strongest internal evidence in the passage. The historian is speaking of the VII sacraments, and he expressly names five of them, viz baptism, marriage, auricular confession, the eucharist, and extreme unction.

The antiquary is desired to consult the edition of Fabian, printed by Pynson, 1516, because there are others, and I remember to have seen one in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with a continuation to the end of Queen Mary, London, 1559, in which the language is much modernized. BRAND.

P. 30, 1. 2. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible! It was ingeniously hinted to me by a very learned lady, that this line seems to belong to Hamlet, in whose mouth it is a proper and natural exclamation; and who, according to the practice of the stage, may be supposed to interrupt so long a speech.

JOHNSON.

P. 30, 1. 5. A couch for luxury-] i. e. for lewdness. STEEVENS.

P. 30, 1. 12. And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire: i. e. shining

without heat. WARBURton.

To pale is a verb used by Lady Elizabeth Carew, in her Tragedy of Mariam, 1613.

Uneffectual fire, I believe, rather means, fire that is no longer seen when the light of morning approaches. STERVENS.

P. 30, 1. 16. O fie!] These words (which hurt the measure, and from that circumstance, and their almost ludicrous turn, may be suspected as an interpolation,) are found only in the two earliest quartos. STEEVENS.

VOL. XVII.

13

-P. 30, 1. 21.

In this distracted globe.] i. e.

in this head confused with thought. STEEVENS. P. 30, 1. 31. 32. My tables,

meet it is, I set it down,

That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain] This is a ri

dicule on the practice of the time. Hall says, in his character of the Hypocrite "He will ever sit where he may be seene best, and in the midst of the sermon pulles, out his tables in haste, he feared to loose that note," &c. FARMER.

as if No ridicule on the practice of the time could with propriety be introduced on this occasion. Hamlet avails himself of the same caution observed by the doctor in the fifth act of Macbeth: "I will set down whatever comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly."

"Dr. Farmer's remark, however, as to the frequent use of table-books, may be supported by many instances. STEEVENS.

Table-books in the time of our author appear to have been used by all ranks of people. In the church they were filled with short notes of the sermon, and at the theatre with the sparkling sentences of the play. MALONE.

P. 30, last 1.

Now to my word;

It is, Adieu, adieu! remember me.] Hamlet alludes to the watch-word given every day in military service, which at this time he says is Adieu, adieu! remember me. STEEVENS.

P. 31, 1. 7. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come] This is the call which falconers use to their hawks in the air, when they would have him come down to them.

HANMER.

P. 32, 1. 6. by saint Patrick,] How the poet comes to make Hamlet swear by St. Patrick, I know not. However, at this time all the whole northern world had their learning from Ireland ; to which place it had retired, and there flourished under the auspices of this Saint. But it was, I suppose, only said at random; for he takes Hamlet a student of Wittenberg. WARBURTON.

Dean Swift's "Verses on the sudden drying-up of St. Patrick's Well, 1726," contain many learned allusions to the early cultivation of literature in Ireland. NICHOLS.

P. 32, last but one 1. Swear by my sword.] Here the poet has preserved the manners of the ancient Danes, with whom it was religion to swear upon their swords. See Bartholinus, De causis contempt. mort. apud Dan. WARBURTON.

I was once inclinable to this opinion, which is likewise well defended by Mr. Upton; but Mr. Garrick produced me a passage, I think, in Brantome, from which it appeared, that it was com- " mon to swear upon the sword, that is, upon the cross which the old swords always had upon the hilt. JOHNSON.

Shakspeare, it is more than probable, knew nothing of the ancient Danes, or their manners. Every extract from Dr. Farmer's pamphlet must prove as instructive to the reader as the following:

"In the Passus Primus of Pierce Plowman, 'David in his daies dubbed knightes,

'And did them swere on her sword to serve truth ever.'

"And in Hieronymo the common butt of our author, and the wits of the time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano:

'Swear on this cross, that what thou say'st is

true:

'But if I prove thee perjur'd and unjust,
This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine
oath,

Shall be a worker of thy tragedy."

To the authorities produced by Dr. Farmer, the following amongst many others, may be added from Holinshed, p. 664: "Warwick kissed the cross of K. Edward's sword, as it were a vow to his promise."

Again in an ancient MS. of which some account is given in a note on the first scene of the first act of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the oath taken by a master of defence when his degree was conferred on him, is preserved, and runs as follows: "First you shall swear (so help you God and halidome, and by all the christendome which God gave you at the fount-stone, and by the crosse of this sword which doth represent unto you the crosse which our Saviour sufered his most payneful deathe upon,) that you shal upholde, maynteyne, and kepe to your power all soch articles as shall be heare declared unto you, and receve in the presence of me your maister, and these the rest of the maisters my bretheren heare with me at this tyme." STEEVENS,

Spencer observes that the Irish in his time used commonly to swear by their sword. See his View of the State of Ireland, written in 1596. This custom, indeed, is of the highest antiquity; having prevailed as we learn from Lucian, among the Scythians. MALONE,

1.33, 1. 14. 15. And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.] i. e. receive it to yourselves; take it under your own

roof; as much as to say, Keep it secret. Alluding to the laws of hospitality. WARBURTON. Warburton refines too much on this passage. Hamlet means merely to request that, they would seem not to know it -to be unacquainted with it.

M. MASON. P. 33, 1. 30. 31. Or such ambiguous giving out to note

That you know aught of me:] The construction is irregular and elleptical. Swear as be fore, says Hamlet, that you never shall by folded arms or shaking of your head intimate that a secret is lodged in your breasts; and by no ambiguous phrases denote that you know aught of me.

Shakspeare has in many other places begun to construct a sentence in one form, and ended it in another. So, in All's well that ends well: “[ would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn, or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in stratagem.">

Having used the word never in the preceding part of the sentence, [that you never shall the poet considered the negative implied in what follows; and hence he wrote -"or to note," instead of nor. MALONE.

P. 33, 1. 34. Ham. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! &c.] The skill displayed in Shakspeare's management of his Ghost, is too considerable to be overlooked. He has rivetted our attention to it by a succession of for¬ cible circumstances: by the previous report of the terrified centinels, by the solemnity of the hour at which the phantom walks, by its mar tial stride and discriminating armour, visible only per incertam lunam, by the glimpses of the by its long taciturnity, by its prepa

moon,