Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do cafe, and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

Or, if thou haft uphoarded' in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,

[Cock crows. Speak of it :-stay, and speak.-Stop it, Marcellus. MAR. Shall I ftrike at it with my partizan? HOR. Do, if it will not. ftand.8

BER.

HOR.

'Tis here!

'Tis here!

↑ Or, if thou haft uphoarded &c.] So, in Decker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. " If any of them had bound the fpirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they fhould for their own foules quiet (which questionleffe else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it." STEEVENS.

8 -Stop it, Marcellus.

Hor. Do, if it will not ftand.] I am unwilling to fuppofe that Shakspeare could appropriate thefe abfurd effufions to Horatio, who is a fcholar, and has fufficiently proved his good understanding by the propriety of his addreffes to the phantom. Such a man therefore muft have known that

"As eafy might he the intrenchant air
"With his keen fword imprefs,"

as commit any act of violence on the royal fhadow. The words-
Stop it, Marcellus,—and Do, if it will not fland-better fuit the next
fpeaker, Bernardo, who, in the true fpirit of an unlettered officer,
nihil non arroget armis. Perhaps the firft idea that occurs to a man of
this defcription, is to ftrike at what offends him. Nicholas Pouffin,
in his celebrated picture of the Crucifixion, has introduced a fimilar
occurrence. While lots are cafting for the facred vefture, the graves
are giving up their dead. This prodigy is perceived by one of the
foldiers, who inftantly grafps his fword, as if preparing to defend
himself, or refent fuch an invafion from the other world.

MAR. 'Tis gone!

We do it wrong, being fo majestical,
To offer it the fhow of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,

8

[Exit Ghost.

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BER. It was about to speak, when the cock crew;
HOR. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful fummons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,"
Doth with his lofty and fhrill-founding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in fea or fire, in earth or air,2

The two next speeches-'Tis here!-'Tis here!-may be allotted to Marcellus and Bernardo; and the third-'Tis gone! &c. to Horatio, whofe fuperiority of character indeed feems to demand it.As the text now ftands, Marcellus proposes to strike the Ghost with his partizan, and yet afterwards is made to defcant on the indecorum and impotence of fuch an attempt.

The names of fpeakers have fo often been confounded by the
firft publishers of our author, that I fuggeft this change with lefs
hefitation than I should exprefs concerning any conjecture that
could operate to the disadvantage of his words or meaning.-Had
the affignment of the old copies been fuch, would it have been
thought liable to objection? STEEVENS.

8 it is, as the air, invulnerable,] So, in Macbeth:
"As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air

"With thy keen fword imprefs."

Again, in King John:

Against the invulnerable clouds of heaven." MALONE.
9 The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,] So, the quarto, 1604.
Folio-to the day.

In England's Parnaffus, 8vo. 1600, I find the two following
lines afcribed to Drayton, but know not in which of his poems
they are found:

"And now the cocke, the morning's trumpeter,
"Play'd huntfup for the day-ftar to appear.'

Mr. Gray has imitated our poet:

"The cock's fhrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
"No more fhall rouse them from their lowly bed."

MALONE.

2 Whether in fea &c.] According to the pneumatology of

C 3

Sur Cambridge Poet was more immediately indebted to Philips's Cider B. 1.753.

"When Chanticleer, with clarion shrill, recalls "The tardy day,

ous also #penser, in his Faery Queen, B. I. C. 2. S.1.

and cheerful Chanticleer with his note shrill."

greater fury than they are accustomed; and do, out of feafon, congeele the cloudes, caufing it to thunder, lighten, hayle, and to destroy the graffe, corne, &c. &c.-Witches and negromancers worke many fuch like things by the help of those spirits," &c. Ibid. Of this fchoole therefore was Shakspeare's Profpero in The Tempeft. T. WARTON.

Bourne of Newcastle, in his Antiquities of the common People, informs us, "It is a received tradition among the vulgar, that at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight fpirits forfake these lower regions, and, go to their proper places.-Hence it is, (fays he) that. in country places, where the way of life requires more early labour, they always go chearfully to work at that time; whereas if they are called abroad fooner, they imagine every thing they fee, a wandering ghoft." And he quotes on this occafion, as all his predeceffors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whofe tranflation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chanfons, the hymns and carrols, which Shakspeare mentions prefently, were ufually copied from the elder Chriftian poets. FARMER.

To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock." Some fay, that ever 'gainst that feafon comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning fingeth all night long: And then, they fay, no fpirit dares ftir abroad;" The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes,' nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and fo gracious is the time.

4 The extravagant-] i. e. got out of his bounds.

WARBURTON.

So, in Nobody and Somebody, 1598: "they took me up for a'ftravagant."

Shakspeare imputes the fame effect to Aurora's harbinger in the laft fcene of the third act of the Midfummer Night's Dream. See Vol. V. p. 112. STEEVENS.

$ It faded on the crowing of the cock.] This is a very ancient fuperftition. Philoftratus giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' fhade to Apollonius Tyaneus, fays that it vanished with a little glimmer as foon as the cock crowed. Vit. Apol. iv. 16. STEEVENS. Vado, Lat. So,

Faded has here its original fenfe; it vanished.

in Spenfer's Faery Queen, Book I. c. v. ft. 15:

"He ftands amazed how he thence should fade." That our author uses the word in this fenfe, appears from the following lines:

6

The morning cock crew loud;

"And at the found it fhrunk in haste away,

"And vanish'd from our fight." MALONE.

- dares ftir abroad;] Thus the quarto. The folio reads— can walk. STEEVENS.

Spirit was formerly used as a monofyllable: Sprite. The quarto, 1604, has-dare ftir abroad. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote-no fpirits dare ftir abroad. The neceffary correction was made in a late quarto of no authority, printed in 1637. MALONE.

No fairy takes,] No fairy frikes with lameness or difeafes. This fenfe of take is frequent in this author. JOHNSON.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

"And there he blafts the tree, and takes the cattle."

STEEVENS,

HOR. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in ruffet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:3
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 fpirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you confent 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.

[Exeunt.

-high eastern hill:] The old quarto has it better eastward. WARBURTON.

The fuperiority of the latter of these readings is not, to me at leaft, very apparent. I find the former used in Lingua, &c. 1607: and overclimbs

"Yonder gilt eaftern hills."

Again, in Browne's Britannia's Paftorals, Book IV. Sat. iv. p. 75, edit. 1616:

"And ere the funne had clymb'd the easterne hils.” Eaftern and eastward, alike fignify toward the eaft.

STEEVENS,

Again, in Chapman's version of the thirteenth. Book of Homer's Odyssey:

Ulysses still

directed to the eastern hill."