HAM. O Jephthah, judge of Israel,—what a treasure hadst thou! POL. What a treasure had he, my lord? HAM. Why-One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well. POL. Still on my daughter. [Aside. HAM. Am I not i'the right, old Jephthah? POL. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter, that I love passing well. 6 Civitates, &c. is an account of the University, by Gulielmus Soonus, 1575. "In this curious memoir we have the following passage: Januarium, Februarium, et Martium menses, ut noctis tædix fallant in spectaculis populo exhibendis ponunt tanta elegantia, tanta actionis dignitate, ea vocis et vultus moderatione, ea magnificentia, ut si Plautus, aut Terentius, aut Seneca revivisceret mirarentur suas ipsi fabulas, majoremque quam cum inspectante popul. Rom. agerentur, voluptatem credo caperent. Euripidem vero, Sophoclem et Aristophanem, etiam Athenarum suarum tæderet." STEEVENS. & For the law of WRIT, and the liberty, these are the only men.] All the modern editors have," the law of wit, and the liberty;" but both my old copies have-"the law of writ," I believe rightly. Writ, for writing, composition. Wit was not, in our author's time, taken either for imagination, or acuteness, or both together, but for understanding, for the faculty by which we apprehend and judge. Those who wrote of the human mind, distinguished its primary powers into wit and will. Ascham distintinguishes boys of tardy and of active faculties into quick wits and slow wits. JOHNSON. That writ is here used for writing, may be proved by the following passage in Titus Andronicus: "Then all too late I bring this fatal writ." STEEVENS. The old copies are certainly right. Writ is used for writing by authors contemporary with Shakspeare. Thus, in The Apologie of Pierce Pennilesse, by Thomas Nashe, 1593: "For the lowsie circumstance of his poverty before his death, and sending that miserable writte to his wife, it cannot be but thou liest, learned Gabriel." Again, in Bishop Earle's Character of a mere dull Physician, 1638: "Then followes a writ to his drugger, in a strange tongue, which he understands, though he cannot Conster." Again, in King Henry VI. P. II: "Now, good my lord, let's see the devil's writ." MALONE. 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 pass, As most like it was,-The first row of the pious chanson' will show you more; for look, my abridgment 2 comes *. *First folio, abridgments come. 9 Why, As by lot, God wot, &c.] The old song from which these quotations are taken, I communicated to Dr. Percy, who has honoured it with a place in the second and third editions of his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. In the books belonging to the Stationers' Company, there are two entries of this ballad among others. "A ballet intituled the Songe of Jepthah's Doughter," &c. 1567, vol. i. fol. 162. Again: "Jeffa Judge of Israel," p. 93, vol. iii. Dec. 14, 1624. This story was also one of the favourite subjects of ancient tapestry." STEEVENS. There is a Latin tragedy on the subject of Jephtha, by John Christopherson, in 1546, and another by Buchanan, in 1554. A third by Du Plessis Mornay, is mentioned by Prynne, in his Histriomastix. The same subject had probably been introduced on the English stage. MALONE. the PIOUS CHANSON -] It is pons chansons in the first folio edition. The old ballads sung on bridges, and from thence called pons chansons. Hamlet is here repeating ends of old songs. РОРЕ. It is pons chansons in the quarto too. I know not whence the rubrick has been brought, yet it has not the appearance of an arbitrary addition. The titles of old ballads were never printed red; but perhaps rubrick may stand for marginal explanation. JOHNSON. There are five large volumes of ballads in Mr. Pepys's collection in Magdalen's College Library, Cambridge, some as ancient as Henry VII.'s reign, and not one red letter upon any one of the titles. GREY. The words, of the rubrick, were first inserted by Mr. Rowe, in his edition in 1709. The old quartos in 1604, 1605, and 1611, read, pious chanson, which gives the sense wanted, and I have accordingly inserted it in the text. The pious chansons were a kind of Christmas carols, containing some scriptural history thrown into loose rhymes, and sung about the streets by the common people when they went at that season to solicit alms. Hamlet is here repeating some scraps from a song of this kind, and when Polonius enquires what follows Enter Four or Five Players. You are welcome, masters; welcome, all:-I am glad to see thee well :-welcome, good friends.O, old friend! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; Com'st thou to beard me in Denmark?-What! my young lady and mistress! By-'rlady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven, than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine 3. Pray them, he refers him to the first row (i. e. division) of one of these, to obtain the information he wanted. STEEVENS. 2 my abridgment] He calls the players afterwards, the brief chronicles of the times; but I think he now means only those who will shorten my talk. JOHNSON. An abridgment is used for a dramatick piece in A MidsummerNight's Dream, Act V. Sc. I. : 66 Say what abridgment have you for this evening?" but it does not commodiously apply to this passage. See vol. v. p. 311. STEEVENS. 