Our indifcretion sometime serves us well, teach us, word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruments of steel were fabricated in the utmost perfection. To understand Shakspeare's allusion completely, it should be known, that as these fetters connect the legs of the offenders very close together, their attempts to rest must be as fruitless as those of Hamlet, in whose mind there was a kind of fighting that would not let him fleep. Every motion of one must disturb his partner in confinement. The bilboes are ftill shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada. The following is the figure of them: STEEVENS. 7 Rasbly, And prais'd be rashness for it, Let us know, Our indifcretion fometimes ferves us well, When &c.] Hamlet, delivering an account of his escape, begins with faying-That he rafhly and then is carried into a reflection upon the weakness of human wisdom. I rashly-praised be rashness for it-Let us not think these events casual, but let us know, that is, take notice and remember, that we sometimes fucceed by indifcretion, when we fail by deep plots, and infer the perpetual fuperintendance and agency of the Divinity. The observation is just, and will be allowed by every human being who shall reflect on the course of his own life. JOHNSON. This passage, I think, should be thus diftributed: Rafbly (And prais'd be rashness, for it lets us know, When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us, There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-herw them how we will; Hor. That is most certain.) Ham. Up from my cabin, &c. So that rofbly may be joined in conftruction with-in the dark grop'd I to find out them. TYRWHITT. 8 When our deep plots do pall:] Thus the first quarto, 1604. There's a divinity that shapes our ends, HOR. That is most certain. HAM. Up from my cabin, My fea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark Grop'd I to find out them: had my defire; Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew To mine own room again: making fo bold, My fears forgetting manners, to unfeal Their grand commiffion; where I found, Horatio, A royal knavery; an exact command,Larded with many several forts of reasons,* Importing Denmark's health, and England's too, The editor of the next quarto, for pall, substituted fall. The folio reads, When our dear plots do paule. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read, When our deep plots do fail: but pall and fail are by no means likely to have been confounded. I have therefore adhered to the old copies. In Antony and Cleopatra our poet has ufed the participle: "I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more." MALONE. 9 There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.] Dr. Farmer informs me, that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skerwers, lately observed to him that his nephew, (an idle lad) could only affift him in making them; " he could roughhew them, but I was obliged to shape their ends." Whoever recollects the profeffion of Shakspeare's father, will admit that his fon might be no stranger to such a term. I have frequently seen packages of wool pinn'd up with skewers. STEEVENS. 2 Larded with many feveral forts of reasons,] I am afraid here is a very poor conceit, founded on an equivoque between reasons and raisins, which in Shakspeare's time were undoubtedly pronounced alike. Sorts of raisins, fugars, &c. is the common phraseology of shops. We have the fame quibble in another play. MALONE. I fufpect ro quibble or conceit in these words of Hamlet. In one of Ophelia's fongs a fimilar phrafe has already occurred: "Larded all with sweet flowers." To lard any thing with raisins, however, was a practice unknown to ancient cookery. STEEVENS. With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,- My head should be struck off. HOR. Is't possible? HAM. Here's the commission; read it at more leisure. But wilt thou hear now how I did proceed? HOR. Ay, 'beseech you. HAM. Being thus benetted round with villanies, Or I could makes a prologue to my brains, 3 With, bo! fuch bugs and goblins in my life,] With fuch causes of terror, rifing from my character and designs. JOHNSON. A bug was no less a terrifick being than a goblin. So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, Book II. c. iii: "As ghastly bug their haire an end does reare," We call it at present a bugbear. STEEVENS. See Vol. X. p. 376, n. 7. MALONE. 4 - no leifure bated,] Bated, for allowed. To abate, fignifies to deduct; this deduction, when applied to the person in whose favour it is made, is called an allowance. Hence he takes the liberty of using bated for allowed. WARBURTON. No leifure bated-means, without any abatement or intermission of time. MALONE. s Or I could make -) Or in old English signified before. See Vol. VIII. p. 142, n. 3. MALONE. • Being thus benetted round with villanies, Or I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play;) Hamlet is telling how luckily every thing fell out; he groped out their commiffion in the dark without waking them; he found himself doomed to immediate destruction, Something was to be done for his preservation. An expedient occurred, not produced by the comparison of one method with another, or by a regular deduction of consequences, but before he could make a prologue to his brains, they had begun the play. Before he could fummon his faculties, and propose to himself what should be done, a complete scheme of action presented itself to him. His mind operated before he had excited it. This appears to me to be the meaning, JOHNSON. Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair: HOR. Ay, good my lord. HAM. An earnest conjuration from the king,As England was his faithful tributary; As love between them like the palm might flou rish; As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, 5 - as our statists do,] A ftatisft is a statesman. So, in Shirley's Humorous Courtier, 1640: - that he is wife, a statist." Again, in Ben Jonfon's Magnetick Lady: "Will screw you out a fecret from a statist." STEEVENS. Moft of the great men of Shakspeare's times, whose autographs have been preferved, wrote very bad hands; their secretaries very neat ones. BLACKSTONE. 6 I once did hold it, as our statists do, A bafeness to write fair,] " I have in my time, (says Montaigne,) seene some, who by writing did earnestly get both their titles and living, to disavow their apprentissage, marre their pen, and affect the ignorance of so vulgar a qualitie." Florio's tranflation, 1603, p. 125. RITSON. 1 yeoman's service:] The meaning, I believe, is, This yeomanly qualification was a most useful fervant, or yeoman, to me, i. e. did me eminent service. The ancient yeomen were famous for their military valour. "These were the good archers in times paft, (fays Sir Thomas Smith,) and the stable troop of footmen that affraide all France." STEEVENS. 8 like the palm might flourish;] This comparison is fcriptural. "The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree." Pfalm, xcii. 11. 9 As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, STEEVENS. And stand a comma 'tween their amities;) The expreffion of our author is, like many of his phrases, fufficiently conftrained and affected, but it is not incapable of explanation. The comma is the And many fuch like as's of great charge,*- note of connection and continuity of fentences; the period is the note of abruption and disjunction. Shakspeare had it perhaps in his mind to write, That unless England complied with the mandate, war should put a period to their amity; he altered his mode of diction, and thought that, in an opposite sense, he might put, that peace should stand a comma between their amities. This is not an as's of great charge,] Asses heavily loaded. A quibble is intended between as the conditional particle, and afs the beast of burthen. That charg'd anciently fignified loaded, may be proved from the following passage in The Widow's Tears, by Chapman, " Thou must be the ass charg'd with crowns to make way." Shakspeare has so many quibbles of his own to answer for, that Though the first and obvious meaning of these words certainly is, He shall but bear them, as the afs bears gold, "like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, In further support of his observation, it should be remembered, * Not shriving-time allow'd.] i. e. without time for confeffion of |