For he himself is subject to his birth;
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The fanctity and health of the whole state:
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he's dead. Then, if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom fo far to believe it,
As he in his peculiar act and place

T

May give his faying deed; which is no further,
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may fustain,
If with too credent ear you lift his fongs;
Or lofe your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmastered importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep within the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of defire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If the unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes;
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lyes in fear ;
Youth to itself rebels, though none elfe near.

:

Oph. 1 shall th' effects of this good leflon keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not, as fome ungracious paftors do, Shew me the steep and thorny way to heav'n; Whilst, like a puft and careless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own reed.

Laer. Oh, fear me not.

:

Enter POLONIUS.

I stay too long ;---but here my father comes :
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a fecond leave.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard for shame;

The wind fits in the shoulder of your fail, (11)
And you are staid for. There;--------

My bleffing with you;

And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act: Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; The friends thou hast, and their adoption try'd, Grapple them to thy foul with hooks of steel: But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, Bear't that the oppofed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. Take each man's cenfure; but referve thy judgment.

[Laying bis hand on Laertes' head.

(11) The wind fits in the shoulder of your fail,

And you are faid for there. My bleffing, &c.] There where? in the shoulder of his fail? For to that must this local adverb relate, as 'tis situated. Befides, it is a dragging idle expletive, and seems of no use but to fupport the meafure of the verse. But when we come to point this passage right, and to the Poet's intention in it, we shall find it neither unneceffary, nor improper, in its place. In the speech immediately preceding this, Laertes taxes himself for staying too long; but feeing his father approach, he is willing to stay for a fecond blesffing, and kneels down for that end; Polonius accordingly lays his hand on his head, and gives him the second bleffing. The manner in which a comic actor behaved upon this occafion, was fure to raise a laugh of pleasure in the audience; and the oldest Quartos, in the pointing, are a confirmation that thus the Poet intended it, and thus the stage expressed it.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all; to thine own felf be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewel; my blessing season this in thee!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my Lord.
Pol. The time invests you; go, your fervants

tend. (12)

Laer. Farewel, Ophelia, and remember well What I have faid.

Opb. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewel.

[Exit Laer.

Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath faid to you? Oph. So please you, fomething touching the Lord Pol. Marry, well bethought!

[Hamlet.

'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late Given private time to you; and you yourself Have of your audience been most free and bounIf it be fo, (as so 'tis put on me, [teous.. And that in way of caution,) I must tell you, You do not understand yourself so clearly,

(12) The time invites you;-) This reading is as old as the firft Folio; however I fufpect it to have been fubstitued by the players, who did not understand the term which poffeffes the elder Quartos;

The time invests you,

i. e. befieges, presses upon you on every fide. To invest a town is a military phrafe, from which our Author borrowed his metaphor.

As it behoves my daughter, and your honour.
What is between you? give me up the truth.

Oph. He hath, my Lord, of late, made many ten Of his affection to me.

[ders

Pol. Affection! puh! you speak like a green gif, Unfifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

Oph. I do not know, my Lord, what I should think. Pol. Marry, I'll teach you; think yourself a baby, That you have ta'en his tenders for true pay, Which are not Sterling. Tender yourself more

dearly; (13)

Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrafe,
Wringing it thus) you'll tender me a fool.
Oph. My Lord, he hath importuned me with
In honourable fashion.
[love,

Pol. Ay, fashion you may call't go to. go to.
Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech,

my Lord,

With almost all the holy vows of Heaven.

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the foul Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, oh my

daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Ev'n in their promise as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time,
Be fomewhat scanter of your maiden prefence,

(13) Tender yourself more dearly;

Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase)

Wronging it thus, you'll tender me a fool.] The parenthesis is closed at the wrong place, and we must make likewife a flight correction in the last verse. Polonius is racking and playing on the word tender, till he thinks proper to correct himself for the licence; and then he would fay-not farther to crack the wind of the phrafe by twiffing and contorting it, as I have done, &c. Mr Warburton.

Set your intreatments at a higher rate,
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him, that he is young;

And with a larger tether may he walk,

Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers, (14)

(14) Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers;

Breathing like fanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile.]

To the fame purpose our Author, speaking of vows, expresses himself in his poem called the Lover's Complaint : Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;

Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling.

But to the passage in question; though all the editors have fwallowed it implicitly, it is certainly corrupt; and I have been furprised how men of genins and learning could let it pass without some fufpicion. What idea can we form to ourfelves of a breathing bond, or of its being fanctified and pious? The only tolerable way of reconciling it to a meaning without a change, is to suppose that the Poet intends by the word bonds, verbal obligations, protestations and then, indeed, these bonds may, in fome fenfe, be faid to have breath. But this is to make him guilty of over-straining the word and allufion; and it will hardly bear that interpretation, at leaft not without much obfcurity. As he just before is calling amorous vows brokers, and implorers of unholy fuits, I think a continuation of the plain and natural sense directs to an easy emendation, which makes the whole thought of a piece, and gives it a turn not unworthy of our Poet.

Breathing, like fanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile.

Broker, 'tis to be observed, our Author perpetually uses as the more modeft fynonymous term for bawd. Befides, what strengthens my correction, and makes this emendation the more neceffary and probable, is the words with which the Poet winds up his thought, "the better to beguile." It is the fly attifice and custom of bawds to put on an air and form of sanctity, to betray the virtue of young ladies, by drawing them first into a kind opinion of them, from their exteriour and diffembled goodness. And bawds in their office of treachery are likewife properly brokers; and the implorers and