HOR. I saw him once, he was a goodly king. HAM. He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again."

HOR. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight. HAM. Saw! who?

HOR. My lord, the king your father.

HAM.

The king my father!

HOR. Season your admiration' for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

HAM.

For God's love, let me hear.

HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waist and middle of the night,3

I shall not look upon his like again.] Mr. Holt proposes to read, from an emendation of Sir Thomas Samwell, Bart. of Upton, near Northampton:

Eye shall not look upon his like again;

and thinks it is more in the true spirit of Shakspeare than the other. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, p. 746: "In the greatest pomp that euer eye behelde." Again, in Sandys's Travels, p. 150: "We went this day through the most pregnant and pleasant valley that ever eye beheld."

Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, Lib. III. p. 293, edit. 1633: as cruell a fight as eye did ever see."

66

STEEVENS.

' Season your admiration-] That is, temper it. JOHNSON. With an attent ear;] Spenser, as well as our poet, uses attent for attentive. MALONE.

3

In the dead waist and middle of the night,] This strange phraseology seems to have been common in the time of Shakspeare. By waist is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet. So, in Marston's Malecontent, 1604:

""Tis now about the immodest waist of night."

Been thus encounter'd. A figure like
Armed at point, exactly, cap-à-pé,

your father,

Appears before them, and, with solemn march,
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd,
By their oppress'd and fear-surprized eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, di-
still'd

Almost to jelly with the act of fear,5
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;

And I with them, the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

HAM.

But where was this?

MAR. My lord, upon the platform where we

watch'd.

i. e. midnight. Again, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607: -ere the day be spent to the girdle,—

66

In the old copies the word is spelt wast, as it is in the second Act, sc. ii: "Then you live about her wast, or in the middle of her favours." The same spelling is found in King Lear, Act IV. sc. vi: "Down from the wast, they are centaurs." See also, Minsheu's Dict. 1617: "Wast, middle, or girdle-steed." We have the same pleonasm in another line in this play:

"And given my heart a working mute and dumb." All the modern editors read-In the dead waste &c.

MALONE.

Dead waste may be the true reading. See Vol. IV. p. 39, n. 4.
STEEVENS

Armed at point,] Thus the quartos. The folio:
Arm'd at all points. STEEVENS.

with the act of fear,] Fear was the cause, the active cause that distilled them by the force of operation which we strictly call act in voluntary, and power in involuntary agents, but popularly call act in both. JOHNSON.

HAM. Did you not speak to it?"
HOR.

My lord, I did;

"Did you not speak to it?] Fielding, who was well acquainted with vulgar superstitions, in his Tom Jones, B. XI. ch. ii. observes that Mrs. Fitzpatrick, "like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to," but then very readily answered. It seems from this passage, as well as from others in books too mean to be formally quoted, that spectres were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence, till interrogated by the people to whom they appeared.

The drift therefore of Hamlet's question is, whether his father's shade had been spoken to; and not whether Horatio, as a particular or privileged person, was the speaker to it. Horatio tells us he had seen the late King but once, and therefore cannot be imagined to have any particular interest with his apparition.

The vulgar notion that a ghost could only be spoken to with propriety and effect by a scholar, agrees very well with the character of Marcellus, a common officer; but it would have disgraced the Prince of Denmark to have supposed the spectre would more readily comply with Horatio's solicitation, merely because it was that of a man who had been studying at a university.

We are at liberty to think the Ghost would have replied to Francisco, Bernardo, or Marcellus, had either of them ventured to question it. It was actually preparing to address Horatio, when the cock crew. The convenience of Shakspeare's play, however, required that the phantom should continue dumb, till Hamlet could be introduced to hear what was to remain concealed in his own breast, or to be communicated by him to some intelligent friend, like Horatio, in whom he could implicitly confide.

By what particular person therefore an apparition which exhibits itself only for the purpose of being urged to speak, was addressed, could be of no consequence.

Be it remembered likewise, that the words are not as lately pronounced on the stage,-"Did not you speak to it?"-but"Did you not speak to it?"-How aukward will the innovated sense appear, if attempted to be produced from the passage as it really stands in the true copies!

Did you not speak to it?

The emphasis, therefore, should most certainly rest on-speak. STEEVENS

But answer made it none: yet once, methought, It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But, even then, the morning cock crew loud;"
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish'd from our sight.

НАМ.

'Tis very strange.

HOR. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true; And we did think it writ down in our duty, To let you know of it.

HAM. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Hold you the watch to-night?

ALL. My lord, from head to foot.

Then saw you not

HAM.

His face.

7 the morning cock crew loud;] The moment of the evanescence of spirits was supposed to be limited to the crowing of the cock. This belief is mentioned so early as by Prudentius, Cathem. Hymn. I. v. 40. But some of his commentators prove it to be of much higher antiquity.

It is a most inimitable circumstance in Shakspeare, so to have managed this popular idea, as to make the Ghost, which has been so long obstinately silent, and of course must be dismissed by the morning, begin or rather prepare to speak, and to be interrupted, at the very critical time of the crowing of a cock.

Another poet, according to custom, would have suffered his Ghost tamely to vanish, without contriving this start, which is like a start of guilt. To say nothing of the aggravation of the future suspence, occasioned by this preparation to speak, and to impart some mysterious secret. Less would have been expected, had nothing been promised. T. WARTON.

HOR. O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.3 HAM. What, look'd he frowningly?

Very like: Stay'd it long?

HOR. While one with moderate haste might tell

HOR. It was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd.9

wore his beaver up.] Though beaver properly signified that part of the helmet which was let down, to enable the wearer to drink, Shakspeare always uses the word as denoting that part of the helmet which, when raised up, exposed the face of the wearer and such was the popular signification of the word in his time. In Bullokar's English Expositor, 8vo. 1616, beaver is defined thus:-" In armour it signifies that part of the helmet which may be lifted up, to take breath the more freely."

MALONE.

So, in Laud's Diary: "The Lord Broke shot in the left eye, and killed in the place at Lichfield—his bever up, and armed to the knee, so that a musket at that distance could have done him little harm." FARMER.

A sable silver'd.] So, in our poet's 12th Sonnet:
"And sable curls, all silver'd o'er with white."

VOL. XVIII.

E

MALONE.