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yeelds many good sentences-hee will afford you whole Hamlets, I should fay, handfuls of tragicall speeches.' - I cannot determine exactly when this Epistle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet somewhat further back than we have hitherto done: and it may be obferved, that the oldest copy now extant, is faid to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was. Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592, 'Foure Letters and certaine Sonnetts, especially touching Robert Greene: in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Nash's Epistle muft have been previous to these, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applause; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nash replied in Strange News of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verses, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593.' Harvey rejoined the same year in Pierce's Supererogation, or a new Praise of the old Affe.' And Nafh again, in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up;' containing a full answer to the eldest fonne of the halter-maker, 1596." -Nash died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called The Return from Parnassus. STEEVENS.

A play on the subject of Hamlet had been exhibited on the stage before the year 1589, of which Thomas Kyd was, I believe, the author. On that play, and on the bl. letter Historie of Hamblet, our poet, I conjecture, constructed the tragedy before us. The earliest edition of the profe-narrative which I have feen, was printed in 1608, but it undoubtedly was a republication.

Shakspeare's Hamlet was written, if my conjecture be well founded, in 1596. See An Attempt to afcertain the Order of his Plays, Vol. I. MALONE.

PERSONS reprefented.

Claudius, King of Denmark.

Hamiet, in the forner, and nephew to the present,

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Reynaldo, dreams to Polonius.
A Captain. At Anoufrior.

Gant in Hamlet's be

Fortinbras, Prime of Norway.

Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet. Ophelia, amgir of Polonius.

Loris, Ladies, Chers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Mafongers, and ther ditendants.

SCENE, Elinore.

Hamist. Amico The transterred from the end to the

beginning of the nume. StarMENS

HAML

E

PRINCE OF DENMARK.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Elfinore. A Platform before the Castle.

FRANCISCO on his post. Enter to him BERNARDO.

BER. Who's there?

FRAN. Nay, answer me:* stand, and unfold

Yourself.

BER. Long live the king!?

FRAN.

BER.

Bernardo?

He.

FRAN. You come most carefully upon your hour.

4

BER. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed,

Francifco.

FRAN. For this relief, much thanks: 'tis bitter

cold,

And I am fick at heart.

2

BER. Have you had quiet guard?

FRAN.

Not a mouse stirring.

-me:] i. e. me who am already on the watch, and have a right to demand the watch-word. STEEVENS.

3 Long live the king! This sentence appears to have been the watch-word. MALONE.

+ 'Tis now ftrack twelve;) I strongly suspect that the true reading is-new ftruck &c. So, in Romeo and Juliet, Act I. fc. i:

"But new ftruck nine." STEEVENS.

BER. Well, good night.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals of my watch, bid them make hafte.

The tivals of a for partners.

So, in Heywood's Eye of Laстесе, 1636:

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Aras. Ara with a brocher," &c.

Again, in The Tragedy of free, 163

WARBURTON.

And make thee the governments."

T:

Again, in dream and Cenere, Αὰ ΕΠ. ία το -having made use of bin in the wars against Pompey,

prently deny i

STEEVENS.

Be the treaker cermin mens parters (according to Dr. Warburton's explanation, or those whom he expected to watch with him. Marcellas had watched with him before; whether as a centinel, a volunteer, or from were carice, we do not learn: but, which ever it was, it seems evident that his fation was on the fame fpot with Bernardo, and that there is no other centinel by them relieved. Posibly Marcellas was an offer, whose batiness it was to vitit each watch, and perhaps to continue with it fome time. Horatio, as it appears, watches out of caricity. But in A& II. fc. i. to Hamlet's question," Hold you the watch to-night?" Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo, allaser," We do, my honour'd lord." The follo indeed, readsive, which one may with greater propriety refer to Marcellas and Bernardo, If we did not find the latter gentleman in fach good company, we might have taken him to have been like Francisco whom he relieves, an honest but common foldier. The strange indifcriminate ufe of Italian and Roman names in this and other plays, makes it obvious that the author was very little conveniant in even the rudiments of either language. RITSON.

Rival is constantly used by Shakfpeare for a partner or affociate. In Bullokar's Engυλό Expείων, δνο, 1616, it is defined, "One that fueth for the fame thing with anther;" and hence Shakipeare, with his ufual licence, always ufes it in the fenfe of ave engaged in the fame emplzyment or fice with another. Competitor, which is explained by Bullokar by the very fame words which he has employed in the definition of rival, is in like manner as Mr. M. Mafon has observed,) always used by Shakfpeare for ciate. See Vol. III, P. 221, n. 5.

Mr. Warner would read and point thus:

If you do meet Horatio, and Marcelius
The rival of my watch,

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRAN. I think, I hear them. -Stand, ho! Who

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because Horatio is a gentleman of no profeffion, and because, as he conceived, there was but one perfon on each watch. But there is no need of change, Horatio is certainly not an officer, but Hamlet's fellow-student at Wittenberg: but as he accompanied Marcellus and Bernardo on the watch from a motive of curiofity, our poet confiders him very properly as an affociate with them. Horatio himself fays to Hamlet in a fubfequent scene,

"

This to me

" In dreadful fecrecy impart they did,

" And I with them the third night kept the watch."

MALONE.

5 Hor. A piece of him. But why a piece? He says this as he

gives his hand. Which direction should be marked.

WARBURTON.

A piece of him, is, I believe, no more than a cant expression. It is ufed, however, on a ferious occafion in Pericles :

"Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen."

STEEVENS.

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