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BER. Weli, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make hafte.

4-The rivals of my watch,] Rivals for partners.

So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1636:
"Tullia. Aruns, associate him.
"Aruns. A rival with my brother," &c.

WARBURTON.

Again, in The Tragedy of Hoffman, 1637: Again, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act III. fc. v: -having made use of him in the wars against Pompey, presently deny'd him rivality." STEEVENS.

" And make thee rival in those governments."

By rivals the speaker certainly means partners (according to Dr. Warburton's explanation,) or those whom he expected to watch with him. Marcellus had watched with him before; whether as a centinel, a volunteer, or from mere curiofity, we do not learn: but, which ever it was, it seems evident that his station was on the fame spot with Bernardo, and that there is no other centinel by them relieved. Possibly Marcellus was an officer, whose business it was to vifit each watch, and perhaps to continue with it some time. Horatio, as it appears, watches out of curiofity. But in Act II. fc. i. to Hamlet's question, -" Hold you the watch to-night?" Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo, all answer, -" We do, my honour'd lord." The folio indeed, reads-both, which one may with greater propriety refer to Marcellus and Bernardo. If we did not find the latter gentleman in such good company, we might have taken him to have been like Francisco whom he relieves, an honeft but common foldier. The strange indifcriminate use of Italian and Roman names in this and other plays, makes it obvious that the author was very little converfant in even the rudiments of either language. RITSON.

Rival is conftantly used by Shakspeare for a partner or associate. In Bullokar's English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616, it is defined, "One that fueth for the same thing with another;" and hence Shakspeare, with his usual licence, always uses it in the sense of one engaged in the fame employment or office 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 Shakspeare for affociate. See Vol. III, P. 221, n. 50

Mr. Warner would read and point thus:

If you do meet Horatio, and Marcellus
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 says to Hamlet in a subsequent scene,

"

This to me

" In dreadful secrecy 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.

522433 JR32 ed. 4

272681

HAML

E T.*

VOL. XV.

B

* HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK.] The original story on which this play is built, may be found in Saxo Grammaticus the Danish hiftorian. From thence Belleforest adopted it in his collection of novels, in seven volumes, which he began in 1564, and continued to publish through fucceeding years. From this work, The Hytorie of Hamblett, quarto, bl. 1. was translated. I have hitherto met with no earlier edition of the play than one in the year 1604, though it must have been performed before that time, as I have feen a copy of Speght's edition of Chaucer, which formerly belonged to Dr. Gabriel Harvey, (the antagonist of Nash) who, in his own hand-writing, has fet down Hamlet, as a performance with which he was well acquainted, in the year 1598. His words are these: "The younger fort take much delight in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the wifer fort, 1598."

In the books of the Stationers' Company, this play was entered by James Roberts, July 26, 1602, under the title of "A booke called The Revenge of Hamlett, Prince of Denmarke, as it was lately acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servantes."

In Eastward Hoe, by George Chapman, Ben Jonfon, and John Marston, 1605, is a fling at the hero of this tragedy. A footman named Hamlet enters, and a tankard-bearer asks him-" 'Sfoote, Hamlet, are you mad?"

The frequent allufions of contemporary authors to this play fufficiently show its popularity. Thus, in Decker's Bel-man's Nightwalkes, 4to. 1612, we have" But if any mad Hamlet, hearing this, fmell villainie, and rush in by violence to fee what the tawny diuels [gypfies] are dooing, then they excuse the fact" &c. Again, in an old collection of Satirical Poems, called The NightRaven, is this couplet:

" I will not cry Hamlet Revenge my greeves,
" But I will call Hangman, Revenge on thieves."

STEEVENS.

Surely no fatire was intended in Eastward Hoe, which was acted at Shakspeare's own playhouse, (Blackfriers,) by the children of the revels, in 1605. MALONE.

The following particulars relative to the date of this piece, are borrowed from Dr. Farmer's Essay on the Learning of Shakespeare, p. 85, 86, second edition :

"Greene, in the Epistle prefixed to his Arcadia, hath a lash at fome vaine glorious tragedians,' and very plainly at Shakspeare in particular. I leave all these to the mercy of their mothertongue, that feed on nought but the crums that fall from the translator's trencher. - That could scarcely latinize their neck verse if they should have neede, yet English Seneca read by candlelight

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