3 - thy face is VALANCED-] i. e. fringed with a beard. The valance is the fringes or drapery hanging round the tester of a bed. MALONE. Dryden, in one of his epilogues, has the following line: "Criticks in plume, and white valancy wig." STEEVENS. -to BEARD me-] To beard, anciently signified to set at defiance. So, in King Henry IV. P. I.: "No man so potent breathes upon the ground, "But I will beard him." STEEVENS. sby the altitude of a CHOPINE.] A chioppine is a high shoe, or rather, a clog, worn by the Italians, as in T. Heywood's Challenge of Beauty, Act V. Song: "The Italian in her high chopeene, "Scotch lass, and lovely froe too; "The Spanish Donna, French Madame, So, in Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels: "I do wish myself one of my mistress's cioppini." Another demands, why would he be one of his mistress's cioppini? a third answers," because he would make her higher." Again, in Decker's Match Me in London, 1631: "I'm only taking instructions to make her a lower chopeene; she finds fault that she's lifted too high." Again, in Chapman's Cæsar and Pompey, 1613: God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.-Masters, you are "Have chopines at commandement to an height "Of life thou canst wish." See the figure of a Venetian courtezan among the Habiti Antichi, &c. di Cesare Vecellio, p. 114, edit. 1598: and (as Mr. Ritson observes) among the Diversarum Nationum Habitus, Padua, 1592. STEEVENS. Tom Coryat, in his Crudites, 1611, p. 262, calls them chapineys, and gives the following account of them: "There is one thing used of the Venetian women, and some others dwelling in the cities and townes subject to the signiory of Venice, that is not to be observed (I thinke) amongst any other women in Christendome which is common in Venice, that no woman whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad, a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colors, some with white, some redde, some yellow. It is called a chapiney, which they wear under their shoes. Many of them are curiously painted; some also of them I have seen fairly gilt: so uncomely a thing (in my opinion) that it is pitty this foolish custom is not cleane banished and exterminated out of the citie. There are many of these chapineys of a great height, even half a yard high, which maketh many of their women that are very short, seeme much taller than the tallest women we have in England. Also I have heard it observed among them, that by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her chapineys. All their gentlewomen and most of their wives and widowes that are of any wealth, are assisted and supported eyther by men or women, when they walke abroad, to the end they may not fall. They are borne up most commonly by the left arme, otherwise they might quickly take a fall." REED. Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1605: "Dost not weare high corked shoes, chopines?" 66 The word ought rather to be written chapine, from chapin, Span. which is defined by Minsheu in his Spanish Dictionary: a high cork shoe." There is no synonymous word in the Italian language, though the Venetian ladies, as we are told by Lassels, wear high heel'd shoes, like stilts," &c. MALONE. Mr. Malone was mistaken in saying that there is no word for this in Italian. I find cioppino in Veneroni's Dictionary. 6 66 BOSWELL. be not cracked within the ring.] That is, cracked too much for use. This is said to a young player who acted the parts of wo I find the same phrase in The Captain, by Beaumont and Fletcher : all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers", fly at any thing we see: We'll have a speech straight: Come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech. 1 PLAY. What speech, my lord * ? HAM. I heard thee speak me a speech once,but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general': but it was * Quarto, my good lord. "Come to be married to my lady's woman, Again, in Ben Jonson's Magnetick Lady: 66 Light gold, and crack'd within the ring." Again, in Your Five Gallants, 1608: "Here's Mistresse Rosenoble has lost her maidenhead, crackt in the ring." Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: 66 not a penny the worse "For a little use, whole within the ring." Again, in Decker's Honest Whore, 1635: "You will not let my oaths be cracked in the ring, will you?" STEEVENS. The following passage in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597, as well as that in Fletcher's Captain, might lead us to suppose that this phrase sometimes conveyed a wanton allusion: "Well, if she were twenty grains lighter, refuse her, provided always she be not clipt within the ring." T. C. 6 like FRENCH falconers,] The amusement of falconry was much cultivated in France. In All's Well that Ends Well, Shakspeare has introduced an astringer or falconer at the French court. Mr. Tollet, who has mentioned the same circumstance, likewise adds that it is said in Sir Thomas Browne's Tracts, p. 116, that "the French seem to have been the first and noblest falconers in the western part of Europe;" and, "that the French king sent over his falconers to show that sport to King James the First." See Weldon's Court of King James. STEEVENS. 66 - 66 like French falconers." Thus the folio. Quarto :like friendly falconers." MALOne. 7 - CAVIARE to the GENERAL:] Giles Fletcher, in his Russe Commonwealth, 1591, p. 41, says in Russia they have divers kinds of fish " very good and delicate: as the Bellouga & Bellougina of four or five elnes long, the Ositrina & Sturgeon, but not so thick nor long, These four kind of fish breed in the Wolgha and are catched in great plenty, and served thence into |