King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be And thy best graces fpend it at thy will. [Afide. King. How is it that the clouds ftill hang on you? Ham. Not fo, my Lord, I am too much i' th' fun. Queen. Good Hamlet, caft thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids, Seek for thy noble father in the duft; Thou knoweft 'tis common; all that live must die, Paffing through nature to eternity. Ham. Ay, Madam, it is common. Queen. If it be, Why feems it fo particular with thee? Ham. Seems, Madam? nay, it is; I know not feems: 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, (3) Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine, And thy fair graces; Spend it at thy will.] This is the pointing in both Mr Pope's editions; but the Poet's meaning is loft by it, and the clofe of the fentence miferably flattened. The pointing I have reftored, is that of the beft copies, and the fenfe this; "You have my leave to go. Laertes; make the faireft ufe you please of your time, and spend it at your will with the faireft graces you are ma fter of." But I have that within which paffeth fhew: To give these mourning duties to your father: To do obfequious forrow. But to perfevere As of a father: for let the world take note, (4) But you must know, your father left a father; That father his.-] This fuppofed refinement is from Mr Pope; but all the editions elfe, that I have met with, old and modern, read; That father loft. lof his. The reduplication of which word here gives an energy and elegance, which is much easier to be conceived thin explained in terms. And every judicious reader of this Poet must have obferved how frequent it is with him to make this reduplication, where he intends either to alert or deny, augment or diminish, or add a degree of vehemence to his expreflion. And with't no lefs nobility of love, (5). And we beseech you, bend you to remain I pr'ythee, ftay with us, go not to Wittenberg. (5) And with no less nobility of love Than that which dearest father bears his fon, Do I impart towards you] But what does the King impart? We want the fubftantive governed of the verb. The King had declared Hamlet his immediate fucceffor, and with that declaration, he muft mean, he imparts to him as noble a love, as ever fond father tendered to his own fon. I have ventured to make the text conform with this fenfe. But I de In going back to school to Wittenberg ;] The Poet ufes a prolepfis here; for the univerfity at Wittenberg was opened by Frederick III..elector of Saxony, in the year 1502, feve ral ages later in time than the date of Hamlet. fign this remark for another purpose. I would take notice, that a confiderable space of years is spent in this tragedy; or Hamlet, as a Prince, fhould be too old to go to an uni-verfity. We here find him a fcholar refident at that univerfity; but, in act fifth, we find him plainly thirty years old; for the gravedigger had taken up that occupation the very day on which young Hamlet was born, and had followed it, as he fays, thirty years. And the King's rowfe the heaven fhall bruit again, Re-fpeaking earthly thunder. Come away. Manet HAMLET. [Exeunt. Ham. Oh, that this too-too-folid flesh would melt, Thaw, and refolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed (7) (7) Or that the Everlofting had not fixed His cannon 'gainst felf-flaughter!] The generality of the editions read thus, as if the Poet's thoughts were, Or that the Almighty had not planted his artillery, his refentnent, or arms of vengeance against felf-murder. But the word which I have restored to the text, (and which was efpoufed by the accurate Mr Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the Poet's true reading. i. e. That he had not reftrained fuicide by his express law, and peremptory prohibition. Mif takes are perpetually made in the old editions of our Poet, betwixt thofe two words, cannon and canon. I fhall now fubjoin my reasons why I think the Poet intended to fay Heaven had fixed its injunction rather than its artillery. In the first place, I much doubt the propriety of the phrafe, fixing cannon, in the meaning here fuppofed. The military expreffion, which imports what would be neecffary to the fente of the Poet's thought, is mounting or planting cannon; and whenever Cannon is faid to be fixed, it is when the enemy become mafters of it and nail it down. In the next place, to fix a Canon, or law, is the term of the civilians peculiar to this bufinefs. This Virgil had in his mind when he wrote; -Leges fixit pretio, atque refixit. Æneid. VI. So Cicero, in his Philippic orations; Num figentur rurfus he Tabula, quas vos decretis veftris refixis? And it was the conftant cuftom of the Romans to fay, upon this occafion, figere legem, as the Greeks before them ufed the fynonymous term νόμον παραπήξαι, and called their fatues thence παραπήγματα. But my last reafon, and which fways most with me, is from the Poet's own turn and caft of thought. For, as he has done in a great many more inftances, it is the very fentiment which he falls into in another of his plays, though he has clothed it in different expreffion; 'gainst seif-flaughter There is a prohibition fo divine, Cymbeline. His canon 'gainst self-flaughter! O God! oh God! So excellent a King, that was, to this, Hyperion to a fatyr: fo loving to my mother, (8) By what it fed on; yet, within a month,- (8) -fo loving to my mother, That he permitted not the winds of heaven Vifit her face too roughly. This is a fophifticated reading, copied from the players in fome of the modern editions, for want of understanding the Poet, whofe text is corrupt in the old impreffions; all of which that I have had the fortune to fee, concur in reading; -fo loving to my mother, That he might not beteee the winds of heaven Beteche is a corruption, without doubt, but not fo inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a fiogle letter, and the feparation of two words mistakenly jumbled together, I am verily perfuaded, I have retrieved the Poet's reading.That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven, &c. (9) Frailty, thy name is woman!] But that it would difpleafe Mr Pope to have it fuppofed that fatire can have any place in tragedy, (of which I fhall have occafion to speak farther anon) I should make no fcruple to pronounce this reflection a fine laconic farcafin. It is as concife in the terms, and, perhaps, more fprightly in the thought and image, than that fling of Virgil upon the fex, in his fourth Encrd; Famina. varium et mutabile femper |