ceived Romeo to have burst open the monument for no other purpose than to do some villainous shame on the dead bodies, such as witches are reported to have practised; and therefore tells him he defies him, and the magic arts which he suspects he is preparing to use. But perhaps the true meaning here is, "I refuse to do as thou conjurest me to do, i. e. to depart." P 570, c. 1, 7. 18 A grave? O, no; a lantern.] A lantern may not, in this instance, signify an enclosure for a lighted candle, but a louvre, or what in ancient records is styled lanternium, i. e. a spacious round or octagonal turret full of windows, by means of which cathedrals, and sometimes halls, are illuminated. Id. l. 20. room. -presence-] A presence is a public Id. 1. 21. by a dead man interr'd] Romeo being now determined to put an end to his life, considers himself as already dead. Id. 1. 25. 0, how may I Call this a lightning? Romeo had, just before, been in high spirits, a symptom, which he observes, was sometimes called a lightning before death: but how, says he (for no situation can exempt Shakspeare's characters from the vice of punning), can I term this sad and gloomy prospect a lightning? Id. 1 50. A dateless bargain to engrossing death'] Engrossing seems to be used here in its clerical sense. Id. 1. 51. Come, bitter conduct,] Conduct for conductor. Id. 1. 60. Have my old feet stumbled at graves?] This accident was reckoned ominous. Id. 1. 61. Who is it, &c.] To consort, is to keep company with. Id. c. 2, 1.3 I dreamt my master and another fought. This is one of the touches of nature that would have escaped the hand of any painter less attentive to it than Shakspeare. What happens to a person while he is under the manifest influence of fear, will seem to him. when he is recovered from it, like a dream Homer, book 8th, represents Rhesus dying fast asleep, and as it were beholding his enemy in a dream plunging a sword into his bosom. Eustathius and Dacier both applaud this image as very natural; for a man in such a condition, says Mr. Pope, awakes no further than to see confusedly what environs him, and to think it not a reality, but a vision, P. 571, c. 1, l. 14. This dagger hath mista'enfor, lo! his house Is empty on the back of Montague,And is mis-sheathed in my daughter's bosom.] Shakspeare quaintly represents the dagger as having mistaken its place, and is mis-sheathed," in the bosom of Juliet. It appears that the dagger was anciently wors behind the back. Id. l. 43. I will be brief.] It is much to be lamented, that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew. JOHNSON. Id. Id. c. 2, l. 48. Have lost a brace of kinsmen Mercutio and Paris: Mercutio is expressly called the prince's kinsman in Act III. sc. 4. and that Paris also was the prince's kinsman, may be inferred from other passages. 1. 62. Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:] This line has reference to the novel from which the fable is taken. Here we read that Juliet's female attendant was banished for concealing the marriage; Romeo's servant set at liberty because he had only acted in obedience to his master's orders; the apothecary taken, tortured, condemned, and hanged; while friar Laurence was permitted to retire to a hermitage in the neighbourhood of Verona, where he ended his life in pea tence and tranquillity. STEEVENS. THE original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Grammaticus, the Danish historian. From thence Belleforest adopted it in his collection of novels, in seven volumes, which he began in 1565, and continued to publish through succeeding years. From this work, The Hystorie of Hamblett, quarto, bl. 1. was translated. I have hitherto met with no earlier edition of the play than one in the year 1604, though it must have been performed before that time, as I have seen a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey (the antagonist of Nash), who, in his own hand-writing, has set down Hamlet, as a performance with which he was Awell acquainted, in the year 1598. His words are these: "The younger sort take much delight in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the wiser sort, 1598." In the books of the Stationers' Company, this play was entered by James Roberts, July 26, 1602, under the title of "A booke called The Revenge of Hamlett, Prince of Denmarke, as it was lately acted by the lord Chamberlain his servantes." In Eastward Hoe, by George Chapman, Ben Jonson, and John Marston, 1605, is a fling at the hero of this tragedy. A footman named Hamlet enters, and a tankard-bearer asks him "Sfoote, Hamlet, are you mad?" The frequent allusions of contemporary authors to this play sufficiently show its popularity. Thus, in Decker's Belman's Nightwalkes, 4to, 1612, we have-" But if any mad Hamlet, hearing this, smell villainie, and rush in by vio "Greene, in the Epistle prefixed to his Arcadia, hath a lash at some 'vaine glorious tragedians,' and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular. I leave all these to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translators trencher.-That could scarcely latinize their neck verse if they should have neede, yet English Seneca, read by candlelight, yields many good sentences-hee will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say, handfuls of tragicall speeches.'-I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done and it may be observed, that the oldest copy now extant is said to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was.' Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592, 'Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene:' in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle must have been previous to these, as Gabriel : 350 is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters, were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied in 'Strange News of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593.' Harvey rejoined the same year in 'Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Asse.' And Nash again, in 'Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up;' containing a full answer to the eldest sonne of the halter-maker, 1596."-Nash died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called The Return from Parnassis. STEEVENS. A play on the subject of Hamlet had been exhibited on the stage before the year 1589, of which Thomas Kyd was, I believe, the author. On that play, and on the bl. 1. Historie of Hamblet, our poet, I conjecture, coustructed the tragedy before us. The earliest edition of the prose-narrative which I have seen was printed in 1608, but it undoubtedly was a republication. Shakspeare's Hamlet was written, if my conjecture be well founded, in 1600. MALONE. HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. If the dramas of Shakspeare were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations; and solemnity not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life, and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes moch mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that, in the first act, chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt. The conduct is, perhaps, not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed, for the most part, in continual progression; but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty. Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the king, he makes no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in producing. The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than astroke of art. A scheme might easily be formed, to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose: the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification, which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious. ACT I. MARCELLUS, BERNARDO, Officers. FRANCISCO, a Soldier. REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius. A Captain. An Ambassador. Ghost of Hamlet's Father. FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway. Johnson. GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, and Mother of Hamlet. OPHELIA, Daughter of Polonius. Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Grave-diggers SCENE,-Elsinore. SCENE I.-Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle. Ber. Who's there? Fran. Yourself. Mar. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy; Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold That, if again this apparition come, Ber. Long live the king! Ber. Bernardo? He. Fran. You come most carefully upon your hour. Fran. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, Ber. Have you had quiet guard? Ber. Well, good night. Sit down awhile; Ber. When yon same star, that's westward from the pole, If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS. Fran. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there? And liegemen to the Dane. Hor. Friends to this ground. Give you good night. Mar Ber. O, farewell, honest soldier: Bernardo hath my place. Say, A piece of him. What, is Horatio there? Mor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night? Ber. In the same figure, like the king that's dead. But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state. Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch Hor. Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands, Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart, His fell to Hamlet: Now, sir, young Fortinbras, Ber. I think, it be no other, but even so: Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye. The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead * + * * * As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, But, soft, behold' lo, where it comes again' I'll cross it, though it blast me.-Stay, illusion. If there be any good thing to be done, If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Or, if thon hast uphoarded in thy life, For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death Ber. Hor. Mar. 'Tis gone! "Tis here! 'Tis here (Exit Ghost We do it wrong, being so majestical, Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill: Break we our watch up; and, by my advice, Let us impart what we have seen to-night Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life, This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it, As needful in our loves, fitting our duty? Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know Where we shall find him most convenient. [Exeun SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the same. Enter the King, Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAER TES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and ALtendants. King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death The memory be green; and that it us befitted |