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To his confine: and of the truth herein'
This present object made probation.

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock.* Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, Thiş bird of dawning fingeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;2 The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HOR. So have I heard, and do in part believe it. But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,

It faded on the crowing of the cock.] This is a very ancient fuperftition. Philoftratus giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' shade to Apollonius Tyaneus, says that it vanished with a little glimmer as foon as the cock crowed. Vit. Apol. iv. 16. STEEVENS.

Faded has here its original sense; it vanished. Vado, Lat. So, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, Book I. c. v. ft 15:

"He stands amazed how he thence should fade." That our author uses the word in this sense, appears from the following lines:

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- The morning cock crew loud;
"And at the found it shrunk in haste away,

"And vanish'd from our fight." MALONE.

dares stir abroad;] reads-can walk. STEEVENS.

Thus the quarto. The folio

Spirit was formerly used as a monofyllable: Sprite. The quarto, 1604, has-dare stir abroad. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote-no spirits dare stir abroad. The necessary correction was made in a late quarto of no authority, printed in 1637.

MALONE.

* No fairy takes,] No fairy Strikes with lameness or diseases. This fenfe of take is frequent in this author. JOHNSON.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

"And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle."

STEEVENS.

Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill : 4
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have feen to-night
Unto young Hamlet: for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you confent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MAR. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning

know

Where we shall find him most convenient.

4

[Exeunt.

- high eastern hill :) The old quarto has it better eaftward.

WARBURTON.

The fuperiority of the latter of these readings is not, to me at leaft, very apparent. I find the former used in Lingua, &c. 1607:

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"Yonder gilt eastern hills."

Again, in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, Book IV. Sat. iv. p. 75, edit. 1616.

"And ere the sunne had clymb'd the eastern hils."

Again, in Chapman's verfion of the thirteenth Book of Ho

mer's Odyfley:

- Ulyffes ftill

"An eye directed to the eastern hill."

Eastern and eastward, alike fignify toward the east.

STEEVENS.

SCENE II.

The fame. A Room of State in the fame.

Enter the King, Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green; and that it us befitted 5
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet fo far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wifest forrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our fometime fister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy, -
With one aufpicious, and one dropping eye;"

5

wrote

- and that it us befitted-] Perhaps our author elliptically

- and us befitted

i. e. and that it befitted us. STEEVENS.

With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;] Thus the folio. The quarto, with somewhat less of quaintness:

With an auspicious and a dropping eye.

The fame thought, however, occurs in The Winter's Tale: "She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled."

After all, perhaps, we have here only the ancient proverbial phrafe-" To cry with one eye and laugh with the other," buckram'd by our author for the service of tragedy. See Ray's Collection, edit. 1768, p. 188. STEEVENS.

Dropping in this line probably means depressed or cast downwards: an interpretation which is strongly supported by the

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wifdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along :-For all, our thanks.

Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,-
Holding a weak supposal of our worth;
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
Importing the furrender of those lands
Loft by his father, with all bands of law,
To our most valiant brother. - So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, -to fupprefs

passage already quoted from The Winter's Tale. It may, however, fignify weeping. "Dropping of the eyes" was a technical expreffion in our author's time.-" If the spring be wet with much fouth wind, the next summer will happen agues and blearness, dropping of the eyes, and pains of the bowels." Hopton's Concordance of Years, 8vo. 1616.

Again, in Montaigne's Effaies, 1603: any man there with eyes dropping, or through age." MALONE.

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- they never faw crooked and stooping

7 Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,] The meaning is,-He goes to war so indiscreetly, and unprepared, that he has no allies to fupport him but a dream, with which he is colleagued or confederated. WARBURTON.

Mr. Theobald in his Shakespeare Restored, proposed to readcollogued, but in his edition very properly adhered to the ancient copies. MALONE.

This dream of his advantage (as Mr. Mason observes) means only "this imaginary advantage, which Fortinbras hoped to derive from the unfettled state of the kingdom." STEEVENS.

His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lifts, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his fubject:--and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles1 allow.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.

9

COR. VOL. In that, and all things, will we show

:

our duty.

KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of some fuit; What is't, Laertes ?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: What would'st thou beg,

Laertes,

8 - to fuppress

His further gait herein,] Gate or gait is here used in the northern sense, for proceeding, passage; from the A. S. verb gae. A gate for a path, passage, or street, is still current in the north.

So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Act V. fc. ii: "Every fairy take his gait." HARRIS.

PERCY.

- more than the scope-] More is comprized in the general design of these articles, which you may explain in a more diffused and dilated style. JOHNSON.

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- these dilated articles, &c.] i. e. the articles when dilated. MUSGRAVE.

The poet should have written allows. Many writers fall into this error, when a plural noun immediately precedes the verb; as I have had occafion to observe in a note on a controverted passage in Love's Labour Loft. So, in Julius Cæfar :

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"The posture of your blows are yet unknown." Again, in Cymbeline : - and the approbation of those are wonderfully to extend him," &c. MALONE.

Surely, all such defects in our author, were merely the errors of illiterate transcribers or printers. STEEVENS.

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