For, in the fatness of these purfy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and wooe, for leave to do it good. Queen. Oh Hamlet! thou haft cleft my heart in
Ham. O, throw away the worfer part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night; but go not to mine uncle's bed,
Affume a virtue, if you have it not.
7 That monster custom, who all fenfe doth eat
Of habits, Devil, is angel yet in this;
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewife gives a frock, or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night;
And that fhall lend a kind of eafiness
To the next abftinence; the next, more eafy;
For ufe can almost change the stamp of Nature,
And mafter ev'n the Devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night!
And when you are defirous to be blest,
I'H Bleffing beg of you. For this fame Lord,
I do repent: but heav'ns have pleas'd it fo,
To punish this with me, and me with this
That I must be their fcourge and minifter.
6-curb-] That is, bend and truckle.
7 That monfter cuftem, who all fenfe doth eat
Of Habit's Devil, is angel yet
in this:] This paffage is left out in the two elder folio's: It is certainly corrupt, and the play. ers did the difcreet part to ftifle what they did not understand. Habit's Devil certainly arofe from fome conceited tamperer with the text, who thought it was neceffary, in contralt to Angel. The emendation of the text I owe to
the fagacity of Dr. Thirly. That monfter cuftim, who al fenfe doth eat,
Of habits evil, is angel, &c. THEOBALD. I think Thirlby's conjecture wrong, though the fucceeding editors have followed it; Angel and Der il are evidently oppofed.
8 To punish this with me, &c.] This is Harmer's reading; the other editions have it,
To punish me with this, and this with me.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night!
I must be cruel, only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Queen. What fhall I do?
Ham. Not this by no means, that I bid you do.
9 Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse
And let him, for a pair of reechy kiffes,
Or padling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I effentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good, you let him know,
For who that's but a Queen, fair, fober, wife,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gibbe,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do fo?
No, in defpight of fenfe and fecrefy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top,
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclufions, in the bafket creep;
And break your own neck down.
Queen. Be thou affur'd, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou haft faid to me.
Ilam. I muft to England, you know that?
Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis fo concluded on. Ham. There's Letters fealed, and my two school fellows,
Whom I will truft, as I will adders fang'd;
They bear the mandate; they must fweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work.
For 'tis the fport, to have the engineer ·
Hoift with his own petard; and 't fhall go hard,
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most fweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet!
This man fhall fet me packing.
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night.-Indeed, this Counsellor
Is now most still, moft fecret, and moft grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, Sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good-night, mother.
[Exit Hamlet, tugging in Polonius.
Enter King and Queen, with Rofincrantz, and Guil
HERE's matter in thefe fighs; these profound heaves
You must tranflate; 'tis fit, we understand them.
Where is your fon?
*This play is printed in the old editions without any feparation of the Acts. The divifion is modern and arbitrary; and is here not very happy, for the
paufe is made at a time when there is more continuity of action than in almost any other of the Scenes,
Queen. Bestow this place on us a little while.
[To Rof. and Guild. who go out.
Ah, my good Lord, what have I feen to-night?
King. What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen. Mad as the feas, and wind, when both con-
tend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing fomething stir,
He whips his rapier out, and cries, a rat!
And, in this brainifh apprehenfion, kills
The unfeen good old man.
It had been fo with us had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all,
To you yourself, to us, to every one.
Alas! how fhall this bloody deed be anfwer'd?
It will be laid to us, whofe providence
Should have kept short, reftrain'd, and out of haunt,
This mad young man. But fo much was our love,
We would not understand what was moft fit;
But, like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Ev'n on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen. To draw apart the body he hath kill'd,
O'er whom his very madnefs, 4 like fome ore
Among a mineral of metals bafe,
Shews itself pure. He weeps for what is done.
King. O Gertrude, come away.
The fun no fooner fhall the mountains touch,
But we will ship him hence; and this vile deed
We muft, with all our Majefty and Skill,
Both countenance and excufe. Ho! Guildenstern!
3 out of haunt,] I would rather read, out of harm. 4-Like Jone ore] Shakespeare
feems to think are to be Or, that is, gold. Bafe metals have ore no less than precious.
Enter Rofincrantz and Guildenstern.
Friends both, go join you with fome further aid;
Hamlet in madnefs hath Polonius flain,
And from his mother's closet hath he drag'd him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. Pray you, haft in this.
[Exeunt Rof. and Guild. Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wifeft friends, And let them know both what we mean to do, And what's untimely done. For, haply, Slander, 5 Whofe whisper o'er the world's diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports its pofon'd fhot;
5 Whose whisper o'er the
world's diameter,
"As level as the cannon to his
blank,
Tranfports its poifon'd fhot,
may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air.➡
O, come away!] Mr. Pope
takes notice, that I replace fome
verfes that were imperfect, (and,
tho' of a modern date, feem to be
genuine;) by inferring two words.
But to fee, what an accurate and
faithful collator he is; I pro-
duced these verses in my SHAKE-
SPEARE restored, from a quarto
edition of Hamlet, printed in
1637, and happened to fay, that
they had not the authority of any
earlier date in print, that I knew
of, than that quarto. Upon the
ftrength of this Mr. Pope comes
and calls the lines modern, tho'
they were in the quartos of 1605.
and 1611, which I had not then
feen, but both of which Mr. Pope
pretends to have collated. The
may miss our Name,
verfes carry the very stamp of
Shakef eare upon them. The coin,
indeed, has been clipt from our
firft receiving it; but it is not fo
diminished, but that with a small
affiftance we may hope to make
it pafs current. I am far from
affirming, that, by inferting the
words, For, haply, Siander, I
have given the poet's very words;
but the fupplement is fuch as the
fentiment naturally feems to de-
mand. The poet has the fame
thought, concerning the diffu-
five pow'rs of flander, in another
of his plays.
No, 'tis flander;
Whofe edge is harper that the
fword, whofe tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of
Nile, whofe breath
Rides on the posting wind,
and doth bely
All corners of the world.
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