P. 178.-178.-566.

Prince. Go hence to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punish'd:

For never was a story of more woe,

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

I incline to agree with Mr. Edwards.

HAMLE T.

J. and S. 1785.
Vol. x.

MALONE.
Vol. IX.

J. and S. 1793.
Vol. xv.

P. 258.-184.-6.

Ber. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. I agree with Mr. Malone.

Ber. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.
Hor. Most like :-it harrows me with fear and wonder.

I do not think that harrows here signifies subdues. Does Mr. Steevens suppose that to be the meaning of it in the following passage in the last scene of this act, on which there is no note?

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

&c.

If he does, what is the force of the particle up in this last quoted passage?

P. 262.-187.-11.

Hor. So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polack on the ice.

P. 263.-187.-11.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

I prefer the reading of the folio, just, and think with Dr. Johnson, that the correction was probably made by the author.

Hor.

P. 265.-188.-13.

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 seiz'd of, to the

conqueror.

I think Mr. Malone is right.

P. 265.-189.-14.

Hor. Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise

That hath a stomach in't.

I am not satisfied with Dr. Johnson's explanation of these words, because taking the meaning of stomach here to be what Dr. Johnson says it is, it does not seem to me to make very good sense. I do not know how the words should be explained.

P. 266.-190.—16.

Hor. In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets,

As stars with trains of fire, and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun.

I think with Mr. Steevens that it is highly probable that a verse has been lost.

P. 268.-192.-18.

Hor. And even the like precurse of fierce events,

As harbingers preceding still the fates,

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climatures and countrymen.

I think fierce here means violent, terrible.

Hor.

P. 269.-193.—20.

Stop it, Marcellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan ?

Hor. Do, if it will not stand.

Mr. Steevens's remarks on the distribution of the speeches are very judicions.

P. 275.-198.-29.

King. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,-
Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.

I incline to Mr. Steevens's explanation. There is a jingle in Macbeth somewhat similar to this.

The near in blood

The nearer bloody.

P. 276.-199.-30.

King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Ham. Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun.

I doubt whether the commentators have not gone too deep for the meaning of this reply, which is founded on the metaphorical expression used by the king in the preceding speech.

King.

P. 278.-201.—33.

for let the world take note,

You are the most immediate to our throne;

And, with no less nobility of love,

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart toward you.

Nobility of love is, I think rightly explained by Mr. Heath.

Ibid.

Do I impart toward you.

It is by no means clear to me that Shakespeare meant that the kingdom of Denmark should be understood in this play to be hereditary. I am aware of the passages cited in Mr. Justice

Blackstone's note. I suppose impart is rightly explained by Dr. Johnson, but with the use of this verb as a neuter I am unacquainted.

P. 280.-203.-35.

Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!

I am not sure that the old reading is not the true one. To fix a law seems to me rather an uncouth expression in English. Will Mr. Steevens allow that Shakespeare adverted to the passage in Virgil? Either reading makes good

sense.

P. 284.-208.-42.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waist and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd.

I think waste is the right word. It appears to me much preferable to waist. We have the vast of night in the Tempest. Mr. Steevens's note on that expression is as follows: "The vast of night means the night, which is naturally empty and "deserted, without action: or when all things "being in sleep and silence, make the world appear one great uninhabited waste. So in Hamlet:

In the dead waste and middle of the night.

"It has a meaning like that of nox vasta."

Ham.

P. 285.-208.-43.

But where was this?

Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.
Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Mr. Steevens's censure of the emphasis lately used on the stage is extremely just: the desire of novelty and the affectation of superior acute