P.6, 1.25. Why such impress of shipwrights,] Judge Barrington, Observations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 300, having observed that Shakspeare gives English manners to every country where his scene lies, infers from this passage, that in the time even of Queen Elizabeth, shipwrights as well as seamen were forced to serve. WHALLEY.

Impress signifies only the act of retaining shipwrights by giving them what was called prest money (from pret, Fr.) for holding themselves in readiness to be employed. STeevens.

P. 7, 1.3. Well ratified by law, and heraldry,] Mr. Upton says, that Shakspeare sometimes expresses one thing by two substantives, and that law and heraldry means, by the herald law.

STEEVENS.

Puttenham, in his Art of Poesie, speaks of the Figure of Twynnes, "horses and barbes, for barbed horses, venim & dartes, for venimous dartes," &c. FARMER.

That is, according to the forms of law heraldry. When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to, as well as those of law. M. MASON.

i. e. to be well ratified by the rules of law, and the forms prescribed jure fecialy; such as proclamation, &c. MALONE.

P. 7, 1. 9-11.

by the same co-mart, And carriage of the article design'd,] Comart signifies a bargain, and carrying of the article, the covenant entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we see the common reading [covenant] makes a tautology. WARBURTON.

Co-mart is, I suppose, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart signifying a great fair or market, he would not have scrupled

to have written

to mart, in the sense of to make a bargain. In the preceding speech we find mart used for bargain or purchase. MALONE.

Carriage, is import: design'd, is formed, drawn up between them, JOHNSON.

Cawdrey in his Alphabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb design thus: "To marke out or appoint for any purpose." See also Minsheu's Dict. 1617. "To designe or shew by a token." Designed is yet used in this sense in Scotland.

MALONE.

P. 7, 1. 13. Of unimproved mettle hot and full,] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience. JOHNSON. P. 7, I. 15. Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,] I believe, to shark up means to pick up without distinction, as the shark-fish collects his prey. The quartos read lawless, instead of landless. STEEVENS.

P. 7. l. 16. 17.

.enterprize

That hath a stomach in't:] Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for constancy, resolution. JOHNSON.

P. 7, 1. 24. post-haste and romage] Tumul tuous hurry. JOHNSON.

P. 7, I. 25. and fol. These, and all other lines confined within crotchets throughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omissions leave the play sometimes better and sometimes worse, and seem made only for the sake of abbreviation. JOHNSON.

It may be worth while to observe, that the titlepages of the first quartos in 1604 and 1605, declare this play to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect copy

Perhaps therefore many of its absurdities as well as beauties arose from the quantity added after it was first written. Our poet might have been more attentive to the amplification than the coherence of his fable.

The degree of credit due to the title-page that styles the MS. from which the quartos, 1604 and 1605 were printed, the true and perfect copy, may also be disputable. I cannot help supposing this publication to contain all Shakspeare rejected, as well as all he supplied. By restorations like the former, contending booksellers or theatres might have gained some temporary advantage over each other, which at this distance of time is not to be understood. The patience of our ancestors exceeded our own, could it have outlasted the tragedy of Hamlet as it is now printed; for it must have occupied almost five hours in representation. If, however, it was too much dilated on the ancient stage, it is as injudiciously contracted on the modern one. STEEVENS.

P. 7, 1. 26. Well may it sort,] The cause and effect are proportionate and suitable. JOHNSON. P. 7, 1. 28. the question] The theme or subject. MALONE.

P. 7, l. 29. A mote-] The first quarto reads -a moth. STEEVENS.

A moth was only the old spelling of mote.

MALONE.

P. 7, 1.30. In the most high and palmy state of Rome,] Palmy for

victorious. POPE.

P. 7, last 1. As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun;] Mr. Rowe altered

these lines, because they have insufficient connection with the preceding one, thus:

Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell,

Disasters veil'd the sun, →.

This passage is not in the folio. By the quartos therefore our imperfect text is supplied: for an intermediate verse being evidently lost, it were idle to attempt a union that never was intended. I have therefore signified the supposed deficiency by a vacant space.

When Shakspeare had told us that the graves stood tenantless, &c. which are wonders confined to the earth, he naturally proceeded to say (in the line now lost) that yet other prodigies appeared in the sky; and these phaenomena he exemplified by adding, As [i. e. as for instance] Stars with trains of fire, &c. STEEVENS.

P. 8, 1.5-5. And even the like precurse of fierce events, -

As harbingers preceding still the fates,

And prologue to the omen coming on,—] Not only such prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shown our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events.

JOHNSON.

Fierce, for terrible. WARBURTON. I rather believe that fierce signifies conspicuous glaring. STEEvens.

But prologue and omen are merely synonymous here. The poet means, that these strange phaenomena are prologues and forerunners of the events presag'd: and such sense the slight alteration, which I have ventured to make, by changing omen to omen'd, very aptly gives. THEOBALD,

Omen, for fate. WARBURTON.

Hanmer follows Theobald.

A distich from the life of Merlin, by Heywood, however, will show that there is no occasion for correction:

"Merlin well vers'd in many a hidden spell, "His countries omen did long since foretell.” FARMER.

Omen, I believe, is danger. STEEVENS.

P. 8, 1. 10. and fol. The speech of Horatio to the spectre is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the causes of apparitions. JOHNSON.

P. 8, 1. 19. 21.

--

if thou hast uphoarded in
thy life

Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say,

you spirits oft walk in death,] So, in Dec

-

ker's Knight's Conjuring, &c. If any of them had bound the spirit of gold by any charmes in caves, or in iron fetters under the ground, they should for their own soules quiet (which questionlesse else would whine up and down) if not for the good of their children, release it.", STEEVENS.

P. 8, 1. 23-26.

-

Stop it, Marcellus.

Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partizan? Hor. Do, if it will not stand.] I am unwilling to suppose that Shakspeare could appropriate these absurd effusions to Horatio, who is a scholar, and has sufficiently proved his good understanding by the propriety of his addresses to the phantom. Such a man therefore must have known that

"As
easy might he the intrenchant air
With his keen sword impress,"

as commit any act of violence on the royal shadow.