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

Ham. Go, go, you queftion 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 fet thofe to you that can fpeak.

Ham. Come, come, and fit you down; you shall You go not, 'till I fet you up a glafs not budge: Where you may fee the inmoft part of you.

Queen. What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder Help, ho.

Pol. What ho, help.

[me?

[Behind the Arras.

Ham. How now, a rat? dead for a ducat, dead:

Pol. Oh, I am flain.

[Hamlet kills Polonius.

Queen. Oh me, what haft 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 mother,

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

Ham. Ay, Lady, 'twas my word.

Thou wretched, rafh, intruding fool, farewel;

[To Polonius.

I took thee for thy betters; take thy fortune;
Thou findeft, to be too busy, is fome 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 fo rude against me? [thy tongue

Ham. Such an act,

That blurs the grace and blufh of modefty;
Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rofe
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And fets a blifter there; makes marriage-vows
As falfe as dicers' oaths. Oh, such a deed,
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very foul, and fweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven's face doth glow;
Yea, this folidity and compound mass,
With triftful vifage, 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 prefentment 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 Mercury (49)

(49) A station, like the herald Mercury,] The Poet employs this word in a fenfe different from what it is generally used to figaify; for it means here an attitude, a filent pofture, fixt demeanour of perfon, in oppofition to an active behaviour. So our Poet before, defcribing Octavia;

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

Mell. She creeps:

Her motion and her ftation are as one. Anto and Cleop. And I ought to obferve, (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 ftantis actio, i. e. a posture, or attitude. This Monf. Fresnoy, in his Art of Painting, has chose to expreft by positura :

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 affurance of a man.

This was your husband,---Look you now, what fol
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear, [lows;
Blating 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 ftep from this to this? Senfe, fure, you
have, (50)

Querendafque inter pofituras, luminis, umbra,
Atque futurorum jam præfentire color um

Par erit barmoniam

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 fhadows, 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 fileat 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 verfes here, which I have taken care to replace. They are not, indeed, to be found in the two elder Folios, but they carry the ftile, expression, 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, wasto fhorten Hemlet's fpeech, and confult the cafe of the actor: and the reason why they find no place in the Folio impreffions is, that they were printed from the playhoufe caftrated copies. But, furely, this can be no authority for a modern editor to confpire in mutilating his author; fuch omiffions either muft betray a want of diligence in collating, or a want of justice in the voluntary filling.

Elfe could you not have motion: but, fure, that
Is apoplexed: for madness would not err;
Nor fenfe to ecstasy was ne'er fo thralled,
But it reserved fome quantity of choice

[fenfe

:

To ferve in fuch 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 fenfe

Could not fo mope.

O fhame! 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 shame, (51)
When the compulfive ardour gives the charge;
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And Reafon panders Will.

Queen. O Hamlet, fpeak no more.

Thou turnest mine eyes into my very foul,
And there I fee fuch black and grained fpots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Ham. Nay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an incestuous bed,

(51)

-Proclaim no fame,

When the compulfive ardour gives the charge;
Since froft itself as actively does burn.

And reafon pardons will. 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 espousing the wrong one. The whole tenour of the context demands the word degraded by that judicious editor;

And reafon pan ters will.

This is the reflection which Hamlet is making, “Let us not call it thame when heat of blood compels young people to indulge their appetites; fince froft too can burn; and age, at that feafon when judgment fhould predominate, yet feels the flings of inclination, and fuffers reafon to be the bawd 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 cutpurfe of the empire and the rule,

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

Queen. No more.

Enter Ghoft.

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

[Starting up. You heavenly guards! what would your gracious Queen. Alas! he's mad----

[figure? Ham. Do you not come your tardy fon to chide, That, lapfed in time and paffion, lets go by Th' important acting of your dread command? O fay !

Gheft. Do not forget: this vifitation

Is but to whet thy almoft blunted purpose.
But, lock! amazement on thy mother fits;
Oftep between her and her fighting foul:

(52) 4 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 perfon, and not a quality, is to be understood By a vice (as I have explained the word in feveral preceding notes) is meant that buffoon character which used to play the fool in old plays; fo that Hamlet is here designed to call his uncle, a ridiculous ape of majefty, but the mimicry of a king.