your hands: come then, the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you. in this garb, left my extent to the players (which I tell you must fhew fairly outward) fhould more appear like entertainment than yours. You arė: 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 handfaw. Enter POLONIUS. Pol. Well be with you, gentlemen. Ham. Hark you, Guildenftern, and you too, at each ear an hearer; that great baby, you fee there, is not yet out of his fwathling-clouts. Rof. 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. Pal. 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, hiftory, paftoral, paftoral-comical, hiftorical-paftoral, fcene undividable, or poem unJimited: Seneca cannot be two heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of wit, and the liberty, these are the only men.. Ham."Oh Jephtha, judge of Ifrael,” what a treasure 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 moft 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, mafters, welcome all.. I am glad to see thee well; welcome, good friends. Oh! old friend! thy face is valanced fince I faw thee last: comeft thou to beard me in Denmark? What! my young lady and miftrefs? b'erlady, your ladyfhip 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 fpeech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a paffionate speech. 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 fcenes, fet down with as much modesty 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 fncer, and triumphs that I fhould 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 passions were to be purged by it; may not a harp 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 (almost as good a judge as Mr Pope in thefe ma ters) tells us, it is a figure entirely theatrical. Or what does Mr Pope think of fuch 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. Coriolanus. Dryden's All for Love. And to borrow one inftance from an ancient, who has outgone all the others quoted, in the ftrength of his farcafm: - χρῆν γὰρ ἀλλοθέν ποθεν βροτώς Παίδες ποιείσθαι, θήλυ δ ̓ ἐκ εἶναι γένος, *Ουτω δ ̓ ἂν ἐκ ἦν ἐδὶν 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 Greek poet 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 thefe paffages to be fatire, and yet they are all in tragedies, I muft beg leave to diffent from him in opinion: or, to conclude, has Mr Pope never heard that Euripides obtained the name of Mirozúrns, wo indite the author of affection; but called it an honeft method. One fpeech in it I chiefly loved; 'twas Æneas's tale to Dido; and thereabout of it efpecially, where he fpeaks 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 beast------- 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 fword, man-bater, because he fo virulently fatisifed the fex in his tragedies? Of reverend Priam, feemed i̇' th' air to stick: But as we often see, against some storm, Out, out, thou ftrumpet Fortune! all you Gods, Break all the spokes 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 |