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Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
(For so this fide of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did flay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd com-

páct,

Well ratified by law, and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,'

scene lies, infers from this passage, that in the time even of Queen Elizabeth, shipwrights as well as feamen were forced to serve.

WHALLEY.

Impress fignifies only the act of retaining shipwrights by giving them what was called preft money (from pret, Fr.) for holding themselves in readiness to be employed. See Mr. Douce's note on King Lear, Vol. XIV. p. 233, n. 4. STEEVENS.

*by law, and heraldry,] Mr. Upton says, that Shakspeare fometimes expresses one thing by two substantives, and that law and heraldry means, by the herald law. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV:

"Where rather I expect victorious life,
"Than death and honour."

i. e. honourable death. STEEVENS.

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Puttenham, in his Art of Poefie, speaks of the Figure of Twynnes, borses and barbes, for barbed horses, venim & dartes, for venimous

dartes," &c. FARMER.

-law, and heraldry, That is, according to the forms of law heraldry. When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to, as well as those of law. M. MASON.

i. e. to be well ratified by the rules of law, and the forms prescribed jure feciali; such as proclamation, &c. MALONE.

5

-as, by the same co-mart,

And carriage of the article defign'd,] Comart signifies a bargain,

His fell to Hamlet: Now, fir, young Fortinbras, Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

7

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to fome enterprize
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,

And terms compulfatory, those foresaid lands

and carrying of the article, the covenant entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we fee the common reading [covenant] makes a fautology. WARBURTON.

Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads-as by the fame to venant: for which the late editions have given us as by that

covenant.

Co-mart is, I suppose, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart fignifying a great fair or market, he would not have fcrupled to have written to mart, in the sense of to make a bargain. In the preceding speech we find mart used for bargain or purchase. MALONE.

He has not fcrupled so to write in Cymbeline: "to mart,

"As in a Romish stew," &c.

See Vol. XIII. p. 58. STEEVENS.

And carriage of the article defign'd,] Carriage, is import: design'd, is formed, drawn up between them. JOHNSON.

Cawdrey in his Alphabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb design thus: "To marke out or appoint for any purpose." See alfo Minsheu's Dict. 1617. "To defigne or thew by a token." Defigned is yet used in this sense in Scotland. The old copies have defeigne. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio.

MALONE.

6 Of unimproved &c.] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience. JOHNSON.

7 Shark'd up a lift &c.] I believe, to shark up means to pick up without diftinction, as the park-fish collects his prey. The quartos read lawless, instead of landless. STEEVENS.

8 That hath a stomach in't:] Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for conftancy, resolution. JOHNSON.

9 And terms compulsatory,) Thus the quarto, 1604. The foliocompulfative. STEEVENS.

So by his father loft: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The fource of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this poft-haste and romage in the land.

[BER. I think, it be no other, but even so: Well may it fort, that this portentous figure Comes armed through our watch; so like the king That was, and is, the question of these wars.s

2

- romage - Tumultuous hurry. JOHNSON.

Commonly written-rummage. STEEVENS.

3 [I think, &c.] These, and all other lines confined within crotchets throughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omiffions leave the play sometimes better and fometimes worse, and feem made only for the fake of abbreviation.

JOHNSON.

It may be worth while to observe, that the title-pages of the first quartos in 1604 and 1605, declare this play to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect copy.

Perhaps therefore many of its abfurdities as well as beauties arose from the quantity added after it was first written. Our poet might have been more attentive to the amplification than the coherence of his fable.

The degree of credit due to the title-page that styles the MS. from which the quartos, 1604 and 1605 were printed, the true and perfect copy, may also be difputable. I cannot help fuppofing this publication to contain all Shakspeare rejected, as well as all he fupplied. By restorations like the former, contending booksellers or theatres might have gained fome temporary advantage over each other, which at this diftance of time is not to be understood. The patience of our ancestors exceeded our own, could it have outlafted the tragedy of Hamlet as it is now printed; for it must have occupied almost five hours in representation. If, however, it was too much dilated on the ancient stage, it is as injudiciously contracted on the modern one. STEEVENS.

+ Well may it fort, The cause and effect are proportionate and fuitable. JOHNSON.

s-the question of these wars.] The theme or subject. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"

- You were the word of war." MALONE.

HOR. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,1
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Difafters in the fun; and the moist star,

6 A mote it is,] The first quarto reads a moth. STEEVENS. A moth was only the old fpelling of mite, as I suspected in revising a passage in King Joba, Vol. VIII. p. 122, n. 6, where we certainly should read mute. MALONE.

palmy ftate of Rome,] Palmy, for victorious. POPE.

8 As, fiars with trains of fire and dews of biod, Disafters in the jun;) Mr. Rowe altered these lines, because they have infufficient connection with the preceding ones, thus: Stars thone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell, Disafters veil'd the fun,

This pailage is not in the folio. By the quartos therefore our imperfect text is supplied for an intermediate verse being evidently loft, it were idle to attempt a union that never was intended. I have therefore fignified the supposed deficiency by a vacant space. When Shakspeare had told us that the grave food tenantless, &c. which are wonders confined to the earth, he naturally proceeded to fay (in the line now loft) that yet other prodigies appeared in the sky; and these phænomena he exemplified by adding,-As [i. e. as for inftance] Stars with trains of fire, &c. STEEVENS.

Disafters dimm'd the fun ;) The quarto, 1604, Dads:

Disafters in the jun;.

For the emendation I am responsible. It is strongly fupported not only by Plutarch's account in the life of Cæfar, [" also the brightness of the funne was darkened, the which, all that yeare through, rose very pale, and frined mot out," but by various passages in our author's works. So, in The Tempest:

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I have be-dimm'd

"The noon-tide fum."

Again, in King Richard 11:

"As doth the blushing difcontented fan,

"When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
" To dim his glory."

Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was fick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

Again, in our author's 18th Sonnet:

"Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
"And often is his gold complexion dimm'd."

I fufpect that the words As ftars are a corruption, and have no doubt that either a line preceding or following the first of those quoted at the head of this note, has been lost; or that the beginning of one line has been joined to the end of another, the intervening words being omitted. That such conjectures are not merely chimerical, I have already proved. See Vol. VIII. p. 543, &c. n. 7; and Vol. X. p. 535, n. 7.

The following lines in Julius Cæfar, in which the prodigies that are faid to have preceded his death, are recounted, may throw fome light on the passage before us :

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There is one within,

"Befides the things that we have heard and seen,
"Recounts moft horrid fights seen by the watch.
"A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

" And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead :
" Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,
" In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
" Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:
"The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
"Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;

"And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets." The loft words perhaps contained a description of fiery warriors fighting on the clouds, or of brands burning bright beneath the stars. The 15th book of Ovid's Metamorphofes, translated by Golding, in which an account is given of the prodigies that preceded Cæfar's death, furnished Shakspeare with fome of the images in both these paffages:

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-battels fighting in the clouds with crashing armour flew, " And dreadful trumpets founded in the ayre, and hornes eke blew, "As warning men beforehand of the mischiefe that did brew;

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"And Phœbus also looking dim did cast a drowsie light,
Uppon the earth, which seemde likewife to be in fory
plighte:

"From underneath beneath the starres brandes oft feemde
burning bright,
C

VOL. XV.

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