Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS.

FRAN. I think, I hear them.-Stand, ho! Who is there!

HOR. Friends to this ground.

fined "One that fueth for the fame thing with another;" and
hence Shakspeare, with his ufual licence, always ufes it in the
fame fenfe of one engaged in the fame employment or office with
another. Competitor, which is explained by Bullokar by the
very fame words which he has employed in the definition of
rival, is in like manner (as Mr. M. Mafon has obferved,) always
ufed by Shakspeare for affociate. See Vol. IV. p. 233, n. 6.
Mr. Warner would read and point thus:

If you do meet Horatio, and Marcellus
The rival of my watch,-

because Horatio is a gentleman of no profeffion, and because, as he conceived, there was but one perfon on each watch. But there is no need of change. Horatio is certainly not an officer, but Hamlet's fellow-ftudent at Wittenberg: but as he accompa nied Marcellus and Bernardo on the watch from a motive of curiofity, our poet confiders him very properly as an affociate with them. Horatio himself says to Hamlet in a fubfequent fcene

"In dreadful fecrecy impart they did,

"And I with them the third night kept the watch."

MALONE,

HOR.

A piece of him."

BER. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Mar.

cellus.

HOR. What," has this thing appear'd again to night?

BER. I have feen nothing.

MAR. Horatio fays, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded fight, twice feen of us:
Therefore I have entreated him along,
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and fpeak to it.

6 Hor. A piece of him,] But why a piece? He fays this as he gives his hand. Which direction fhould be marked.

WARBURTON. A piece of him, is, I believe, no more than a cant expression, It is used, however, on a serious occafion in Pericles :

"Take in your arms this piece of your dead queen."

STEEVENS,

7 Hor. What, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1604. STEEVENS. These words are in the folio given to Marcellus. MALONE. 8 — the minutes of this night;] This feems to have been an expreffion common in Shakspeare's time. I found it in one of Ford's plays, The Fancies chaste and noble, A& V : "I promise ere the minutes of the night."

eyes.

STEEVENS.

approve our eyes,] Add a new teftimony to that of our JOHNSON.

So, in King Lear:

-this approves her letter,

"That fhe would foon be here."

Se Vol. XVII. p. 12, n. 4. STEEVENS.

He may approve our eyes,] He may make good the testimony of our eyes; be affured by his own experience of the truth of that which we have related, in confequence of having been eyewitneffes to it. To approve in Shakspeare's age, fignified to

HOR. Tufh! tufh! 'twill not appear.
BER.

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again affail your ears,
That are fo fortified againft our story,
What we two nights have feen.'

HOR.

Well, fit we down, And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BER. Laft night of all,

When yon fame ftar, that's weftward from the pole,
Had made his courfe to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one,―

MAR. Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

Enter Ghoft.

BER. In the fame figure, like the king that's dead.

MAR. Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.*

make good, or eftablish, and is fo defined in Cawdrey's Alphabetical Table of hard English Words, 8vo. 1604. So, in King Lear:

"Good king that must approve the common faw!
"Thou out of heaven's benediction com'ft

"To the warm fun." MALONE.

What we two nights have feen.] This line is by Sir Thomas Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without neceflity. JOHNSON. 2 Thou art a fcholar, fpeak to it, Horatio.] It has always been a vulgar notion that fpirits and fupernatural beings can only be fpoken to with propriety or effect by perfons of learning. Thus, Toby, in The Night-walker, by Beaumont and Fletcher, Lays;

It grows ftill longer,

""Tis fteeple-high now; and it fails away, nurse.
"Let's call the butler up, for he speaks Latin,
"And that will daunt the devil."

BER. Looks it not like the king? mark it, Ho

ratio.

HOR. Moft like:-it harrows me with fear, and

wonder.

BER. It would be spoke to.

MAR.

Speak to it, Horatio,

HOR. What art thou, that ufurp'ft this time of

night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did fometimes march? by heaven I charge thee,

speak.

MAR. It is offended.

BER.

See! it fialks away.

HOR. Stay; fpeak: fpeak I charge thee, fpeak.

[Exit Ghoft,

MAR. "Tis gone, and will not answer.

BER. How now, Horatio? you tremble, and look pale:

Is not this fomething more than fantasy ?

What think you of it?

HOR. Before my God, I might not this believe, Without the fenfible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

In like manner the honeft Butler in Mr. Addifon's Drummer, recommends the Steward to speak Latin to the Ghost in that play. REED.:

3 it harrows me &c.] To harrow is to conquer, to subdue. The word is of Saxon origin. So, in the old black letter romance of Syr Eglamoure of Artoys:

"He fwore by him that harrowed hell."

Milton has adopted this phrafe in his Comus:

"Amaz'd I ftood, harrow'd with grief and fear."

STEEVENS.

MAR.

Is it not like the king?

HOR. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on,
When he the ambitious Norway combated;
So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,4
He fmote the fledded 5 Polack on the ice.6
'Tis ftrange.

an angry parle,] This is one of the affected words introduced by Lyly. So, in The Two wife Men and all the reft Fools, 1619:

that you told me at our laft parle." STEEVENS. -Aedded-] A fled, or fledge, is a carriage without wheels, made use of in the cold countries. So, in Tamburlaine, or the Scythian Shepherd, 1590:

upon an ivory Лed

"Thou shalt be drawn among the frozen poles."

STEEVENS,

He fmote the fedded Polack on the ice.] Pole-ax in the common editions. He fpeaks of a Prince of Poland whom he flew in battle. He uses the word Polack again, A& II. sc. iy.

РОРЕ.

Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in F. Davifon's tranflation of Pafferatius's epitaph on Henry III. of France, published by Camden:

"Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings,
"Stay, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings.
"This little ftone a great king's heart doth hold,
"Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold:
"Whom, with a mighty warlike host attended,
"With trait'rous knife a cowled monster ended.
"So frail are even the highest earthly things!
"Go, paffenger, and wail the hap of kings."

JOHNSON.

Again, in The White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612

I fcorn him

"Like a fhav'd Polack-." STEEVENS.

All the old copies have Polax. Mr. Pope and the fubfequent editors read-Polack; but the corrupted word fhows, I think, that Shakspeare wrote-Polacks. MALONE.

With Polack for Polander, the transcriber, or printer, might