your hands: come then, the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you ia this garb, left my extent to the players (which: I tell you must fhew fairly outward) fhould more. appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome; but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. Guil. In what, my dear Lord? Ham I am but mad north, north-west; when the wind is foutherly, I know a hawk from a hands faw. Enter POLONIUS. Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen. Ham. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear an hearer; that great baby, you fee there, is not yet out of his fwathling-clouts. Ref. Haply he's the fecond time come to them; for they fay, an old man is twice a child. Ham. I will prophefy, he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it; you fay right, Sir; for on Monday morning 'twas fo, indeed. Pol. My Lord, I have news to tell you.. When Rofcius was an actor in Rome Pol. The actors are come hither, my Lord. Pol. Upon mine honour. Ham. Then came each actor on his afs------Pol. The beft actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, paftoral-comical, hiftorical-paftoral, fcene undividable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be two heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of wit, and the liberty, thefe are the only men. Ham. "Oh Jephtha, judge of Ifrael," what a treafure hadft thou! Pol. What a treasure had he, my Lord? Ham. "Why, one fair daughter, and no more, "The which he loved paffing well." Pol. Still on my daughter. Ham. Am I not i' th' right, old Jephtha? Pol. If you call me Jephtha, my Lord; I have a daughter that I love paffing well. Ham. Nay, that follows not. Pol. What follows then, my Lord? Ham. Why, as “ by lot, God wot"----and then you know," it came to pafs, as most like it was;" the first row of the rubric will fhew you more.. For look where my abridgements come. Enter four or five Players. Y'are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to fee thee well; welcome, good friends. Oh! old friend! thy face is valanced fince I faw thee. last : comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What! my young lady and mistress? b'erlady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I faw you laft, by the altitude of a chioppine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.--Masters, you are all welcome: we'll e'en to't like friendly faulconers, fly at any thing we fee; we'll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a paffionate fpeech. 1 Play. What fpeech, my good Lord? Ham. I heard thee fpeak me a fpeech once; but it was never acted: or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleafed not the million, 'twas Caviar to the general; but it was (as I received it, and others, whofe judgment in fuch matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play; well digefted' in the feenes, fet down with as much modefty as cunning. I remember, (31) one faid, (31) I remember, one faid, there was no falt in the lines to make there was no falt in the lines, to make the matter favoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might the matter favoury ;] i.e. That there was no poignancy of wit, or virulence of fatire in them, as I had formerly explained this paffage. Mr Pope has fallen upon me with a Ineer, and triumplis that I fiould be fo ridiculous to think that fatire can have any place in tragedy. I did not mean that fatire was to make its fubject, or that the paffions were to be purged by it; may not a fharp and farcaftical fentiment, for all that; occafionally arife from the matter? What does this gentleman think of irony? Is it not one fpecies of fatire? And yet Monfieur Hedelin (almoft as good a judge as Mr Pope in thefe ma ters) tells us, it is a figure en tirely theatrical. Or what does Mr Pope think of such fen tences as these? -Frailty, thy name is woman! In fecond husband let me be accurft! O woman! woman! woman! All the gods Hamlet. Ibid. Coriolanuss Dryden's All for Love. And to borrow one inftance from an ancient, who has out-gone all the others quoted, in the ftrength of his farcafm: - χρῆν γὰρ ἄλλοθέν ποθεν βροτώς Παιδας ποιείσθαι, θήλυ δ' ἐκ εἶναι γένος, Ουτω δ ̓ ἂν ἐκ ἦν ἰδὲν ἀνθρώποις κακόν. Eurip. in Medea I chofe this paffage, because I think our Milton has left a fine paraphrafe upon it; and, I doubt not, had the Greekpoet in his eye: Oh, why did God, Creator wife, that peopled highest heaven Or find jome other way to generate mankind. If Mr Pope does not think these paffages to be satire, and yet they are all in tragedies, I muft beg leave to diffent from him in opinion: or, to conclnde, has Mr Pope never heard that Euripides obtained the name of Microɣútns, wo indite the author of affection; but called it an ho neft method. One fpeech in it I chiefly loved; 'twas Æneas's tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Pram's flaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me fee, let me fee-The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beaft-- It is not fo;------it begins with Pyrrhus. The rugged Pyrrhus, he, whole fable arms, Pol. 'Fore God, my Lord, well spoken, with good accent, and good difcretion. 1 Play. Anon he finds him, Striking, too fhort, at Greeks. His antique fward, Takes prifoner Pyrrhus' ear. For lo, his fword, man-hater, because he fo virulently fatirifed the fex in his tragedies? Of reverend Priam, feemed i' th' air to stick: But as we often fee, against fome storm, Out, out, thou ftrumpet Fortune! all you Gods, Break all the fpokes and fellies from her wheel, And bowl the round nave down the hill of heav'n, As low as to the fiends. Pol. This is too long. Ham. It fhall to th' barber's with your beard. Pr'ythee, fay on; he's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he fleeps. Say on, come to Hecuba. 1 Play. But who, oh! who, had feen the mobled Ham. The mobled Queen? [Queen,... Pol. That's good; mobled Queen, is good. 1 Play. Run barefoot up and down, threatning. the flames With biffon-rheum; a clout upon that head |