The lifts, and full proportions, are all made Farewell; and let your hafte commend your duty. COR. VOL. In that, and all things, will we show our duty. KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell. [Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS. And now, Laertes, what's the news with you? You told us of fome fuit; What is't, Laertes? You cannot speak of reason to the Dane, And lofe your voice: What would'ft thou beg, That shall not be my offer, not thy asking? northern fenfe, for proceeding, passage; from the A. S. verb gae. A gate for a path, paffage, or ftreet, is ftill current in the north. PERCY. more than the fcope-] More is comprized in the general defign of thefe articles, which you may explain in a more diffuse and dilated ftyle. JOHNSON. thefe dilated articles &c.] i. e. the articles when dilated. MUSGRAVE, The poet fhould have written allows. Many writers fall into this error, when a plural noun immediately precedes the verb; as I have had occafion to observe in a note on a controverted paffage in Love's Labour's Loft. So, in Julius Cæfar: "The pofture of your blows are yet unknown." Again, in Cymbeline: "and the approbation of those are wonderfully to extend him," &c. MALONE. Surely, all fuch defects in our author, were merely the errors of illiterate tranfcribers or printers. STEEVENS, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father." LAER. My dread lord, Your leave and favour to return to France; From whence though willingly I came to Den mark, To fhow my duty in your coronation; Yet now, I must confefs, that duty done, My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France, And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon. KING. Have you your father's leave? What fays Polonius? POL. He hath, my lord, [wrung from me my By labourfome petition; and, at last, I do beseech you, give him leave to go. flow KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces: spend it at thy will. 7 The head is not more native to the heart, The band more inftrumental to the mouth, Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.] The fense seems to be this: The head is not formed to be more useful to the heart, the hand is not more at the fervice of the mouth, than my power is at your father's fervice. That is, he may command me to the utmoft, he may do what he pleases with my kingly authority. STEEVENS, By native to the heart Dr. Johnson understands, “natural and congenial to it, born with it, and co-operating with it." Formerly the heart was fuppofed the feat of wifdom; and hence the poet fpeaks of the clofe connexion between the heart and head. See Vol. XII. p. 12, n. 9. MALONE. 8 [wrung from me my flow leave,] Thefe words and the two following lines are omitted in the folio. MALONE. 9 Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy beft graces: Spend it at thy will.] The fenfe is,-You have my leave to go, Laertes; make the faireft ufe you please of your time, and spend it at your will with the fairest graces you are mafter of." THEOBALD, But now, my coufin Hamlet, and my son,——— HAM. A little more than kin, and less than kind.' So, in King Henry VIII: " and bear the inventory "Of your best graces in your mind. STEEVENS. [Afide. I rather think this line is in want of emendation. I read : time is thine, And my beft graces: Spend it at thy will. JOHNSON. Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.] Kind is the Teutonick word for child. Hamlet therefore answers with propriety, to the titles of coufin and fon, which the king had given him, that he was somewhat more than coufin, and less than fon. JOHNSON. In this line, with which Shakspeare introduces Hamlet, Dr. Johnfon has perhaps pointed out a nicer diftinction than it can justly boaft of. To eftablish the fenfe contended for, it should have been proved that kind was ever ufed by any English writer for child. A little more than kin, is a little more than a common relation. The king was certainly fomething less than kind, by having betrayed the mother of Hamlet into an indecent and incestuous marriage, and obtained the crown by means which he fufpects to be unjuftifiable. In the fifth act, the prince accufes his uncle of having popp'd in between the election and his hopes, which obviates Dr. Warburton's objection to the old reading, viz. that " the king had given no occafion for fuch a reflection. A jingle of the fame fort is found in Mother Bombie, 1594, and feems to have been proverbial, as I have met with it more than once : “ ——————the nearer we are in blood, the further we must be from love; the greater the kindred is, the less the kindness must be." Again, in Gorboduc, a tragedy, 1561: "In kinde a father, but not kindelynefs." As kind, however, fignifies nature, Hamlet may mean that his relationship was become an unnatural one, as it was partly founded upon inceft. Our author's Julius Cæfar, Antony and Cleopatra, King Richard II. and Titus Andronicus, exhibit inftances of kind being used for nature; and so too in this play of Hamlet, A&t II. fc. the last: "Remorfelefs, treacherous, lecherous, kindlefs villain." Dr. Farmer, however, obferves that kin, is ftill used for coufin in the midland counties. STEEVENS. Hamlet does not, I think, mean to fay, as Mr. Steevens fuppofes, KING. How is it that the clouds ftill hang on you? HAM. Not fo, my lord, I am too much i'the fun.3 QUEEN. Good Hamlet, caft thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids 4 Seek for thy noble father in the duft: Thou know'ft, 'tis common; all, that live, must die,' Paffing through nature to eternity. HAM. Ay, madam, it is common. that his uncle is a little more than kin, &c. The King had called the prince" My coufin Hamlet, and my fon."-His reply, therefore, is," I am a little more than thy kinfman, [for I am thy ftepfon;] and fomewhat lefs than kind to thee, [for I hate thee, as being the perfon who has entered into an incestuous marriage with my mother]. Or, if we understand kind in its ancient fenfe, then the meaning will be,-I am more than thy kinsman, for I am thy ftep-fon; being fuch, I am lefs near to thee than thy natural offspring, and therefore not entitled to the appellation of son, which you have now given me. MALONE. 3 too much i'the fun.] He perhaps alludes to the proverb, "Out of heaven's bleffing into the warm fun." JOHNSON. too much i'the fun.] Meaning probably his being fent for from his ftudies to be expofed at his uncle's marriage as his chiefeft courtier, &c. STEEVENS. I question whether a quibble between fun and fon be not here intended. FARMER. ―vailed lids-] With lowering eyes, caft down eyes. So, in The Merchant of Venice: 66 JOHNSON. Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs." STEEVENS. See Vol. IX. p. 17, n. 4. MALONE. • Thou know'ft, 'tis common; all, that live, muft die,] Perhaps the femicolon placed in this line, is improper. The fenfe, elliptically expreffed, is,-Thou knoweft it is common that all that live, muft die.-The first that is omitted for the fake of metre, a practice often followed by Shakspeare. STEEVENS. QUEEN. Why feems it so particular with thee? If it be, HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not feems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, To give these mourning duties to your father: 6 8 fhows of grief,] Thus the folio. The firft quarto readschapes-I fuppofe for shapes. STEEVENS. 7 But I have that within, which passeth show; Thefe, but the trappings and the fuits of woe.] So, in King Richard II: -my grief lies all within; "And these external manners of lament "That fwells with filence in the tortur'd foul." - your father loft a father; MALONE. That father loft, loft bis ;] Mr. Pope judicioufly corrected the faulty copies thus: -your father loft a father; his;• That father, his; On which the editor Mr. Theobald thus defcants :-This fuppofed refinement is from Mr. Pope, but all the editions elfe, that I have met with, old and modern, read, That father loft, loft his; The reduplication of which word here gives an energy and an |