He may approve our eyes,1 and speak to it.
Ho. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.
Ber.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

Ho.

Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Ber. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the

pole,

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,

The bell then beating one,

Mar. Peace; break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter GHOST.

Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

Mar. Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio. Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio. Ho. Most like :-it harrows me with fear and wonder.

Ber. It would be spoke to.

Mar.

Speak to it, Horatio.

Ho. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of

night,

Have proof that we were no way mistaken.

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven, I charge thee, speak.

Mar. It is offended.

Ber.

See, it stalks away.

Ho. Stay; speak; speak, I charge thee; speak.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

[Exit Ghost.

Ber. How now, Horatio? you tremble and lock

pale:

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

Ho. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Ho. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,

When he the ambitious Norway combated:
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polacks 1 on the ice.

'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump2 at this dead

hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Ho. In what particular tnought to work, I know

not;

1 Sledged Polanders.

2 Just.

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land;
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-laborer with the day :
Who is 't, that can inform me ?

Ho.

At least, the whisper goes so.

That can I;

Our last king, Whose image even but now appear'd to us, Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,

Dared to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seised of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king, which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same comart,1

Joint bargain.

ILLUSTRATIONS

TO THE

FOURTEENTH VOLUME.

PAGE

1. The death of Ophelia, (Hamlet) from a Painting by Westall. Frontispiece.

HAMLET.

2. Hamlet, Horatio, and Ghost.-Fuseli.

38 112

134

3. Queen, Hamlet, and Ghost.-Westall.
4. Ophelia, Laertes, King, Queen, &c.-West,

OTHELLO.

5. Othello, Desdemona, Iago, Cassio, &c.-Stothard.

6. Othello, and Desdemona.-Porter.

7. Othello, Desdemona asleep.-Graham. 8. Othello, Desdemona asleep.-Boydell.

.

HAMLET,

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

SHAK.

XIV.

A