Page images
PDF
EPUB

a

Mr. Malone's strictures are undoubtedly acute, and though not, in my own opinion, decisive, may still be just. Yet as I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of a Prince's challenging a nobleman to drink what Mrs. Quickly has called " mess of vinegar," I have neither changed our former text, nor withdrawn my original remarks on it, notwithstanding they are almost recapitulated in those of my opponent. On the score of such redundancy, however, I both need and solicit the indulgence of the reader. STEEVENS.

P. 123, 1. 31. 32, - as patient as the female

dove,

[ocr errors]

When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, To disclose was anciently used for to hatch. So, in The Booke of Huntynge, Hawkyng, Fyshyng, &c. bl. 1. no date: "First they ben eges; and after they ben disclosed, haukes; and commonly goshaukes ben disclosed as sone as the choughes." To exclude is the technical term at present. During three days after the pigeon bas hatched her couplets, (for she lays no more than two eggs,) she never quits her nest, except for a few moments in quest of a little food for herself; ^as young require in that early state, is to be kept warm, an office which she never entrusts to the male. STEEVENS.

The young nestlings of the pigeon, when first disclosed, are callow, only covered with a yellow down and for that reason stand in need of being cherished by the warmth of the 'hen, to protect them from the chiltness of the ambient air, for a considerable time after they are hatched. 31 HEATH. P. 124, 1. 19-21. Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

t

That would not let me sleep; The Hys torie of Hamblet, bl, let. furnished our author with the scheme of sending the Prince to England, and with most of the circumstances described in this scene:

[After the death of Polonius] "Fengon [the King in the present play] could not content himselfe, but still his mind gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him some trick of legerdemaine. And in that conceit, seeking to bee rid of him, determined to find the meanes to doe it by the aid of a stranger, making the King of England minister of his massacrous resolution; to whom he purposed to send him, and by letters desire him to put him to death.

"Now. to beare him company, were assigned two of Fengon's faithful ministers, bearing letters ingraved in wood, that contained Hamlet's death, in such sort as he had advertised the King of England. But the subtil Danish prince, (being at sea,) whilst his companions slept, having read the letters, and knowing his uncle's great treason, with the wicked and villainous mindes of the two cour tiers that led him to him to the slanghter, *raced out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, with cominission to the King of England to hang his two companions; and not content to turn the death they had devised against` him, upon their own neckes, wrote further, that King Fengon willed him to give his daughter to Hamblet in marriage." Hyst. of Hamblet, signat, G 2.

From this narrative it appears that the faithful ministers of Fengon were not unacquainted with the import of the letters they bore. Shakspeare, who has followed the story pretty closely, probab

ly meant to describe their representatives, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as equally guilty; as confederating with the King to deprive Hamlet of his life. So that his procuring their execution, though certainly not absolutely necessary to his own safety, does not appear to have been a wauton and unprovoked cruelty, as Mr. Steevens has supposed in his very ingenious observations on the general character and conduct of the Prince throughout this piece.

In the conclusion of his drama the poet has enfirely deviated from the fabulous history, which in other places he has frequently followed.

After Hamblet's arrival in England, (for no seafight is mentioned,) "the King, (says The Hystory of Hamblet) admiring the young Prince,

gave him his daughter in marriage, according to the counterfeit letters by him devised; and the next day caused the two servants of Fengon to be executed, to satisfy, as he thought, the King's desire." Hist. of Hamb. Ibid.

Hamlet, however, returned to Denmark, without marrying the King of England's daughter, who, it should seem, had only been betrothed to him, When he arrived in his native country, he made the courtiers drunk, and having burnt them to death, by setting fire to the banqueting-room wherein they sat, he went into Fengon's chamber, and killed him, " giving him (says the relater} such a violent blowe upon the chine of the neck, that he cut his head clean from the shoulders." Ibid. signat. F 3.

He is afterwards said to have been crowned King 1Denmark. MALONE.

apprehend that a critick and a juryman are to form their opinions on what they see

and hear in the cause before them, and not to be influenced by extraneous particulars unsupported by legal evidence in open court. I persist in observing that from Shakspeare's drama no proofs of the guilt of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be collected. They may be convicted by the black letter history; but if the tragedy forbears to criminate, it has no right to sentence them. This is sufficient for the commentator's purpose. It is not his office to interpret the plays of Shakspeare according to the novels on which they are founded, novels which the poet sometimes followed, but as often materially deserted. Perhaps he never confined himself strictly to the plan of any one of his originals. His negligence of poetick justice is notorious; nor can we expect that he who was content to sacrifice the pions Ophelia, should have been more scrupulous about the worthless lives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Therefore, I still assert, that, in the tragedy before us, their deaths appear both wanton and unprovoked; and the critick, like Bayes, must have recourse to somewhat long before the beginning of this play, to justify the conduct of its hero. STEEVENS,

P. 124, 1. 21. 22.

-

I-lay,

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. ] Mutines, the French word for seditious or disobedient fellows in the army or fleet. Bilboes, the ship's prison. JOHNSON,

To mutine was formerly used for to mutiny.

MALONE.

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together. The word is derived from Bilboa, a place in Spain where instruinents of steel were fabricated in the utmost per

fection. 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 sleep. Every motion of one must disturb his partner in coufinement. The bilboes are still shown in the Tower of London, among the other spoils of the Spanish Armada. The following is the figure of them:

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

know,

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that
should teach us,

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Hor. That is most certain.
Ham. Up from my cabin,

My sea-gown scarf'd about me, in the dark
Grop'd I to find out them] Hamlet, de-

« PreviousContinue »