I restored (and which was espoused by the accurate Mr. Hughes, who gave an edition of this play) is the true reading, i. e. that he had not restrained suicide by his express law and peremptory prohibition. THEOBALD.

I

There are yet those who 'suppose the old reading to be the true one, as they say the word fixed seems to decide very strongly in its favour. would advise such to recollect Virgil's expression: -fixit leges pretio, atque refixit.”

STEEVENS. In Shakspeare's time canon (norma) was commonly spelt cannon. MALONE,

P. 14, 1. 25.

tely. STEEVENS.

merely.] is entirely, absolu

P. 14, 1. 26. 27. So excellent a King; that was,

to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: This similitude at first sight seems to be a little far-fetched; but it has an exquisite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allusion is to the contention between those gods for the preference in musick.

WARBURTON.

All our English poets are guilty of the same false quantity, and call Hyperion Hyperion; at least the only instance I have met with to the contrary, is in the old play of Fuimus Troes, 1333: Blow gentle Africus,

"Play on our poops, when Hyperion son
"Shall couch in west."

Shakspeare, I believe, has no allusion in the present instance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate opposite, the deformity of a Satyr. STEEVENS.

Hyperion or Apollo is represented in all the an

cient statues, &c. as exquisitely beautiful, the 8a tyrs hideously ugly, Shakspeare may surely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the author of a collection of epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface is prefixed, writing thus:

"Posthumus, not the last of many more,
"Asks why I write in such and idle vaine,”
&c.

Laquei ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. sign. c. 3. MALONE.

P. 14, 1. 27-29. so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of

heaven

Visit her face too roughly.] In former editions:

That he permitted not the winds of heaven. This is not a sophisticated reading, copied from the players in some of the modern editions, for want of understanding the poet, whose text is corrupt in the old impressions: all of which that I have had the fortune to see, concur in reading: —so loving to my mother,

That he might not beteene the winds of

heaven

Visit her face too roughly.

Beteene is a corruption without doubt, but not so inveterate a one, but that, by the change of a single letter, and the separation of two words mistakenly jumbled together, I am verily persuaded, I have retrieved the poet's reading

That he might not let e'en the winds of heaven, &c. THEOBALD. The obsolete and corrupted verb—beteene, (in the first folio) which should be written (as in all

the quartos) beteeme, was changed, as above, by Mr. Theobald; and with the aptitude of his conjecture succeeding criticks appear to have been satisfied.

Beteeme, however, occurs in the tenth book of Arthur Golding's version of Ovid's Metamorpho-) sis, 4to. 1587; and, from the corresponding Latin, must necessarily signify, to vouchsafe, deign, permit, or suffer.

The existence and signification of the verb beteem being established, it follows, that the attention of Hamlet's father to his Queen was exactly such as is described in the Enterlude of the Life and Repentaunce of Marie Magdalaine, &c. by Lewis Wager, 4to. 1567:

"But evermore they were unto me very

tender,

"They would not suffer the wynde on me to blowe."

I have therefore replaced the ancient reading, without the slightest hesitation, in the text.

This note was inserted by me in the Gentleman's Magazine, some years before Mr. Malone's edition of our author (in which the same justification of the old reading--beteeme, occurs,) had made its appearance. STEEVENS.

This passage ought to be a perpetual memento to all future editors and commentators to proceed with the utmost cantion in emendation, and never to discard a word from the text, merely because it is not the language of the present day.

Mr. Hughes or Mr. Rowe, supposing the text to be unintelligible, for beteeme boldly substituted permitted. Mr. Theobald, in order to favour bis own emendation, stated untruly that all the old copies which he had seen, read beteene. His

emendation appearing uncommonly happy, was adopted by all the subsequent editors. MALOne. P. 15, 1. 19.-20. I'll change that name with you. I'll be your

servant, you shall be my friend. JOHNSON

P. 15, l. 21.

what make you- A familiar

phrase for what are you doing. JOHNSON.

P. 15, l: 24. good even] So the copies. Sir Thomas Haumer and Dr. Warburton put it-good morning. The alteration is of no importance, but all licence is dangerous. There is no need of any change. Between the first aud eighth scene of this act it is apparent, that a natural day must pass, and how much of it is already over, there is nothing that can determine. The King has held a council. It may now as well be evening as morning. JOHNSON,

P. 15, 1. 5-7. the funeral bak'd meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.] It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In distant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry.

COLLINS.

P. 16, 1. 8. 'Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven] Dearest for direst, most dreadful, most dangerous,

JOHNSON. Dearest is most immediate, consequential, important. MALONE.

P. 16, l. 16. I shall not look upon his like again.] Mr. Holt proposes to read from an emendation of Sir Thomas Samwell, Bart. of Upton, near Northampton:

Eye shall not look upon his like again; and thinks it is more in the true spirit of Shak

speare than, the other. So, in Stowe's. Chronicle, P. 746: "In the greatest pomp that ever eye be→ helde.' STEEVENS.

P: 16, 1, 21. Season your admiration] That is, temper it. JOHNSON.

P 16, 1. 22. With an attent ear;] Spenser, as well as our poet, uses attent for attentive.

MALONE. P. 16, 1: 28. In the dead waist and middle of the night,] This strange phraseology seems to have been common in the time of Shakspeare. By waist is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet.

Dead waste may be the true reading.

R. 16, 1. 34. 35.

distill'd

MALONE.

STEEVENS.

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,] Fear was the cause, the active cause that distilled them by that force of operation which we strictly call. act in voluntary, and power in involuntary agents, but populary call act in both. JOHNSON.

P. 17, I. 10-12. Ham. Did you not speak

to it ?

Hor. My Lord, I did;

But answer made it none:] Fielding, who was well acquainted with vulgar superstitions, in his Tom Jones, B. XI. ch. ii. abserves that Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to," but then very readily answered. It seems from this passage, as well as from others in books too mean to be formally quoted, that spectres were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence, Bill interrogated by the people to whom they appeared.