Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies

These three lines are very gay and pleasing. But why does Shakespeare give Romeo this involuntary cheerfulness just before the extremity of unhappiness? Perhaps to shew the vanity of trusting to these uncertain and casual exaltations or depressions, which many consider as certain foretokens of good and evil.

V.i.45 (123,6) A beggarly account of empty boxes] Dr. Warburton would read, a braggartly account; but beggarly is probably right: if the boxes were empty, the account was more beggarly, as it was more pompous.

V.iii.31 (127,1) a ring that I must use/In dear employment] That is, action of importance. Gems were supposed to have great powers and virtues.

V.iii.86 (129,4) her beauty makes/This vault a feasting presence full of light] A presence is a public room.

V.iii.90 (129,5) O, how may I/Call this a lightning?] I think we should read,

—O, now may I
Call this a lightning!—

V.iii.178 (135,1)

Raise up the Montagues.—Some others; search:—
We see the ground whereon these woes do lie;
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry]

Here seems to be a rhyme intended, which may be easily restored;

"Raise up the Montagues. Some others, go.
"We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
"But the true ground of all this piteous woe
"We cannot without circumstance descry."

V.iii.194 (136,2) What fear is this, which startles in our ears?] [Originally your ears] Read,

"What fear is this, which startles in our ears?

V.iii.229 (138,6) Fri. I will be brief] It is much to be lamented, that the poet did not conclude the dialogue with the action, and avoid a narrative of events which the audience already knew.

(141) General Observation. This play is one of the most pleasing of our author's performances. The scenes are busy and various, the incidents numerous and important, the catastrophe irresistibly affecting, and the process of the action carried on with such probability, at least with such congruity to popular opinions, as tragedy requires.

Here is one of the few attempts of Shakespeare to exhibit the conversation of gentlemen, to represent the airy sprightliness of juvenile elegance. Mr. Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been killed by him. Yet he thinks him no such formidable person, but that he might have lived through the play, and died in his bed, without danger to a poet. Dryden well knew, had he been in quest of truth, that, in a pointed sentence, more regard is commonly had to the words than the thought, and that it is very seldom to be rigorously understood. Mercutio's wit, gaiety, and courage, will always procure him friends that wish him a longer life; but his death is not precipitated, he has lived out the time allotted him in the construction of the play; nor do I doubt the ability of Shakespeare to have continued his existence, though some of his sallies are perhaps out of the reach of Dryden; whose genius was not very fertile of merriment, nor ductile to humour, but acute, argumentative, comprehensive, and sublime.

The Nurse is one of the characters in which the author delighted: he has, with great subtilty of distinction, drawn her at once loquacious and secret, obsequious and insolent, trusty and dishonest.

His comic scenes are happily wrought, but his pathetic strains are always polluted with some unexpected depravations. His persons, however distressed, have a conceit left them in their misery, a miserable conceit.

HAMLET

(145,2) This play is printed both in the folio of 1623, and in the quarto of 1637, more correctly, than almost any other of the works of Shakespeare.

I.i.29 (147,7) approve our eyes] Add a new testimony to that of our eyes.

I.i.33 (147,8) What we two nights have seen] This line is by Hanmer given to Marcellus, but without necessity.

I.i.63 (149,9) He smote the sledded Polack on the ice] Polack was, in that age, the term for an inhabitant of Poland: Polaque, French. As in a translation of Passeratius's epitaph on Henry III. of France, published by Camden:

"Whether thy chance or choice thee hither brings,
"Stay, passenger, and wail the best of kings.
"this little stone a great king's heart doth hold,
"Who rul'd the fickle French and Polacks bold:
"So frail are even the highest earthly things,
"Go, passenger, and wail the hap of kings." (rev. 1776, I, 174,3)

I.i.65 (149,2) and just at this dead hour] The old reading is, jump at this same hour; same is a kind of correlative to jump; just is in the oldest folio. The correction was probably made by the author.

I.i.68 (149,4) gross and scope] General thoughts, and tendency at large. (1773)

I.i.93 (151,7) And carriage of the articles design'd] Carriage, is import; design'd, is formed, drawn up between them.

I.i.96 (151,8) Of unimproved mettle hot and full] Full of unimproved mettle, is full of spirit not regulated or guided by knowledge or experience.

I.i.100 (151,1) That hath a stomach in't] Stomach, in the time of our author, was used for constancy, resolution.

I.i.107 (152,3) romage] Tumultous hurry. (1773)

I.i.108-125 (152,3) These, and all other lines confin'd within crotchets throughout this play, are omitted in the folio edition of 1623. The omissions leave the play sometimes better and sometimes worse, and seen made only for the sake of abbreviation.

I.i.109 (152,4) Well may it sort] The cause and the effect are proportionate and suitable. (1773)

I.i.121 (152,7) Was even the like precurse of fierce events] Not only such prodigies have been seen in Rome, but the elements have shewn our countrymen like forerunners and foretokens of violent events. (1773)

I.i.128 (153,1) If thou hast any sound] The speech of Horatio to the spectre is very elegant and noble, and congruous to the common traditions of the causes of apparitions.

I.i.153 (154,2)

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine]

According to the pneumatology of that tine, 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 aerial 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 sea or air,
"Or earth, or fire. And of, &c.

But this change, tho' it would smooth the construction, is not necessary, and being unnecessary, should not be made against authority.

I.i.163 (154,5) No fairy takes] No fairy strikes, with lameness or diseases. This sense of take is frequent in this author.

I.ii.37 (156,8) more than the scope/Of these dilated articles allows] More than is comprised in the general design of these articles, which you may explain in a more diffuse and dilated stile. (1773)

I.ii.47 (157,9)