The extravagant and erring spirit hies

that time, every element was inhabited by its peculiar order of spirits, who had dispositions different, according to their various places of abode. The meaning therefore is, that all spirits extravagant, wandering out of their element, whether aërial spirits visiting earth, or earthly spirits ranging the air, return to their station, to their proper limits in which they are confined. We might read:

"

- And at his warning
" Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies
"To his confine, whether in fea or air,
"Or earth, or fire. And of," &c.

But this change, though it would fmooth the construction, is not necessary, and, being unneceffary, should not be made against authority. JOHNSON.

A Chorus in Andreini's drama, called Adamo, written in 1613, confifts of spirits of fire, air, water, and hell, or fubterraneous, being the exiled angels. "Choro di Spiriti ignei, aerei, acquatici, ed infernali," &c. These are the demons to which Shakspeare alludes. These spirits were supposed to controul the elements in which they respectively refided; and when formally invoked or commanded by a magician, to produce tempests, conflagrations, floods, and earthquakes. For thus says The Spanish Mandevile of Miracles, &c. 1600: "Those which are in the middle region of the ayre, and those that are under them nearer the earth, are those, which sometimes out of the ordinary operation of nature doe moove the windes with greater fury than they are accustomed; and do, out of feafon, congeele the cloudes, causing it to thunder, lighten, hayle, and to destroy the graffe, corne, &c. &c. Witches and negromancers worke many fuch like things by the help of those spirits," &c. Ibid. Of this schoole therefore was Shakspeare's Profpero in The Tempest. T. WARTON.

Bourne of Newcastle, in his Antiquities of the common People, informs us, " It is a received tradition among the vulgar, that at the time of cock-crowing, the midnight fpirits forsake these lower regions, and, go to their proper places. - Hence it is, (says he) that in country places, where the way of life requires more early labour, they always go chearfully to work at that time; whereas if they are called abroad fooner, they imagine every thing they fee, a wandering ghost." And he quotes on this occafion, as all his predecessors had done, the well-known lines from the first hymn of Prudentius. I know not whose tranflation he gives us, but there is an old one by Heywood. The pious chansons, the hymns and carrols, which Shakspeare mentions presently, were usually copied from the elder Chriftian poets. FARMER.

To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

MAR. It faded on the crowing of the cock.s Some say, that ever 'gainst that feafon comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning fingeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

4 The extravagant-] i. e. got out of his bounds.

WARBURTON.

So, in Nobody and Somebody, 1598: "- they took me up for a'ftravagant."

Shakspeare imputes the fame effect to Aurora's harbinger in the laft fcene of the third act of the Midsummer Night's Dream.. See Vol. V. p. 112. STEEVENS.

$ It faded on the crowing of the cock.] This is a very ancient fuperftition. Philoftratus giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' fhade to Apollonius Tyaneus, says that it vanished with a little glimmer as foon as the cock crowed. Vit. Apol. iv. 16.

STEEVENS.

Faded has here its original sense; it vanished. Vado, Lat. So, in Spenser's Faery Queen, Book I. c. v. ft. 15:

"He ftands amazed how he thence should fade."

That our author uses the word in this sense, appears from the following lines:

6

"

The morning cock crew loud;

"And at the found it shrunk in hafte away,

" And vanish'd from our fight." MALONE.

-dares ftir abroad;] Thus the quarto. The folio reads

can walk. STEEVENS.

Spirit was formerly used as a monosyllable: Sprite. The quarto, 1604, has-dare ftir abroad. Perhaps Shakfpeare wrote no fpirits dare ftir abroad. The necessary correction was made in a late quarto of no authority, printed in 1637. MALONE.

1. No fairy takes,] No fairy Strikes with lameness or diseases.

This fenfe of take is frequent in this author. JOHNSON.

So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor:

" And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle."

STEEVENS.

i

!

HOR. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:*
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him:
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MAR. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning
know

Where we shall find him most convenient.

[Exeunt.

high eastern bill:] The old quarto has it better eastward. WARBURTON.

The fuperiority of the latter of these readings is not, to me at leaft, very apparent. I find the former used in Lingua, &c, 1607:

"and overclimbs
"Yonder gilt eaftern hills."

Again, in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, Book IV. Sat. iv. p. 75, edit. 1616:

" And ere the sunne had clymb'd the easterne hils." Eastern and eastward, alike fignify toward the east.

STEEVENS, SCENE II.

The fame. A Room of State in the fame.

Enter the King, Queen, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.

KING. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's

death

The memory be green; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our fometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere, with a defeated joy,-
With one aufpicious, and one dropping eye;*

9- and that it us befitted) Perhaps our author elliptically

wrote,

C

-and us befitted-,

i. e. and that it befitted us. STEEVENS,

2 With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;) Thus the folio.

The quarto, with somewhat less of quaintness:

With an auspicious, and a dropping eye.

The fame thought, however, occurs in The Winter's Tale: "She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband; another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled,"

After all, perhaps, we have here only the ancient proverbial phrafe " To cry with one eye and laugh with the other," buckram'd by our author for the service of tragedy. See Ray's Collection, edit. 1768, p. 188. STEEVENS.

Dropping in this line probably means depressed or cast downwards: an interpretation which is strongly supported by the passage already quoted from The Winter's Tale. It may, however, fignify weeping.

1

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-
Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along :-For all, our thanks.

Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,-
Holding a weak fuppofal of our worth;
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,'
He hath not fail'd to pefter us with message,
Importing the furrender of those lands
Loft by his father, with all bands of law,201
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: We have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose, to fupprefs
His further gait herein; in that the levies,

"Dropping of the eyes" was a technical expression in our author's time." If the spring be wet with much fouth wind, -the next summer will happen agues and blearness, dropping of the eyes, and pains of the bowels." Hopton's Concordance of years, 8vo. 1616.

Again, in Montaigne's Effaies, 1603: " they never faw any man there with eyes dropping, or crooked and stooping through age." MALONE.

3 Colleagued with this dream of bis advantage,] The meaning is, He goes to war so indiscreetly, and unprepared, that he has no allies to fupport him but a dream, with which he is colleagued or confederated. WARBURTON,

Mr. Theobald, in his Shakspeare Restored, proposed to readcollogued, but in his edition very properly adhered to the ancient copies. MALONE.

This dream of his advantage (as Mr. M. Mafon observes) means only " this imaginary advantage, which Fortinbras hoped to derive from the unfettled ftate of the kingdom." STEEVENS.

4

to suppress

His further gait herein,] Gate or gait is here used in the