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The lifts, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his fubject:- and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope'
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty. COR. VOL. In that, and all things, will we show our duty.

KING. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell. [Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS,

And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
You told us of fome suit; What is't, Laertes?
You cannot fpeak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: What would'st thou beg,

Laertes,

That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,

northern fenfe, for proceeding, passage; from the A. S. verb gae. A gate for a path, passage, or street, is still current in the north. PERCY.

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more than the scope - More is comprized in the general defign of these articles, which you may explain in a more diffuse and dilated style. JOHNSON.

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- thefe dilated articles &c.] i. e. the articles when dilated. MUSGRAVE, The poet should have written allows. Many writers fall into this error, when a plural noun immediately precedes the verb; as I have had occafion to observe in a note on a controverted passage in Love's Labour's Loft. So, in Julius Cæfar:

"The posture of your blows are yet unknown." Again, in Cymbeline: - and the approbation of those are

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wonderfully to extend him," &c. MALONE.

Surely, all fuch defects in our author, were merely the errors of illiterate tranfcribers or printers. STEEVENS,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father."
What would'st thou have, Laertes?

LAER.

My dread lord,

Your leave and favour to return to France;
From whence though willingly I came to Den-

mark,

To show my duty in your coronation;

Yet now, I must confefs, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING. Have you your father's leave? What says
Polonius?

POL. He hath, my lord, [wrung from me my flow

leave,

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By laboursome petition; and, at last,
Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:]
I do befeech you, give him leave to go.

KING. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,

And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.

7 The head is not more native to the heart, The band more inftrumental to the mouth,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.] The sense seems to be this: The head is not formed to be more useful to the heart, the hand is not more at the service of the mouth, than my power is at your father's service. That is, he may command me to the utmost, he may do what he pleases with my kingly authority.

STEEVENS,

By native to the heart Dr. Johnson understands, " natural and congenial to it, born with it, and co-operating with it."

Formerly the heart was supposed the feat of wisdom; and hence the poet fpeaks of the close connexion between the heart and head. See Vol. XII. p. 12, n. 9. MALONE.

8

- [wrung from me my flow leave,] These words and the two following lines are omitted in the folio, MALONE.

9 Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,

And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.] The sense is, - You have my leave to go, Laertes; make the fairest use you please of your time, and spend it at your will with the fairest graces you are master of." THEOBALD,

But now, my coufin Hamlet, and my fon,

HAM. A little more than kin, and less than kind.*

So, in King Henry VIII:

"

- and bear the inventory

" Of your best graces in your mind. STEEVENS.

[Afide.

I rather think this line is in want of emendation. I read :

time is thine,

And my best graces: spend it at thy will. JOHNSON.

* Ham. A little more than kin, and less than kind.] Kind is the Teutonick word for child. Hamlet therefore answers with propriety, to the titles of cousin and fon, which the king had given him, that he was fomewhat more than coufin, and less than fon.

JOHNSON.

In this line, with which Shakspeare introduces Hamlet, Dr. Johnfon has perhaps pointed out a nicer diftinction than it can justly boaft of. To establish the sense contended for, it should have been proved that kind was ever used by any English writer for child. A little more than kin, is a little more than a common relation. The king was certainly fomething less than kind, by having betrayed the mother of Hamlet into an indecent and incestuous marriage, and obtained the crown by means which he suspects to be unjustifiable. In the fifth act, the prince accuses his uncle of having popp'd in between the election and his hopes, which obviates Dr. Warburton's objection to the old reading, viz. that " the king had given no occafion for fuch a reflection."

A jingle of the same fort is found in Mother Bombie, 1594, and feems to have been proverbial, as I have met with it more than once: "the nearer we are in blood, the further we must be from love; the greater the kindred is, the less the kindness must be."

Again, in Gorboduc, a tragedy, 1561:

"In kinde a father, but not kindelyness." As kind, however, fignifies nature, Hamlet may mean that his relationship was become an unnatural one, as it was partly founded upon incest. Our author's Julius Cæfar, Antony and Cleopatra, King Richard II. and Titus Andronicus, exhibit instances of kind being used for nature; and so too in this play of Hamlet, Act II. fc. the laft:

"Remorselefs, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain." Dr. Farmer, however, observes that kin, is still used for coufin in the midland counties. STEEVENS.

Hamlet does not, I think, mean to say, as Mr. Steevens supposes,

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KING. How is it that the clouds still hang on
you?

HAM. Not so, my lord, I am too much i'the fun.
QUEEN. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour

off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids 4
Seek for thy noble father in the duft :

Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must

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Passing through nature to eternity.

HAM. Ay, madam, it is common.

that his uncle is a little more than kin, &c. The King had called the prince" My cousin Hamlet, and my fon." His reply, therefore, is," I am a little more than thy kinfman, [for I am thy stepfon;] and somewhat less than kind to thee, [for I hate thee, as being the perfon who has entered into an incestuous marriage with my mother]. Or, if we understand kind in its ancient sense, then the meaning will be, I am more than thy kinsman, for I am thy step-fon; being fuch, I am less near to thee than thy natural offspring, and therefore not entitled to the appellation of fon, which you have now given me. MALONE.

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too much i'the fun. He perhaps alludes to the proverb, "Out of heaven's blessing into the warm fun." JOHNSON.

too much i' the fun.) Meaning probably his being sent for from his studies to be exposed at his uncle's marriage as his chiefest courtier, &c. STEEVENS.

I question whether a quibble between fun and fon be not here intended. FARMER.

4-vailed lids-] With lowering eyes, caft down eyes.

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JOHNSON.

So, in The Merchant of Venice:
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs." STEEVENS.
See Vol. IX. p. 17, n. 4. MALONE.

3 Thou know'st, 'tis common; all, that live, must die,] Perhaps the femicolon placed in this line, is improper. The sense, elliptically expressed, is, Thou knowest it is common that all that live, muft die. The first that is omitted for the fake of metre, a practice often followed by Shakspeare. STEEVENS.

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QUEEN.

Why feems it so particular with thee?

If it be,

HAM. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not

feems.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of folemn black,

Nor windy fufpiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the vifage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: These, indeed, feem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe."
KING. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your na-
ture, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father loft, lost his; and the furvivor bound

-shows of grief,] Thus the folio. The first quarto readschapes-I fuppofe for shapes. STEEVENS.

1 But I have that within, which passeth show;

These, but the trappings and the fuits of woe.] So, in King Richard II:

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-my grief lies all within;

"And these external manners of lament

"Are merely shadows to the unfeen grief

"That swells with filence in the tortur'd foul."

- your father loft a father;

MALONE.

That father loft, loft bis ;) Mr. Pope judiciously corrected the

faulty copies thus:

-your father loft a father;

That father, his;.

On which the editor Mr. Theobald thus descants:- This fuppofed refinement is from Mr. Pope, but all the editions elfe, that I have met with, old and modern, read,

That father loft, loft his;

The reduplication of which word here gives an energy and an

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