observed; "he [Mr. Knight] may rest satisfied that 'senna' is right: the long list of drugs in The Rates of Merchandizes, &c., furnishes no other word for which cyme could possibly be a misprint." Mr. Collier, therefore, has deliberately transformed

into

"furnishes no other word for which cyme could possibly be a misprint"

" contains no such drug as cyme."

In the Cambridge Essays (vol. for 1856, p. 281) Dr. Badham writes as follows; "Lower down in the same scene [the present one], Mr. Knight very properly expresses his reluctance to admit a conjecture of Rowe's,

'What rhubarb, cyme, or,' &c.

For the unknown 'cyme' Rowe proposed the familiar remedy 'senna.' It is astonishing that Mr. Dyce should accept so very uncritical a conjecture, whose only pretension to probability is, that the Pharmacopoeia offers us no cathartic whose name is not still more remote from the corrupted word. What, then, if we change the treatment, and read

'What rhubarb, clysme, or what purgative drug,' &c.?

If I am asked what authority I have for this form in the English language, I am at a loss for any thing better than 'cataclysm' in the sense of 'deluge.' But Herodotus uses λúσμa in the sense of KλvσThρ, in Book ii. chap. 87," &c.-Now I, in my turn, am "astonished" at Dr. Badham's failing to perceive that "cyme" is nothing more than a misprint for "cynne."

P. 66. (113)

"For where there is advantage to be ta'en,

Both more and less have given him the revolt," &c.

The folio has ". aduantage to be giuen" (an error originating in the "given" of the next line).-Johnson proposed ". advantage to be gone;" Steevens, ". advantage to be got" (Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector reads advantage to be gotten"); and Mr. Singer, in his ed. of Shakespeare, advantage to be gain'd."-I adopt the correction of Walker, Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 302.

66

1826, "

Here means strengthened, reinforced; which I mention because Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector substitutes "farc'd" (i. e. stuffed).

The folio marks neither the exit nor the re-entrance of Seyton.-On the words, “The queen, my lord, is dead," Mr. Collier observes; "We must suppose that Seyton has gone to what we now call 'the wing' of the stage to inquire." But "going to the wing," and standing there to glean infor

mation, was surely as unusual on the old stage as it is on the modern; and I have no doubt that formerly Seyton went out and re-entered, just as he does when this play is performed now-a-days-see any acting-copy of Macbeth.

Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector alters "cool'd" to "quail'd," and very plausibly; for examples of the expression senses quailing may be found in our early writers.

Here "I'd" is the lection of Hanmer; "say it" that of Pope.

P. 68. (118)

"shalt"

So the second folio.-The first folio has "shall."

P. 68. (119)

"I pull in resolution;"

Johnson suggests "pall" instead of "pull."-Mason, in support of the old reading, adduces, from Fletcher's Sea- Voyage,

'With thee,' emphatically." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 259.

P. 71. (121)

"[Exeunt, fighting.

Retreat. Flourish," &c.

The stage-directions given by the folio in this scene are exquisitely absurd. Here it has

and presently,

"Exeunt fighting. Alarums.

Enter Fighting, and Macbeth slaine," &c.;

"Enter Macduffe; with Macbeths head."

See note 123 on King Richard III, vol. v. p. 476.

HAMLET.

HAMLET.

NASH, in an Epistle "To the Gentlemen Students of both Uniuersities," prefixed to Greene's Menaphon. Camillas alarum to slumbering Euphues, &c., 1589 [qy. if first printed in 1587?], writes thus: "Ile turne backe to my first text, of studies of delight; and talke a little in friendship with a few of our triuiall translators. It is a common practise now a daies amongst a sort of shifting companions, that runne through euery arte and thriue by none, to leaue the trade of Nouerint whereto they were borne, and busie themselues with the indeuors of art, that could scarcelie latinize their necke-verse if they should haue neede; yet English Seneca read by candle-light yeeldes manie good sentences, as Bloud is a begger, and so foorth: and if you intreate him faire in a frostie morning, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should say handfulls of tragical speaches." Sig. **3, ed. 1589.-Henslowe mentions (and without the mark by which he generally distinguishes new plays) a "hamlet" as having been acted at the Newington Butts Theatre on June 9th, 1594. Diary, p. 35, ed. Shakespeare Soc.-Again, Lodge in his Wits Miserie, and the Worlds Madnesse, &c., 1596, thus describes a certain fiend: "he walks for the most part in black vnder colour of grauity, and looks as pale as the visard of ghost which cried so miserally [sic] at ŷ theator like an oisterwife, Hamlet, reuenge." Sig. H 4.-But had Shakespeare written his Hamlet at the above dates? My own conviction is, that he had not, and that the piece alluded to by Nash and Lodge, and acted at Newington, was an earlier tragedy on the same subject, which no longer exists, and which most probably (like many other old dramas) never reached the press. Our author's tragedy, it seems evident, was first produced not long before July 26th, 1602; for on that day Roberts made an entry in the Stationers' Registers of "A booke, The Revenge of Hamlett prince of Denmarke, as yt was latelie acted by the Lord Chamberlayn his servantes." According to Mr. Collier, "The object of Roberts in making the entry was to secure it [Shakespeare's Hamlet] to himself, being, no doubt, aware that other printers and booksellers would endeavour to anticipate him. It seems probable that he was unable to obtain such a copy of 'Hamlet' as he would put his name to; but some inferior and nameless printer, who was not so scrupulous, having surreptitiously secured a manuscript of the play, however imperfect, which would answer the purpose, and gratify public curiosity, the edition bearing date in 1603 was published." Introd. to Hamlet. We have, however, no proof that Roberts was not "the nameless printer" of the quarto of 1603: on the contrary, there is reason to suspect that he was, since we find that he printed the quarto of 1604 for the same Nicholas Ling who was one of the publishers of the quarto of 1603. Be that as it may, it seems certain that in the quarto of 1603* (as

*In my former edition I expressed myself less fully on the subject of the quarto of 1603, and consequently have been misunderstood by Professor Gervinus, who writes as follows; "We possess a quarto-edition of 1603, which is regarded indeed by Collier, Dyce, and Mommsen, as a faulty and illegal print of the complete piece; but on the other hand, according to the indisputably more just opinion of Knight, Delius, and Staunton, it contains an earlier design of the poet's, though in a mutilated form," &c. Shakespeare Commentaries, vol. ii. p. 108, English trans.