His fell to Hamlet: Now, fir, young Fortinbras, 5 Of unimproved &c.] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience. JOHNSON. * Shark'd up a lift &c.] I believe, to shark up means to pick up without diftinction, as the shark-fish collects his prey. The quartos read lawless instead of landless. STEEVENS. ? That hath a stomach in't :) Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for constancy, resolution. JOHNSON. * And terms compulsatory,] Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio-compulfative. STEEVENS. romage-) Tumultuous hurry. JOHNSON. Commonly written-rummage. I am not, however, certain that the word romage has been properly explained. The following passage in Hackluyt's Voyages, 1599, Vol. II. Ppp 3, feems indicative of a different meaning: "-the ships growne foule, unroomaged, and scarcely able to beare any faile" &c. Again, Vol. III. 88: " -the mariners were romaging their shippes" &c. Romage, on shipboard, must have signified a fcrupulous examination into the state of the vessel and its fiores. Respecting landservice, the same term implied a strict inquiry into the kingdom, that means of defence might be supplied where they were wanted. STEEVENS. Rummage, is properly explained by Johnson himself in his Dictionary, as it is at present daily used, -to search for any thing. HARRIS. [BER. I think, it be no other, but even so: Well may it fort, that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch; so like the king That was, and is, the question of these wars.3 Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome,5 [I think, &c.] These, and all other lines, confined within crotchets, throughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omiffions leave the play sometimes better and fometimes worse, and feem made only for the fake of abbreviation. JOHNSON. It may be worth while to observe, that the title pages 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 difputable. I cannot help suppofing this publication to contain all Shakspeare rejected, as well as all he supplied. By restorations like the former, contending bookfellers or theatres might have gained fome temporary advantage over each other, which at this distance of time is not be understood. The patience of our ancestors exceeded our own, could it have out-lafted the tragedy of Hamlet as it is now printed; for it must have occupied almost five hours in reprefentation. If, however, it was too much dilated on the ancient stage, it is as injudiciously contracted on the modern one. STEEVENS. * Well may it fort,] The cause and effect are proportionate and fuitable. 3 JOHNSON. - the question of these wars.] The theme or fubject. So, in Antony and Cleopatra : "You were the word of war." MALONE. 4 A mote it is,] The first quarto reads a moth. STEEVENS. A moth was only the old spelling of mote, as I suspected in revising a passage in King John, Vol. X. p. 466, n. 1, where we certainly should read mote. MALONE. S -palmy state of Rome, Palmy, for victorious. POPE. A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, • As, fiars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the fun ;) Mr. Rowe altered these lines, because they have insufficient connection with the preceding ones, thus: Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell, This passage is not in the folio. By the quartos therefore our imperfect text is supplied; for an intermediate verse being evidently loft, 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 grave stood tenantless, &c. which are wonders confined to the earth, he naturally proceeded to say (in the line now loft) that yet other prodigies appeared in the sky; and these phenomena he exemplified by adding,-As [i. e. as for instance] Stars with trains of fire, &c. So, in King Henry IV. P. II: "-to bear the inventory of thy shirts; as, one for fuperfluity," &c. Again, in King Henry VI. P. III: "Two Cliffords, as the father and the fon, "And two Northumberlands ;-" Again, in The Comedy of Errors : " They say, this town is full of cozenage; "As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye" &c. Disasters dimm'd the sun; The quarto, 1604, reads: : Disasters in the fun;-. For the emendation I am responsible. It is strongly supported not only by Plutarch's account in The Life of Cafar, [" also the brightness of the funne was darkened, the which, all that yeare through, rose very pale, and shined not out,"] but by various paffages in our author's works. So, in The Tempest: I have be-dimm'd, "The noon-tide fun." Again, in King Richard II: "As doth the blushing discontented fun, " To dim his glory." "When he perceives the envious clouds are bent Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Again, in our author's 18th Sonnet: "Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven thines, I suspect that the words As stars are a corruption, and have nodoubt that either a line preceding or following the first of those quoted at the head of this note, has been loft; or that the beginning of one line has been joined to the end of another, the intervening words being omitted. That such conjectures are not merely chimerical, I have already proved. See Vol. XI. p. 376, &c. n. 3; and Vol. XIV. p. 351, n. 8. The following lines in Julius Cæfar, in which the prodigies that are faid to have preceded his death, are recounted, may throw fome light on the passage before us : " -There is one within, "Besides the things that we have heard and feen, "And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets." The loft words perhaps contained a description of fiery warriors fighting on the clouds, or of brands burning bright beneath the Stars. The 15th Book of Ovid's Metamorphofes, translated by Golding, in which an account is given of the prodigies that preceded Cæfar's death, furnished Shakspeare with fome of the images in both these passages : -battels fighting in the clouds with crashing armour flew, "And dreadful trumpets founded in the ayre, and hornes eke blew, "As warning men beforehand of the mischiefe that did brew; "And Phœbus also looking dim did cast a drowfie light, " Uppon the earth, which seemde likewife to be in fory plighte: "From underneath beneath the starres brandes oft seemde burning bright, ! And even the like precurse of fierce events,- "It often rain'd drops of blood. The morning star look'd blew, "And was bespotted here and there with specks of ruftic "The moone had also spots of blood.- ghaitly sprights, "And with an earthquake shaken was the towne."Plutarch only says, that "the funne was darkened," that "diverse men were feen going up and down in fire;" there were " fires in the element; sprites were feene running up and downe in the night, and solitarie birds fitting in the great marketplace." The difagreeable recurrence of the word stars in the fecond line induces me to believe that As fiars in that which precedes, is a corruption. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote: Aftres with trains of fire, Disasterous dimm'd the fun. The word aftre is used in an old collection of poems entitled Diana, addressed to the Earl of Oxenforde, a book of which I know not the date, but believe it was printed about 1580. In Othello we have antres, a word exactly of a fimilar formation. MALONE. The word-aftre, (which is no where else to be found) was affectedly taken from the French by John Southern, author of the poems cited by Mr. Malone. This wretched plagiarist stands indebted both for his verbiage and his imagery to Ronsard. See the European Magazine, for June, 1788, p. 389. STEEVENS. 7 - and the moist star, &c.] i. e. the moon. So, in MarLowe's Hero and Leander, 1598: "Not that night-wand'ring, pale, and watry star," &c, MALONE. * And even-] Not only fuch prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shown our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events. JOHNSON. precurse of fierce events, Fierce, for terrible. C2 WARBURTON. |