"I am very glad to see you good:-even, sir."

That is, that Hamlet means that he is even with Marcellus, who has just called him "good!" Mr. Knight very justly suggests that even" was at that time used at any time after mid-day.

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Richard Jhones, who published Promos and Cassandra, is the best commentator on the passage. I have quoted this sentence from his advertisement once before; but it is worth quoting here again: "and if by chaunce thou light of some speache that seemeth dark, consider of it with judgment, before thou condemne the worke: for in many places he is driven both to praise and blame with one breath, which in readinge wil seeme hard, and in action appeare plaine."

No other clue is needed. How can any one with the scene in his "mind's eye" avoid intuitively understanding it thus ? Hamlet has three visitors, who find him alone being a well bred gentleman he speaks to all of them; and being a prince, he addresses each one in a manner suited to his degree. In his old friend and schoofellow he expresses interest, and asks,

"And what make you from Wittenberg!"

But breaking off, to bestow civility upon his other guests, he, says, interrogatively, to one (whom he thinks he recognizes, and who, by the present, the preceding and the subsequent Scenes, is shown to be the more important of the two),

"Marcellus?"

On finding by the reply of Marcellus that he is right, he bestows a brief welcome,

"I'm very glad to see you;" &c.

and then turning to the third and least important persoL, whom he does not recognize, he merely says, "Good even, sir." Having thus satisfied the demands of courtesy, he returns immediately to that which interests him, and says to Horatio,

"But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?"

The passage is natural, simple, and colloquial in the highest degree; its sense palpable, it would seem, to the dullest perception. But on what sentence of Shakespeare may we not look for a critical and explanatory, if not a confusing note, when Mr. Knight thinks it not impertinent to explain Hamlet's "Thrift, thrift Horatio," by saying "Thrift, thrift. It was a frugal arrangement,—a thrifty proceeding, there was no waste." Quousque tandem abutere patientia nostra !

What meaning can possibly be tortured from "breathing like . . . bonds?"

Is there the least doubt that Theobald discovered the typographical error, and corrected it properly, in reading,

In the same sentence these "implorators of unholy suits" are called "brokers,"-the old term for 'bawd.'

Heath's conjecture that "fast in fires" is a misprint for "lasting fires" seems to me to be a judicious correction. of a very probable error. It has been passed by, almost unnoticed; but as it occurs in Mr. Collier's folio, renewed attention has been recently directed to it.

Ham.

ACT II. SCENE 2.

. . . and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fires, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"

This magnificent passage does not appear in the tragedy as it was published in 1603. It was added by Shakespeare when he enlarged Hamlet "to almost as much again as it was." In the tragedy, as it was first produced and as it was printed in 1603, this passage appears thus,-in limping verse, it will be noticed:

"Yes faith, this great world you see contents me not, No nor the spangled heauens, nor earth, nor sea,

No nor Man that is so glorious a creature,

Contents not me, no nor woman too, although you laugh."

It is at least a strange coincidence, that in a thin quarto which bears the title: "Beware of Pickpurses, or a Caueat for sick folkes to take heede for vnlearned Phisitions, and vnskillful Chyrurgians, By F. H. Doctor in Phisick. Imprinted at London 1605," is a sentence sufficiently like Hamlet's speech in sentiment and phraseology to make it more than probable, that Shakespeare had seen it before he enlarged the Tragedy. One very remarkable and singular expression in the latter, "this goodly frame the earth," appears almost exactly in the former:

"Thus doth this base and lewd Couzener mocke God, and despise Man, for whose cause the Eternall created the goodly and beautifull Frame of the World and in whose Bodie whatsoever is more largely in that Spatious, and Gorgious Pallace, and Theater delineated, is more briefly comprised, and, as it were, Epitomised, and represented [in] a short Summe or Viewe. Against this Noble Creature, the small Counterfeit of the great GOD, he doth oft times rage more sauagely than any wilde Beare or Tygar," &c. p. 16.

The book, my copy of which is the only one I ever saw or heard of, is composed of two parts; the first being written in Latin "by a learned German," Martin Oberndorffer. This is called Dissertatio de vero et falso Medico, or, as F. H. translates it, "The Anatomyes of the True Physition and the counterfeit Mountebanke." The second part, which is the original production of the translator of the first part, is "A discouery of certaine Stratagems, whereby our English Emperikes haue bene obserued strongly to oppugne and oft times to expugne their poore Patients Purses." The passage quoted is from the Dissertation of Oberndorffer, who was a medical author of some repute in Germany at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His Dissertatio de vero et falso Medico was published at Lau

ingen in 1600; and Watts' Bibliotheca Britannica records the date of the publication of Dr. F. H.'s translation, as 1602, one year before the date of the earliest edition of Hamlet. But, as my learned friend, Dr. Cogswell, suggests to me, Watts had probably never seen the volume in question, and the edition of 1605 is the first: it bears no allusion to any other. But, however this may be, it would be interesting to compare the original German work (no copy of which exists in this country) with F. H.'s translation, to discover whether the latter found that very remarkable expression in his author, or furnished it himself to him, or adopted it from a new play, which he had just heard, i. e. Hamlet. Throughout the two passages, however, there is a remarkable sympathy of thought and similarity of expression as to the grandeur of the World and the dignity of Man.

The absurdity of the change of "oppression " to transgression in Mr. Collier's folio, and of Mr. Collier's argument in support of it, have been shown in the second part of this volume. As Mr. Dyce is reported to be engaged on a new edition of Shakespeare, it is comforting to know that he thinks the change "nothing less than villainous"-A Few Notes, &c., p. 140. But what shall be said of Mr. Singer, who also announces a new edition, and who would read,

"To make aggression bitter."

Felony, this; and certainly without benefit of clergy; for