already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form 27,
The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his musick vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune 28 and harsh ;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy 29: O, woe is me!

To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Re-enter King and POLONIUS.

tend;

King. Love! his affections do not that way
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose 30,
Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:

Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

27 Speculum consuetudinis.'-Cicero. The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves.

28 Quarto-time.

29 Ecstasy is alienation of mind. Vide the Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3.

30 To disclose was the ancient term for hatching birds of any kind; from the Fr. esclos, and that from the Lat. exclusus. I believe to exclude is now the technical term. Thus in the Boke of St. Albans, ed. 1496:- For to speke of hawkes; Fyrst they ben egges, and afterwarde they ben dysclosed hawkys.' And 'comynly goshawkes ben disclosyd assoone as the choughs.'

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
Pol. It shall do well: But yet, I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love.-How now, Ophelia ?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all.—My lord, do as you please;
But, if
you hold it fit after the play,

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief; let her be round 31 with him ;
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

King.

It shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

SCENE II. A Hall in the same.

[Exeunt.

Enter HAMLET, and certain Players.

Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines 1. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear

31 See note on Act ii. Sc. 2.

1 6

Have you never seen a stalking stamping player, that will raise a tempest with his tongue, and thunder with his heels.'--The Puritan, a Comedy. The first quarto has, I'd rather hear a town-bull bellow, than such a fellow speak my lines.'

VOL. X.

Ꮓ

2

a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: 'Pray you, avoid it.

2 The first quarto reads, ' of the ignorant.' Our ancient theatres were far from the commodious elegant structures which later times have seen. The pit was, truly what its name denotes, an unfloored space in the area of the house, sunk considerably beneath the level of the stage; and, by ancient representations, one may judge that it was necessary to elevate the head very much to get a view of the performance. Hence this part of the audience were called groundlings. Jonson, in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, calls them the understanding gentlemen of the ground;' and Shirley,' grave understanders.'

'No shows, no dance, and what you most delight in, Grave understanders, here's no target-fighting.' Sir W. Cornwallis calls the ignorant earthlings. I have not been ashamed to adventure mine eares with a ballad-singer,the profit to see earthlings satisfied with such coarse stuffe,' &c.— Essay 15, ed. 1623.

3 Termagaunt is the name given in old romances to the tempestuous god of the Saracens. He is usually joined with Mahound or Mahomet. Hall mentions him in his first Satire :

Nor fright the reader with the Pagan vaunt

Of mighty Mahound and great Termagaunt.'

Dr. Percy and Dr. Johnson, misled by the etymology given by Junius, have made a Saracen divinity of Termagant; and Mr. Gifford inclines to this opinion in a note on Massinger's Renegado, Act i. Sc. 1. It appears more probable that our old writers borrowed it from the Tervagant of the French, or the Trivigante of the Italian Romances. A learned foreigner has said, Trivigante, whom the predecessors of Ariosto always couple with Appolino, is really Diana Trivia, the sister of the classical Apollo, whose worship, and the lunar sacrifices which it demanded, had been always preserved among the Scythians.' Quarterly Review, vol. xxi. p. 515.-May we not rather imagine that the Hermes Trismegistus is the deity meant; for Trimegisto and Termegisto are also names of this Termagaunt?

Davenant has given the same etymology of Termagant, Ter magnus, i. e. Tpioμέyloroç. And resolute John Florio calls him 'Termigisto, a great boaster, quareller, killer, tamer or ruler of the universe; the child of the earthquake and of the thunder,

1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action: with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure1. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance 5, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

1 Play. I hope, we have reformed that indifferently with us.

Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set

the brother of death.'- World of Words, 1611. Hence this personage was introduced into the old mysteries and moralities as a demon of outrageous and violent demeanour; or as Bale says, • Termagauntes altogether, and very devils incarnate:' and again, this terrible Termagaunt, this Nero, this Pharaoh.' A tyrant was always a part to tear a cat in.'-The murder of the innocents was a favourite subject for a mystery; and wherever Herod is introduced, he plays the part of a vaunting braggart, a tyrant of tyrants, and does indeed outdo Termagant.

4 Pressure is impression, resemblance.

5 i. e. approval, estimation, Vide King Lear, Act ii. Sc. 4.

down for them: for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous; and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.[Exeunt Players.

Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUIL

DENSTERN.

How now, my lord? will the king hear this piece of work?

Pol. And the queen too, and that presently.

Ham. Bid the players make haste.—

[Exit POLONIUS.

Will you two help to hasten them?

Both. Ay, my lord.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and Guildenstern. Ham. What, ho; Horatio!

Enter HORATIO.

Hor. Here, sweet lord, at your service. Ham. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

Hor. O, my dear lord,

Ham.

Nay, do not think I flatter:

6 The quarto, 1603, ' Point in the the play then to be observed.' Afterwards is added, And then you have some again that keeps one suit of jests, as a man is known by one suit of apparel; and gentlemen quotes his jests down in their tables before they come to the play, as thus:-Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge; and you owe me a quarter's wages; and your beer is sour; and blabbering with his lips: And thus keeping in his cinque a pace of jests; when, God knows, the warme Clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as the blind man catcheth a hare: Masters, tell him of it.'-This passage was evidently levelled at the particular folly of some injudicious player contemporary with the

poet.