BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho

ratio.

HOR. Most like:-it harrows me with fear, and

wonder.

BER. It would be spoke to.

MAR.

Speak to it, Horatio.

HoR. What art thou, that ufurp'st this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,

fpeak.

MAR. It is offended.

BER.

See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; fpeak: speak I charge thee, fpeak.

[Exit Ghoft.

MAR. "Tis gone, and will not answer.

BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look

pale:

Is not this fomething more than fantasy ?
What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe,
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

In like manner the honeft Butler in Mr. Addison's Drummer, recommends the Steward to speak Latin to the Ghoft in that play. REED.

3

it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to fubdue. The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys :

"He swore by him that harrowed hell."

Milton has adopted this phrafe in his Comus:

"Amaz'd I stood, harrow'd with grief and fear."

STEEVENS.

MAR.

Is it not like the king ?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,

When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,4
He smote the fledded 5 Polack on the ice.6

'Tis strange.

4

an angry parle,) This is one of the affected words introduced by Lyly. So, in The Two wife Men and all the rest Fools, 1619:

- that you told me at our last parle." STEEVENS. 5-ledded-] A led, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made use of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590:

"

upon an ivory led

"Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles."

STEEVENS.

• He Smote the fledded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He speaks of a Prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, Act II. fc. iv.

POPE

Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in F. Davison's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III. of France, published by Camden :

"

"Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings,
Stay, passenger, and wail the hap of kings.
"This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold,
"Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold :
"Whom, with a mighty warlike host attended,
"With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended.
"So frail are even the highest earthly things!
"Go, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings.".

JOHNSON.

Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c.

1612:

"I fcorn him

"Like a shav'd Polack-."

STEEVENS.

All the old copies have Polar. Mr. Pope and the subsequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word shows, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE.

With Polack for Polander, the transcriber, or printer, might

MAR. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I
know not;

But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes fome strange eruption to our fiate.

MAR. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that

knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the fubject of the land?

have no acquaintance; he therefore fubftituted pole-ar as the only word of like found that was familiar to his ear. Unluckily, however, it happened that the fingular of the latter has the fame found as the plural of the former. Hence it has been fuppofed that Shakspeare meant to write Polacks. We cannot well suppose that in a parley the King belaboured many, as it is hot likely that provocation was given by more than one, or that on fuch an occafion he would have condescended to strike a meaner perfon than a prince. STEEVENS.

-jump at this dead hour,] So, the 4to. 1604. The folio -juft. STEEVENS. The correction was probably made by the author. JOHNSON. In the folio we fometimes find a familiar word fubftituted for one more ancient. MALONE.

Jump and just were synonymous in the time of Shakfpeare. Ben Jonfon speaks of verses made on jump names, i. e. names that fuit exactly. Nash says" and jumpe imitating a verse in As in præsenti." So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611:

"Your appointment was jumpe at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's tramlation of the Andria of Terence

1588:

"Comes he this day so jump in the very time of this marriage?" STEEVENS.

• In what particular thought to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS.

9

grofs and scope-] General thoughts, and tendency at

large. JOHNSON.

And why such daily caft1 of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose fore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty hafte
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me ?

HOR.

That can I;

At least, the whifper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this fide of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did flay this Fortinbras; who, by a feal'd com-

pact,

Well ratified by law, and heraldry,3

I

2

-daily caft-] The quartos read-coft. STEEVENS.

Why fuch impress of shipwrights,] Judge Barrington, Obfervations 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 ferve. 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. Thus, Chapman, in his verfion of the second Book of Homer's Odyssey :

I, from the people straight, will press for you "Free voluntaries; -."

See Mr. Douce's note on King Lear, Act IV. fc. vi.

3

STEEVENS.

-by law, and heraldry,] Mr. Upton says, that Shakfpeare sometimes expresses one thing by two substantives, and that law and heraldry meaus, by the herald law. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV:

"Where rather I expect victorious life,

"Than death and honour."

i. e. honourable death. STEEVENS.

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he ftood seiz'd of, to the conqueror :
Againft the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,4

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

-law, and heraldry, That is, according to the forms of law and 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 prefcribed jure feciali; fuch as proclamation, &c. MALONE.

4

-as, by the same co-mart,

And carriage of the article defign'd,] Co-mart fignifies a bargain, and carrying of the article, the covenant entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we fee the common reading [covenant] makes a tautology. WARBURTON.

Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-as by the fame covenant: for which the late editions have given us as by that

covenant.

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.

He has not fcrupled so to write in Cymbeline, Act I. fc. vii: - to mart,

"As in a Romish stew," &C. STEEVENS.

And carriage of the article defign'd,] Carriage is import : design'd, is formed, drawn up between them. JOHNSON.

Cawdrey in his Alphabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb. defign thus : "To marke out or appoint for any purpose." See alfo Minthen's Dict. 1617: "To defigne or fhew by a token." Defigned is yet used in this sense in Scotland. The old copies have deseigne. The correction was made by the editor of the