Enter POLONIUS. A double bleffing is a double grace; POL. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for The wind fits in the fhoulder of your fail,4 And you are ftaid for: There, my bleffing with you; [Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head. And thefe few precepts in thy memory Look thou character.5 Give thy thoughts no tongue, 4- the Shoulder of your fail,] This is a common fea phrase. STEEVENS. s And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou charácter.] i. e. write, ftrongly infix. The fame phrafe is again used by our author in his 122d Sonnet: 66 thy tables are within my brain "Full character'd with lafting memory." Again, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 66 I do conjure thee, "Who art the table wherein all my thoughts "Are vifibly charácter'd and engrav'd." MALone. • Grapple them to thy foul with hooks of Steel ;] The old copies read with hoops of fteel. I have no doubt that this was a corruption in the original quarto of 1604, arifing, like many others, from fimilitude of founds. The emendation, which was made by Mr. Pope, and adopted by three fubfequent editors, is ftrongly fupported by the word grapple. See Minfheu's Dict. 1617: "To hook or grapple, viz. to grapple and to board a fhip." A grapple is an inftrument with several hooks to lay hold of a Thip, in order to board it. This correction is alfo juftified by our poet's 137th Sonnet : But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Bear it that the oppofer may beware of thee. ment. Coftly thy habit as thy purfe can buy, But not exprefs'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy: And they in France, of the best rank and station, Why of eyes' falfhood haft thou forged hooks, "Whereto the judgement of my heart is tyd ?" It may be alfo obferved, that hooks are fometimes made of fteel, but hoops never. MALONE. We have, however, in King Henry IV. P. II: "A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in.' The former part of the phrafe occurs alfo in Macbeth: "Grapples you to the heart and love of us." STEEVENS. 7 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd' comrade.] The literal fenfe is, Do not make thy palm callous by Shaking every man by the hand. The figurative meaning may be, Do not by promifcuous converfation make thy mind infenfible to the difference of characters. JOHNSON. each man's cenfure,] Cenfure is opinion. So, in King Henry VI. P. II : "The king is old enough to give his cenfure." STEEVENS. For the apparel oft proclaims the man ;] "A man's attire, and exceffive laughter, and gait, fhew what he is." Eccus XIX. ver. 30. Tond. Are most felect and generous, chief in that.] I think the whole defign of the precept fhows that we should read ; Are moft felect, and generous chief, in that. Chief may be an adjective ufed adverbially, a practice common to our author: chiefly generous. Yet it must be owned that the punctuation recommended is very stiff and harth. Neither a borrower, nor a lender be: I would, however, more willingly read: And they in France, of the best rank and station, Let the reader, who can difcover the flightest approach towards fenfe, harmony, or metre, in the original line, Are of a moft felect and generous chief, in that,adhere to the old copies. STEEVENS, The genuine meaning of the paffage requires us to point the line thus: Are moft felect and generous, chief in that. i. e. the nobility of France are felect and generous above all other nations, and chiefly in the point of apparel; the richness and elegance of their drefs. RITSON. Are of a moft select and generous chief, in that.] Thus the quarto, 1604, and the folio, except that in that copy the word chief is fpelt cheff. The fubftantive chief, which fignifies in heraldry the upper part of the field, appears to have been in common ufe in Shakspeare's time, being found in Mintheu's Dictionary, 1617. He defines it thus: Eft fuperior et fcuti nobilior pars; tertiam partem ejus obtinet; ante Chrifti adventum dabatur in maximi honoris fignum ; fenatoribus et honoratis viris." B. Jonfon has used the word in his Poetafter. The meaning then feems to be, They in France approve themfelves of a most felect and generous efcutcheon by their drefs. Generous is ufed with the figuification of generofus. So, in Othello: "The generous iflanders," &c. Chief, however, may have been used as a substantive, for note or estimation, without any allufion to heraldry, though the word was perhaps originally heraldick. So, in Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil, 16mo. 1597: "In the warmer climates the people are generally more wife, but in the northern climates the wits of chief are greater." If chief in this fenfe had not been familiarly understood, the editor of the folio must have confidered the line as unintelligible, and would have probably omitted the words of a in the beginning of it, or attempted some other correction. That not having been done, I have adhered to the old copies. Our poet from various paffages in his works, appears to have been accurately acquainted with all the terms of heraldry. MALONE. And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. LAER. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. LAER. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well What I have faid to you. Орн. 'Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.7 Of chief, in the paffage quoted from Bacon, is, I believe, a bald tranflation of the old French phrafe-de chef, whatever, in the prefent inftance, might be its intended meaning. 2 STEEVENS. of hufbandry.] i. e. of thrift; œconomical prudence. See Vol. X. p. 93, n. 5. MALONE. 3 And it must follow, as the night the day,] So, in the 145th Sonnet of Shakspeare: "That follow'd it as gentle day "Doth follow night," &c. STEEVENS. my bleffing feason this in thee !] Seafon, for infufe. WARRURTON.. It is more than to infuse, it is to infix it in fuch a manner as that it never may wear out. JOHNSON. So, in the mock tragedy represented before the king: "who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly feafons him his enemy." STEEYENS. 5 The time invites you ;] So, in Macbeth: "I go, and it is done, the bell invites me." STEEVENS. Thus the folio. The quarto, 1604, reads-The time invefis you: which Mr. Theobald preferred, fuppofing that it meant, "the time befieges, preffes upon you on every fide." But to invest, in Shakspeare's time, only fignified, to clothe, or give poffeffion. MALONE. 6 • your fervants tend.] i. e. your fervants are waiting for you. JOHNSON. ༩༠ yourself fhall keep the key of it.] The meaning is, LAER. Farewell. [Exit LAERTES. POL. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you OPH. So please you, fomething touching the lord Hamlet. POL. Marry, well bethought: 'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late Given private time to you: and you yourself Have of your audience been moft free and bounte ous: If it be fo, (as fo 'tis put on me, And that in way of caution,) I must tell you, ОPн. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me. POL. Affection? puh! you speak like a green girl, Unfifted in fuch perilous circumstance. that your counfels are as fure of remaining locked up in my memory, as if yourself carried the key of it. So, in Northward Hoe, by Decker and Webster, 1607: "You fhall close it up like a treasure of your own, and yourself shall keep the key of it." STEEVENS. Unfifted in fuch perilous circumftance.] Unfifted for untried. Untried fignifies either not tempted, or not refined; unfifted fignifies the latter only, though the sense requires the former. Warburton. It means, I believe, one who has not fufficiently confidered, or thoroughly fifted fuch matters. M. MASON. I do not think that the fenfe requires us to understand untempted. "Unfifted in," &c.means, Ithink, one who has not nicely canvaffed and examined the peril of her fituation. MALONE. That fifted means tempted, may be seen in the 31st verse of the 22d chapter of St. Luke's gofpel. HARRIS. |