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BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar

cellus.

HOR. What, has this thing appear'd again to

night?

BER. I have seen nothing.

MAR. Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded fight, twice seen of us :
Therefore I have entreated him along,
With us to watch the minutes of this night;"
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.

HOR. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.

BER.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again affail your ears,
That are fo fortified against our story,

6 Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. STEEVENS. These words are in the folio given to Marcellus. MALONE.

-the minutes of this night ;) This seems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I find it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies chafte and noble, Act V:

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" I promise ere the minutes of the night."

STEEVENS.

- approve our eyes,] Add a new teftimony to that of our eyes. JOHNSON.

So, in King Lear:

"this approves her letter,
"That she would foon be here."

See Vol. XII. p. 413, n. 7. STEEVENS.

He may approve our eyes,] He may make good the teftimony of our eyes; be assured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of baving been eye-witnesses to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age, fignified to make good, or establish, and is so defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of bard English words, 8vo, 1604. So, in King Lear:

"Good king, that must approve the common faw!
"Thou out of heaven's benediction com'ft
"To the warm fun." MALONE.

Well, fit we down,

What we two nights have seen.9

HOR.

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BER. Last night of all,

When yon same star, that's westward from the

pole,

Had made his course to illume that part of heaven Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,

The bell then beating one,

MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it

comes again!

Enter Ghost.

BER. In the fame figure, like the king that's dead.

MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.* BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho

ratio.

HOR. Most like :-it harrows me3 with fear, and wonder.

• What we two nights have feen.] This line is by Sir T. Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceffity. JOHNSON.

2 Thou art a scholar, Speak to it, Horatio.] It has always been a vulgar notion that spirits and supernatural beings can only be spoken to with propriety or effect by persons of learning. Thus, Toby in The Night-walker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, says:

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It grows still longer,

"'Tis steeple-high now; and it fails away, nurse.

"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
"And that will daunt the devil."

In like manner the honest butler in Mr. Addison's Drummer, recommends the steward to speak Latin to the ghost in that play.

3

REED.

it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue.

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Hoa. What art thou, that ufurpift this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majetty of buried Denmark

Did fometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,

fpeak.

Mar. It is offended.

Баз.

Sce! it ftalks away.

Hoa. Stay; fpeak; fpeak I charge thee, fpeak.

[Exit Ghost.

Max. 'Tis gone, and will not anfwer.

Esa. How now, Horatio ? you tremble, and look

pale:

Is not this fomething more than fantasy?

What think you of it?

Hoa. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fentible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar.

Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyfelf:

Such was the very armour he had on,

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old bl. l. romance of Syr Egemanners

Tig praman ng rd By Aq arang d]] **

Milton bas adopted this phrase in bis Comass
**Amaz'd I thood, burrow's sunt griet and four ye

STEEVENS.

4-27 27gre parle. This is one of the afected words introdgoed by Lyly. Som en je Mon and in the Bit Fuis, 1619: that you told me at our luk game." STEEVENS.

He smote the fledded Polack on the ice." 'Tis strange.

MAR. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead

hour,

5-ledded-] A fled, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made use of in the cold countries, So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590:

upon an ivory fled

"Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles.",

STEEVENS,

6 He fmote the fledded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He speaks of a prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, Act II, sc. iv, POPE.

Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French, As in F. Davison's tranflation of Passeratius's epitaph on Henry III, of France, published by Camden:

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"Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings,
Stay, passenger, and wail the hap of kings.
"This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold,
"Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold:
"Whom, with a mighty warlike host attended,.
"With trait'rous knife a cowled monfter ended.

" So frail are even the highest earthly things!

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Go, passenger, and wail the hap of kings." JOHNSON,

Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612:

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- I fcorn him

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All the old copies have Polax. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word shews, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE.

With Polack for Polander, the tranfcriber, or printer, might have no acquaintance; he therefore substituted pole-ax as the only word of like found that was familiar to his ear. Unluckily, however, it happened that the fingular of the latter has the fame found as the plural of the former. Hence it has been supposed that Shakspeare meant to write Polacks. We cannot well suppose that in a parley the King belaboured many, as it is not likely that provocation was given by more than one, or that on fuch an occafion he would have condefcended to strike a meaner person than a prince.

STEEVENS, 1-jump at this dead hour,] So, the 4to. 1604. The foliojuft. STEEVENS.

The correction was probably made by the author. JOHNSON,

With martial ftalk bach he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not;

But, in the grofs and frope of mine opinion,
This bodes fome strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that

knows,

Why this fame strict and most obfervant watch
So nightly toils the fubject of the land;
And why fuch daily cait of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why fuch impreis of thipwrights, whose fore tafk
Does not divide the fundav from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty hafte
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

HOR.

That can I;

At least, the whifper goes fo. Our last king,

In the folio we fometimes find a familiar word fabftituted for one more ancient.

MALONE.

Jamp and jat were fynonymous in the time of Shakspeare. Ben Jonion fpeaks of veries made on amp names, i. e, names that fuit exactly. Nath fays" and are imitating a verse in As in præfenti."

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So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611:

Your appointment was fame at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of the Andria of Terence, 1588: "Comes he this day fo jump in the very time of this

marriage?" STEEVENS.

8 In what particular torught to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS,

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grefs and fcope) General thoughts, and tendency at

large. JOHNSON.

2

daily caft-] The quartos read-coA. STEEVENS. 3 Why fuch impress of shipwrights,) Judge Barrington, Obfervations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 300, having obferved that Shakspeare gives English manners to every country where his

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