SCENE V. Cautions to young Ladies.

(7) For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour, Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood:

A violet in the youth of primy nature,

Forward, not permanent: tho' fweet, not lasting;
The perfume and fuppliance of a minute:

No more.

chafte treasure open

Then weigh what lofs your honour may fuftain,
If with too credent ear you lift his fongs;
Or lofe your heart; or your
To his unmafter'd importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear fifter,
And keep within the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of defire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,

If the unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes,

The

For one his like, there wou'd be something failing
In him that should compare.

(7) See All's well that ends well, Sc. 7.

See the first page of that play

In Philafter, poor injured Arethufa thus complains;

Where may a maiden live fecurely free,
Keeping her honour safe? not with the living,
They feed upon opinions, errors, dreams
And make them truths; they draw a nourishment
Out of defamings, grow upon difgraces,

And when they fee a virtue fortified

Strongly above the battery of their tongues;
Oh, how they cast to fink it and defeated
(Soul-fick with poison), strike the monuments
Where noble names lie fleeping; till they fweat,
And the cold marble melt.

A&t 3. towards the end

The canker galls the (8) infants of the fpring,
Too oft before the buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blaftments are most imminent.

A Satire on ungracious Paftors.

I fhall th' effects of this good leffon keep (9) As watchmen to my heart: but, good my brother, Do not, as fome ungracious paftors do,

(8) Infants of the Spring.]

Abortive as the first bloom of fpring,

Nipt with the lagging rear of winter's froft.

Shew

Milton's Sampfon Agonifles.

(9) As watchmen.] All the common editions read watchman; I fufpected the word, and turning to the folios, found it watchmen, which appears to me certainly right: the effects as watch

men.

Reckless is the fame as carclefs, which is read in fome editions,and is, I think, the preferable word; as recks not his own, read (i. e. regards not his own doctrine) fo immediately follows. Spenfer in his Galender, greatly reproves those ungracious paftors, who are faid here to tread the primrose paths of dalliance, and pay no regard to the good leffons they teach their flocks: fee July: and Milton is not fparing of his fatire on this fubject: he thus reprehends the too proud and ungracious pastors;

How well could I have spar'd for thee, young fwain,
Enow of fuch as for their bellies fake,

Creep and intrude and climb into the fold?
Of other care they little reck'ning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers feaft,

And shove away the worthy-bidden guest:

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold
A fheep-hook, or have learn'd ought elfe the least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them! what need they? They are fped,

And when they lift their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their fcrannel pipe of wretched ftraw:
The hungry fheep look up and are not fed,

But fwol'n with wind, and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly and foul contagion fpread, &c.

Lycidase

Shew me the steep and thorny way to heav'n,
Whilft, like a puft and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose paths of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own reed.

A Father's Advice to his Son, going to Travel.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act;
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
The friends thou haft and their adoption try'd,
Grapple them to thy foul with (10) hooks of steel:
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't, that th'oppofed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's cenfure, but referve thy judgment.

Coftly thy habit as thy purfe can buy,

Beware

But not exprefs'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft lofes both itself and friend:
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all, to thine own felf be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can't not then be falfe to any man.

SCENE

(10) Hooks.] Alluding to the grappling-hooks made ufe of at fea fome would read hocps, but we cannot be faid to grapple any thing with a hoop. In the lines where the poet speaks of the habit, he evidently had this paffage from the 19th ch. and 30th ver. of Ecclefiafticus in view.

A man's attire, and exceffive laughter, and gait shew what

he is.

As moft probably, in the conclufion, where he speaks of being true to one's felf, he had this fine verfe in the 49th Pfalm.

So long as thou doft well unto thy felf, men will speak good of thee. ver. 18.

See All's well that ends well. p. 1. and a.

SCENE VII. Hamlet, on the Appearance of his Father's Ghost.

Angels and minifters of grace defend us! Be thou a fpirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell; Be (11) thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou

(11) Thy intents] Hamlet, we fee by the foregoing line, doubted whether this was a good or an evil spirit; that is, whether its intents were to serve or harm him: of this too his friends doubted as we fee in the next fpeech; and he himself again difcovers the fame fears at the latter end of the fine fpeech, Act 2. Sc. 8. By questionable, now, we generally mean difputable; here it fignifies inviting question. The line-Why thy canoniz'd bones, hea fed in death, hath a good deal perplexed the critics, and is indeed very obfcure: Mr. Warburton alters the paffage; for canoniz'd bones, "fignifying only bones to which the rites of fepulture have been performed, and inhuming being one of the effential rites, it is neceffary that be mentioned, which unless we read-bearfed in earth, he affures us it is not; bearfed being used figuratively for repofited, and death being a privation only, bearfed in death is nonfenfe." Thus he would alter the paffage-Sir Thomas Hanmer, in the rage of correction, gives us ;

Why thy bones hears'd in canonized earth.

But if we let the paffage stand as it doth, is it not poffible to give it fome fenfe? Shakespear is bold in his ufe of words, and licentious in his manner : it is not improbable, he might use death for the grave, and that by no very far-fetch'd allufion; and then the paffage is clear; why thy bones canonized, i. e. buried according to canon, and hearfed in death, i. c. fafely repofited in the grave.

Thus, even according to Mr. Warburton's fenfe of the words, the paffage feems to be defenfible: but may we not afk, whether the fenfe of this paffage renders not the two parts of the fentence the fame? for if his bones were canmiz'd,that is, had all the rites of fepulture paid to them, it follows of courfe, they were hearfed in death or earth, repofited in the grave. Mr. Wa burton fays, "canoniz'd cannot fignify (what it ufually does) made holy or fainted, for we are told, he was murdered with all his fins fresh upon him, and therefore in no way to be fainted." But we may obferve, it is a fon, full of the perfections of his father, (whofe equal, he tells us, the world could not produce) that here speaks; no wonder then he should use the highest compliment: befide,

as

Thou com'ft in fuch a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane; Oh, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearfed in death,
Have burst their cearments? why the fepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urned,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To caft thee up again? What may this mean,
That thou, dead corfe, again in complete steel,
Revifit'st thus the glimpfes of the moon,
Making night hideous? And us fools of nature,
So horribly to shake our difpofition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our fouls?

The Mifchiefs it might tempt him to.

(12) What if it tempts you towards the flood, my lord,

Or

as to his being murdered with all his fins upon him, that we know nothing of at prefent: 'tis the ghost himself only, that informs his fon of that; and as he died not by murder, according to the general report, he was very likely to have been canoniz'd; it was very probable, his wife and brother might have got him fainted, out of their abundant love and zeal for him, when dead, and the better to conceal their devilifh purposes; fo that if we understand the word in this fenfe, a better meaning may be given the paffage.

"Tell me, oh nry father, (fays the dutiful and amazed Hamlet,) why this wonder happens; why I fee you again on earth; why thofe bones have burst their cearment, which, lately made holy and fainted, were hearfed in death, were repofited in the grave, or, at the time of your death: this increases my admiration; hadft thou not had the rites of fepulture, or only the common rites, I might have been lefs astonished; but thy bones were not only bearfed in death, not only properly and duly entomb'd, but made facred too: why then has the fepulchre op'd her marble jaws? why behold we again the buried and hallow'd Hamlet on the earth?

(12) What, &c.] See the famous defcription of Dover-Cliff, in King Lear, Act 4. Sc. 6. Beetles, i.e. hangs over, in the fame man

ner