Through your dominions for this enterprise;
On such regards of safety, and allowance,
As therein are set down.

King.

It likes us well:

And, at our more consider'd time, we'll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.

Mean time, we thank you for your well-took labour: Go to your rest; at night we'll feast together: Most welcome home!

Pol.

[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.

This business is well ended.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate 16
What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night, night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,-
I will be brief: Your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it: for, to define true madness,
What is't, but to be nothing else but mad:
But let that go.

16 i. e. to inquire. Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with observation, confident in his knowledge, proud of his eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from his depositaries of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to the dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recover the leading principle, and fall into his former train. The idea of dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phenomena of the character of Polonius.'Johnson.

Queen.
Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis, 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.

More matter, with less art.

Mad let us grant him then and now remains,
That we find out the cause of this effect;
Or, rather say, the cause of this defect;
For this effect, defective, comes by cause:
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.

I have a daughter; have, while she is mine;
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this: Now gather and surmise.
-To the celestial, and my soul's idol, the most
beautified 17 Ophelia,-

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; beautified is a vile phrase; but you shall hear. Thus :

In her excellent white bosom, these, &c. 18
Queen. Came this from Hamlet to her?

Pol. Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faith-
ful.-

Doubt thou, the stars are fire;

Doubt, that the sun doth move:

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

[Reads.

17 Vile as Polonius esteems the phrase, from its equivocal meaning, Shakspeare has used it again in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

Seeing you are beautified

With goodly shape,' &c.

Nash, in his dedication of Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, 1594: To the most beautified Lady Elizabeth Cary.' It is not uncommon in dedications and encomiastic verses of the poet's age.

18 See note on The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act iii. Sc. 1. Formerly the word these was usually added at the end of the superscription of letters. The folio reads: These in her excellent white bosom these.'

O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers; I have not art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst

this machine is to him, Hamlet.

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me:
And more above, hath his solicitings,

As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

King.

Receiv'd his love?

Pol.

But how hath she

What do you think of me?

King. As of a man faithful and honourable.
Pol. I would fain prove so. But what might
you think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing
(As I perceiv'd it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me), what might you,
Or

my dear majesty your queen here, think, If I had play'd the desk, or table-book ;

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb 19;
Or look'd upon this love with idle sight;

What might you think? no, I went round 20 to work,
And my young mistress thus did I bespeak;

19 'If I had play'd the desk, or table-book;

Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb.'

That is If I had acted the part of depositary of their secret loves, or given my heart a hint to be mute about their passion.' The quartos read-' given my heart a working,' and the modern editors follow this reading: I prefer the reading of the folio. 'Conniventia, a winking at; a sufferance; a feigning not to see or know.' The pleonasm, mute and dumb, is found in the Rape of Lucrece :

'And in my hearing be you mute and dumb.' 20 Plainly, roundly, without reserve. Polonius, in the third act, says, be round with him.'

Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star 21;
This must not be: and then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice;
And he, repulsed (a short tale to make),
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;

Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness; and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves 22,

And all we mourn for.

King.

Do you think, 'tis this? Queen. It may be, very likely.

Pol. Hath there been such a time (I'd fain know that),

That I have positively said, 'Tis so,

When it prov'd otherwise?

King.

Not that I know.

Pol. Take this from this, if this be otherwise: [Pointing to his Head and Shoulder.

If circumstances lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

21 This was changed to sphere in the 4to. 1632, and that reading is followed by the modern editions. 'Out of thy star,' is placed above thee by destiny. We have fortune's star in a former scene. Aumerle in King Richard III. says:—

'Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars.'

22 The ridicule of this character is here admirably sustained. He would not only be thought to have discovered this intrigue by his own sagacity, but to have remarked all the stages of Hamlet's disorder, from his sadness to his raving, as regularly as his physician could have done; when all the while the madness was only feigned. The humour of this is exquisite from a man who tells us, with a confidence peculiar to small politicians, that he could find

"Where truth was hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre."

Warburton.

King.

How may we try it further?

Pol. You know, sometimes he walks four hours

together,

Here in the lobby.

Queen.

So he does, indeed.

Pol. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: Be and I behind an arras then ;

you

Mark the encounter: if he love her not,

And be not from his reason fallen thereon,

Let me be no assistant for a state,

But keep a farm, and carters.

King.

We will try it.

Enter HAMLET, reading.

Queen. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Pol. Away, I do beseech you, both away; I'll board 23 him presently :-O, give me leave.— [Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and Attendants.

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Ham. Well, god-'a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.
Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.
Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion 24, Have you a daughter?

23 i. e. accost, address him. See Twelfth Night, Act i. Sc. 3. 24 The old copies read—' being a good kissing carrion.' The emendation is Warburton's, who has accompanied it with a long comment, in which he endeavours to prove that Shakspeare in