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With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I

know not;

But, in the grofs and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MAR. Good now, fit down, and tell me, he that

knows,

Why this same strict and most obfervant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land;
And why such daily caft of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose fore task
Does not divide the sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day;
Who is't, that can inform me?

HOR.

That can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,

In the folio we sometimes find a familiar word substituted for one more ancient. MALONE.

Jump and just were synonymous in the time of Shakspeare. Ben Jonson speaks of verses made on jump names, i. e. names that fuit exactly. Nash says" and jumpe imitating a verse in As in præsenti." So, in Chapman's May Day, 1611:

"Your appointment was jumpe at three, with me." Again, in M. Kyffin's tranflation of the Andria of Terence, 1588: " Comes he this day so jump in the very time of this

marriage?" STEEVENS.

* In what particular thought to work,] i. e. What particular train of thinking to follow. STEEVENS.

9-gross and scope - General thoughts, and tendency at large. JOHNSON.

2

-daily caft-) The quartos read-coft. STEEVENS.

3 Why fuch impress of shipwrights,] Judge Barrington, Obfervations on the more ancient Statutes, p. 300, having obferved that Shakspeare gives English manners to every country where his

!

Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which, our valiant Hamlet
(For so this fide of our known world esteem'd him,)
Did flay this Fortinbras; who, by a feal'd com-

páct,

Well ratified by law, and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the fame co-mart,
And carriage of the article design'd,'

scene lies, infers from this passage, that in the time even of Queen
Elizabeth, shipwrights as well as seamen were forced to serve.

WHALLEY.

Impress signifies only the act of retaining shipwrights by giving them what was called preft money (from pret, Fr.) for holding themselves in readiness to be employed. See Mr. Douce's note on King Lear, Vol. XIV. p. 233, n. 4. STEEVENS.

4-by law, and heraldry,] Mr. Upton says, that Shakspeare
fometimes expresses one thing by two substantives, and that law
and heraldry means, by the herald law. So, in Antony and Cleo-
patra, Act IV:

" Where rather I expect victorious life,
"Than death and honour."

i. e. honourable death. STEEVENS.

Puttenham, in his Art of Poefie, speaks of the Figure of Twynnes, " horses and barbes, for barbed horses, venim & dartes, for venimous dartes," &c. FARMER.

-law, and heraldry, That is, according to the forms of law heraldry. When the right of property was to be determined by combat, the rules of heraldry were to be attended to, as well as those of law. M. MASON.

i. e. to be well ratified by the rules of law, and the forms prescribed jure feciali; such as proclamation, &c. MALONE,

5

-as, by the fame co-mart,

And carriage of the article defign'd,] Comart signifies a bargain,

i 7

His fell to Hamlet: Now, fir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprize
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state,)
But to recover of us, by strong hand,

And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands

and carrying of the article, the covenant entered into to confirm that bargain. Hence we fee the common reading [covenant] makes a tautology. WARBURTON.

Thus the quarto, 1604. The folio reads as by the same covenant: for which the late editions have given us-as by that

covenant.

Co-mart is, I suppose, a joint bargain, a word perhaps of our poet's coinage. A mart signifying a great fair or market, he would not have fcrupled to have written to mart, in the sense of to make a bargain. In the preceding speech we find mart used for bargain or purchase. MALONE.

He has not fcrupled so to write in Cymbeline :

-to mart,

"As in a Romish stew," &c. See Vol. XIII. p. 58. STEEVENS.

And carriage of the article design'd,] Carriage, is import: defign'd, is formed, drawn up between them. JOHNSON.

Cawdrey in his Alphabetical Table, 1604, defines the verb design thus: "To marke out or appoint for any purpose." See alfo Minfheu's Dict. 1617. "To defigne or shew by a token." Designed is yet used in this sense in Scotland. The old copies have defeigne. The correction was made by the editor of the second folio.

MALONE.

6 Of unimproved &c.] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience. JOHNSON.

* Shark'd up a lift &c.] I believe, to shark up means to pick up without distinction, as the spark-fish collects his prey. The quartos read lawless, instead of landless. STEEVENS.

8 That hath a stomach in't:] Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for constancy, resolution. JOHNSON.

9 And terms compulsatory,) Thus the quarto, 1604. The foliocompulfative. STEEVENS.

So by his father lost: And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;
The fource of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this poft-hafte and romage in the land.

[BER. I think, it be no other, but even so:
Well may it fort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.

-romage-] Tumultuous hurry. JOHNSON.

Commonly written-rummage. STEEVENS.

3 [I think, &c.] These, and all other lines confined within crotchets throughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omiffions leave the play fometimes better and fometimes worse, and feem made only for the fake of abbreviation.

JOHNSON.

It may be worth while to obferve, that the title-pages of the first quartos in 1604 and 1605, declare this play to be enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect copy.

Perhaps therefore many of its abfurdities as well as beauties arose from the quantity added after it was first written. Our poet might have been more attentive to the amplification than the coherence of his fable.

The degree of credit due to the title-page that styles the MS. from which the quartos, 1604 and 1605 were printed, the true and perfect copy, may also be difputable. I I cannot help fuppofing this publication to contain all Shakspeare rejected, as well as all he supplied. By restorations like the former, contending bookfellers or theatres might have gained fome temporary advantage over each other, which at this distance of time is not to be understood. The patience of our ancestors exceeded our own, could it have outlafted the tragedy of Hamlet as it is now printed; for it must have occupied almost five hours in representation. If, however, it was too much dilated on the ancient stage, it is as injudicioufly contracted on the modern one. STEEVENS.

+ Well may it fort,] The caufe and effect are proportionate and fuitable. JOHNSON.

$-the question of these wars.] The theme or fubject. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

"

-You were the word of war." MALONE.

Hor. A mote it is, to trouble the mind's eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

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As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the fun; and the moist star,

A mote it is,] The first quarto reads a moth. STEEVENS. A moth was only the old spelling of mote, as I suspected in revising a passage in King John, Vol. VIII. p. 122, n. 6, where we certainly should read mote. MALONE.

7

-palmy state of Rome, Palmy, for victorious. POPE.

* As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Difafters in the fun;] Mr. Rowe altered these lines, because

they have infufficient connection with the preceding ones, thus: Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell, Disafters veil'd the fun,.

This passage is not in the folio. By the quartos therefore our imperfect text is supplied; for an intermediate verse being evidently loft, it were idle to attempt a union that never was intended. I have therefore fignified the supposed deficiency by a vacant space. When Shakspeare had told us that the grave stood tenantless, &c. which are wonders confined to the earth, he naturally proceeded to fay (in the line now loft) that yet other prodigies appeared in the sky; and these phænomena he exemplified by adding,-As [i. e. as for instance] Stars with trains of fire, &C. STEEVENS.

Disasters dimm'd the fun ;) The quarto, 1604, reads:

Disafters in the fun;-.

For the emendation I am responsible. It is strongly supported not only by Plutarch's account in the life of Cæfar, [" also the brightness of the funne was darkened, the which, all that yeare through, rose very pale, and shined not out," but by various passages in our author's works. So, in The Tempest:

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I have be-dimm'd

"The noon-tide fun."

Again, in King Richard II:

"As doth the blushing discontented fun,

" When he perceives the envious clouds are bent

"To dim his glory."

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