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There with fantastic garlands did the come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daifies, and long purples
(That liberal fhepherds give a groffer name,
But our cold maids do dead mens' fingers call)

There

With cherry lips and cheeks of damask roses,
And we'll all dance an antic 'fore the duke,
And beg his pardon: then the talk'd of you, fir,
That you muft lofe your head to-morrow morning,
And the muft gather flowers to bury you,

And fee the house made handfome: then she fung
Nothing but willow, willow, willow, and between
Ever was Palamon, fair Palamon,

And Palamon was a tall young man.
The place
Was knee-deep where the fate: her carelefs treffes
A wreath of bull-ruth rounded: about her stuck
Thousand fresh-water flowers of feveral colours:
That methought the appear'd like the fair nymph
That feeds the lake with waters: or as Iris

Newly dropt down

rings the made
Of ruines that grew by, and to 'em spoke
The prettieft pofies: Thus our true love's ty'd:
This you may loofe, not me:" and many a one;
And then the wept, and fung again, and figh'd:
And with the fame breath fmil'd and kifs'd her hand.
I made in to her:

She faw me, and straight fought the flood: I fav'd her
And fet her fafe to land: when presently

She flipt away, and to the city made

With fuch a cry, and fwiftnefs, that, believe me,
She left me far behind her three or four

I faw from far off cross her: one of them

I knew to be your brother, where fhe ftaid, &c.

A& 4.

Mr. Seward very juftly obferves upon this paffage, the Aurora of Guido has not more ftrokes of the fame hand which drew his Bacchus and Ariadne,, than the fweet defcription of this pretty maiden's love-diftraction has to the like diftraction of Ophelia in Hamkt; that of Ophelia, ending in her death, is like the Ariadne, more moving; but the images here, like thofe in Aurora, are more numerous and equally exquifite in grace and beauty. May we not then pronounce, that either this is ShakeSpear's, or that Fletcher has here equall'd him in his very beft manner? Mr. Warburton peremptorily affures us, "the first act only of the Two Noble Kinfmen, was wrote by Shakespear, but in his worst manner."

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There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious fliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook: her cloaths fpread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up,
Which time fhe chanted fnatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element; but long it could not be,
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Hamlet's Reflection on Yorick's Skull.

Grave. A peftilence on him for a mad rogue, he pour'd a flaggon of Rhenifh on my head once: this fame fkull, Sir, was Sir Yorick's skull. the King's jefter. Ham. This ?

Grave. Even that.

at it.

Ham. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jeft, of moft excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thoufand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination is it? my gorge rifes Here hung thofe lips that I have kifs'd, I know not how oft; where be your gibes now, your jefts, your fongs, your flafhes of merriment, that were wont to fet the table in a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fall'n? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour, to this complexion fhe muft come; make her laugh at that.

SCENE II. Afpotlefs Virgin buried.

(38) Lay her i'th'earth,

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets fpring: I tell thee, churlish priest,
A miniflring angel fhall my fifter be,
When thou lieft howling..

Melancholy.

This is mere madness,

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon as patient as the female dove,

(39) When firft her golden couplets are difclos'd,
His filence will fit drooping.

Providence directs our Actions.

(40) And that fhould teach us,

There's a divinity that fhapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

A Health

(38) Lay her, &c.] An ingenious gentleman obferved to me, he thought it an overfight in Shakespear to refuse Ophilia all the rights of burial, as if fhe had drowned herself, when it is plain the was drowned by mere accident: the priest fays, "her death was doubtful, and that it would profane the fervice of the dead to fing a requiem in like manner to her as to peace-farted fouls. Ophelia was distracted, and not dying a natural death, but fuch a one as was in fome measure doubtful, I think, Shakespear may be juftified; it is plain however, Laertes thought it a very unfair manner of proceeding with his fifter.

(39) When, &c.] Golden couplets means, her two young ones, fer doves feldom lay more than two eggs, and the young ones when firft difclos'd or hatch'd, are covered with a kind of yellow down when they are first batch'd, the female broods over them more carefully and fedulously than ever, as then they require moft foftering. This will fhew the exact beauty of the comparison.

(40) And, &c.] This is a noble fentiment and worthy of Shakespear: in the Maid's Tragedy, there is the fame thought, but very meanly exprest;

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But

A Health.

(41) Give me the cup,

And let the kettle to the trumpets fpeak,
The trumpets to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth.
Now the King drinks to Hamlet.

But they that are above

Have ends in every thing.

A& 5.

(41) Give me, &c.] There is in the beginning of the play a

pailage like this:

No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,

But the great cannon to the clouds fhall tell,

And the King's roufe the heavens fhall bruit again,
Re-fpeaking earthly thunder.

Shakespear keeps up the characters of the people where his fcene lies, and therefore dwells much on the Danish drinking: in another place he tells us :

The King doth wake to-night, and takes his roufe,
Keeps waffel, and the fwagg'ring up-fpring reels:
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenifh down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

A cuftom, as Hamlet obferves in the fubfequent lines, greatly to the difcredit of their nation, and more honour'd in the breach than the obfervance.

General

TH

General Obfervations.

HE original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Grammaticus the Danish historian. From thence Bellefore adopted it in his collection of novels, in feven volumes, which he began in 1564, and continued to publish through fucceeding years. From this work, The Hyftorie of Hamblert, quarto, bl. 1. was tranflated. I have hitherto met with no earlier edition of the play than one in the year 1604, though it must have been performed before that time, as I have feen a copy of Speght's edition of Chancer, which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey, (the antagonist of Nafb) who, in his own hand-writing, has, fet down the play, as a performance with which he was well acquainted in the year 1598. His words are thefe: "The younger fort take much delight in Shakespear's "Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy "of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to "please the wifer fort, 1598."

In the books of the Stationers' Company, this play was entered by James Roberts, July 26, 1602, under the title of "A booke called The Revenge of Hamlett, Prince of Denmarke, as it was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his fervantes."

In Eafward Hee, by G. Chapman, B. Jorfon, and T. Marfion, 1605, is a fling at the hero of this tragedy. A footman named Hamlet enters, and a tankard-bearer afks him-"'Sfoote, Hamlet, are you mad?" The following particulars, relative to the date of the piece, are borrowed from Dr. Farmer's Effay on the Learning of Shakespear, p. 85, 86, fecond edition.

Greene, in the Epiftle prefixed to his Arcadia, hath a lash at fome vine glorious tragedians," and very plainly at Shakespear in particular." I leave all thefe to the mercy of their mother-tongue, that feed on

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nought

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