!

Not of that dye which their investments shew,
But mere implorers of unholy faits,
Breathing like fanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you fo flander any moment leifure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you, come your way.

Oph. I shall obey, my Lord.

[Exeunt.

SCENE changes to the Platform before the Palace.
Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?
Hor. I think, it lacks of twelve.

Mar. No, it is struck.

Hor. I heard it not: it then draws near the season, Wherein the fpirit held his wont to walk.

[Noise of warlike music within.

What does this mean, my Lord?

[roufe,

Ham. The King doth wake to-night, and takes his Keeps waffel, and the swaggering up-fpring reels; And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom?

Ham. Ay, marry, is't:

But, to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom

prompters of unholy (that is, unchaste) suits; and so a change
of the fame metaphor is continued to the end.

I made this emendation when I published my Shakespeare Restored, and Mr Pope has thought fit to embrace it in his last edition.

More honoured in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel, east and west, (15) Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations; They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrafe Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes

[height,

From our atchievements, though performed at
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for fome vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not ot guilty,
Since nature cannot chuse his origin)
By the o'ergrowth of fome complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by fome habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners; that these men
Carrying, I fay, the stamp of one defect,
(Being nature's livery, or fortune's scar)
Their virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general cenfure take corruption
From that particular fault.----The dram of Bafe (16)

(15) This heavy headed revel, east and west,] This whole speech of Hamlet, to the entrance of the ghost, I fet right in my shakespeare Restored, so shall not trouble the readers again with a repetition of those corrections, or juftification of them. Mr Pope admits, I have given the whole a glimmering of fenfe, but it is purely conjectural, and founded on no authority of copies. But is this any objection against conjecture in Shakespeare's cafe, where no original manuscript is fubfifting, and the printed copies have successively blundered after one another? And is not even a glimmering of sense, so it be not arbitrarily imposed, preferable to flat and glaring nonfenfe? If not, there is a total end at least to this branch of criticism, and nonsense may plead title and prescription from time, because there is no direct authority for dispossessing it.

(16) -The dram of

of eafe

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt

Doth all the noble substance of worth out,
To his own fcandal.

To his own feandal.] Mr Pope, who has degraded this whole speech, has entirely left out this concluding fentence of it. It looks, indeed, to be defperate, and for that reafon, I conceive, he chose to drop it. I do not remember a paf fage, throughout all our Poet's works, more intricate and depraved in the text, of less meaning to outward appearance, or more likely to baffle the attempts of criticism in its aid. It is certain, there is neither fenfe nor grammar as it now stands; yet, with a flight alteration, I'll endeavour to cure those defects, and give a fentiment too, that shall make the Poet's thought close nobly. What can a dram of eafe mean? or what can it have to do with the context, fupposing it were the allowed expreffion here? Or, in a word, what agreement in sense is there betwixt a dram of tafe and the substance of a doubt? It is a defperate corruption, and the nearest way to hope for a cure of it, is to confider narrowly what the Poet must be fupposed to have intended here. The whole tenour of this speech is, that let men have never fo many or so eminent virtues, if they have one defect which accompanies them, that fingle blemish shall throw a stain upon their whole character; and not only fo, (if 1 understand right) but shall deface the very effence of all their goodness, to its own scandal; so that their virtues themselves will become their reproach. This is not only a continuation of his fentiment, but carries it up with a fine and proper climax. I have ventured to conjecture that the Author night write;

The dram of base

Doth all the noble substance of worth out
To his own scandal.

The dram of bafe, i, e. the least alloy of baseness or vice. It is very frequent with our Poet to use the adjective of quality instead of the fubftantive signifying the thing. Besides, I have observed, that elsewhere, speaking of worth, he delights to confider it as a quality that adds weight to a perfon, and connects the word with that idea:

Let every word weigh heavy of her worth,

That he does weigh too light.
From whose so many weights of bafeness cannot
A dram of worth be drawn,

All's Well that ends Well.

Cymbeline. Enter Ghost.

Hor. Look, my Lord, it comes !
Ham. Angels and minifters of grace defend us!]

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape, (17)
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, Father, Royal Dane: oh! answer me;
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cearments? why the fepulchre,
Wherein we faw thee quietly in-urned,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again? What may this mean?
That thou, dead corse, again, in compleat steel,
Revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and us fools of nature
So horribly to shake our difpofition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our fouls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
[Ghoft beckons Hamlet.

Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it fome impartment did defire
To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

[Holding Hamlet.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.

(17) Thou comest in fuch a questionable shape,] By questionable we now constantly understand disputable, doubtful; but our Author ufses it in a sense quite oppofite, not disputable, but to be converfea with, inviting question; as in Macbeth; Live you, or are you aught that man may question?

Hor. Do not, my Lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fear?
I do not fet my life at a pin's fee;
And, for my foul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itielf?

It waves me forth again.----I'll follow it----

Hor. What if it tempt you tow'rd the flood, my

Or to the dreadful fummit of the cliff,

That beetles o'er his base into the fea;

[Lord,

And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your fovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? think of it.
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into ev'ry brain,
That looks fo many fathoms to the fea;
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me still: go on, I'll follow thee---
Mar. You shall not go, my Lord.

Ham. Hold off your hands.

Mar. Be ruled, you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.

Still am I called: unhand me, gentlemen---

[Breaking from them.

By Heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me--I fay, away--go on ----I'll follow thee------

[Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.
Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after.To what issue will this

come?

Mar. Somethingisrotten in the state of Denmark. Hor. Heaven will direct it.

Mar. Nay, let's follow him.

[Exeunt.