assurance in that.] A quibble is intended. Deeds, which are usually written on parchment, are called the common assurances of the kingdom.

Ham. I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't. 1 Clo. You lie out on't, sir, and therefore it is not yours: for my part, I do not lie in't, yet it is mine.

Ham. Thou dost lie in't, to be in't, and say it is thine: 'tis for the dead, not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

1 Clo. 'Tis a quick lie, sir; 'twill away again, from

me to you.

Ham. What man dost thou dig it for?

1 Clo. For no man, sir.

Ham. What woman then?

1 Clo. For none neither.

Ham. Who is to be buried in't?

1 Clo. One, that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she's dead.

Ham. How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it; the age is grown so picked3, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe. - How long hast thou been a grave maker?

1 Clo. Of all the days i'the year, I came to't that day that our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras. Ham. How long's that since?

1 Clo. Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: It was that very day that young Hamlet was born: he that is mad, and sent into England.

by the card,] i. e. we must speak with the same precision and accuracy as is observed in marking the true distances of coasts, the heights, courses, &c. in a sea-chart, which in our poet's time was called a card.

3

the age is grown so picked,] So smart, so sharp, says Sir T. Hanmer, very properly; but there was, I think, about that time, a picked shoe, that is, a shoe with a long pointed toe, in fashion, to which the allusion seems likewise to be made. Every man now is smart; and every man now is a man of fashion. JOHNSON.

4

that young Hamlet was born:] By this scene it appears that Hamlet was then thirty years old, and knew Yorick well, who had

Ham. Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

1 Clo. Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, 'tis no great matter there.

Ham. Why?

1 Clo. 'Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

Ham. How came he mad?

1 Clo. Very strangely, they say.

Ham. How strangely?

1 Clo. 'Faith, e'en with losing his wits.

Ham. Upon what ground?

1 Clo. Why, here in Denmark; I have been sexton here, man, and boy, thirty years.

Ham. How long will a man lie i'the earth ere he rot?

1 Clo. 'Faith, if he be not rotten before he die, (as we have many pocky corses now-a-days, that will scarce hold the laying in,) he will last you some eight year, or nine year a tanner will last you nine year.

Ham. Why he more than another?

1 Clo. Why, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade, that he will keep out water a great while; and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body. Here's a scull now hath lain you i'the earth three-andtwenty years.

Ham. Whose was it?

1 Clo. A whoreson mad fellow's it was; Whose do you think it was?

Ham. Nay, I know not.

1 Clo. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he

been dead twenty-two years. And yet in the beginning of the play he is spoken of as a very young man, one that designed to go back to school, i. e. to the university of Wittenberg. The poet in the fifth Act had forgot what he wrote in the first. BLACKSTONE.