P. 198. Caviare is the fpawn of sturgeon pickled; it is imported hither from Ruffia. Mr. HAWKINS.

P. 220. Enter a Duke & Dut chefs, with regal coronets.] Regal coronets are improper for any perfonage below the dignity of a king; regal, as a fubftantive, is the name of a musical instrument, now out of ufe. But there is an officer of the houshold called, Tuner of the regals. The cornet is well known to be a mufical inftrument, and proper for proceffions.

Might we not then read? Enter a Duke and Dutchess, with royals, cornets, &c. P. 230. like an ouzle. Pol. It is black like an ouzle.] The first folio reads,

Ham. Methinks it is

Polonius has already agreed to the fimilitude the cloud bears to a camel, and confeffes, readily enough, that it is very like a whale; but on Hamlet's pufhing the matter ftill further, though his complaifance holds out, it will not extend to a general refemblance any longer; he therefore admits the propriety of the laft comparison but in part, and only fays,

It is back'd like a weafel. The weafel is remarkable for the length of its back; but the editors were misled by the quartos, which concur in reading, black like a weafel, for this they faid was impoffible to be right, the animal being of another co

lour. The variation in these old copies was no more than a blunder of the printers, for it is. as likely that the cloud fhould refemble a weafel in fhape, as an ouzle, i. e. blackbird, (which they fubftituted for it) in colour.

P. 241.

have, Elfe you

Mr. STEEVENS. -Senfe fure you

could not have no tion.] For motion, which the note of Dr. Warburton had perfuaded me to admit into the text, I would now replace the old reading motion; for though the emendation be elegant, it is not neceffary.

P. 250. Ape is certainly the right reading. The ape hath large bags, by the fide of his jaws, called his alforches, from alforja, the word used in Spain for a wallet, in which, whenever he meets with any food, he conftantly depofits part of it to be chewed and fwallowed at pleafure, after his meal is ended.

REVISAL.

P. 28. Oph. How should I,

&c.-] There is no part of this play, in its reprefentation on the ftage, is more pathetic than this fcene, which, I fuppofe, proceeds from the utter infenfibility fhe has to her own misfortune.

A great fenfibility, or none at all, feem to produce the fame effect; in the latter, the audience fupply what he wants, and in the former, they sympathife.

Mr. REYNOLDS. P. 262. The ratifiers and prips of every word.] By word is here meant a declaration, or propofal; it is determined to L13 this

this fenfe, by the reference it hath to what had just preceded,

The rabble call bim lord. This acclamation, which is the word here spoken of, was made without regard to antiquity, or received cuftom, whofe concurrence, however, is neceffarily required to confer validity and ftability in every propofal of this kind. REVISAL. This interpretation leaves the expreffion ftill harsh, but nothing fo good has yet been offered. P. 266. Oph. You mnft fing, down-a-down, and you call him a-down-a.

O how the wheel becomes it! The wheel means no more than the burthen of the fong, which the has just repeated, and as fuch was formerly used. I met with I met with the following obfervation in an old quarto black letter book, published before the time of Shakespeare.

P. 268. No trophy, werd,

nor hatchment, &c.] The note on this paffage feems to imply a difufe of this practice; whereas it is uniformly kept up at this day; not only the fword, but the helmet, gauntlet, fpurs, and taburd, i. e, a coat, whereon the armorial enfigns were anciently depicted (from which the term coat armour) are hung over the grave of every knight. Mr. HAWKINS,

P. 278. Hamlet, Make her

grave ftraight.] Some, for whofe opinions I have great regard, think that straight is only immediately. My interpretation I have given with no great confidence, but the longer I confider it, the more I think it right.

P. 279. Crowner's quest law.] Iftrongly fufpect that this is a ridicule on the cafe of dame Hales, reported by Plowden, in his commentaries, as determined in 3. Elix.

It seems her husband, Sir James Hales, had drowned himfelf in a river, and the question was, whether by this act a forfeiture of a leafe from the dean and chapter of Canterbury, which he was poffeffed of, did not accrue to the crown; an inquifition was found before the coroner, which found him felo de fe. The legal and logical fubtleties, arifing in the courfe of the argument of this cafe, gave a very fair opportunity for a fneer at Crowner's queft Law. The expreffion, a little before that, an act hath three branches, &c. is fo pointed an allufion to the cafe I mention, that I cannot doubt but that

P. 320. Whether lago fingly was a Florentine, or both he and Caffio were fo, does not appear to me of much confequence. That the latter was actually married, is not fufficiently implied in a fellow almoft damn'd in a fair wife, fince it may mean, according to Iago's licentious manner of expreffing himself, no more than a man very near being married. Had Shakespeare, confiftently with lago's character, meant to make him fay, Caffio was damn'd in being married to a handSome woman, he would have made him fay it outright, and not have interpofed the palliative almoft. The fucceeding parts of his converfation fufliciently evince that the Poet thought no mode of conception or expreffion too fhocking for Iago.

Mr. STEEVENS. P. 324. Iago. Your daughter and the Moor are making the beaft with two backs.] In a " Dictio

P. 345 Let me peak like yourself. i. e. let me speak as yourself would fpeak, were you not too much heated with paffion. Mr. REYNOLDS. P. 346. That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.] Shakespeare was continually changing his first expreffion for another, either ftronger or more uncommon, fo that very often the reader, who has not the fame continuity or fucceffion of ideas, is at a lofs for its meaning. Many of Shakespeare's uncouth ftrained epithets may be explained, by going back to the obvious and fimple expreffion which is moft likely to occur to the mind in that ftate. I can imagine the firft mode of expreffion that occurred to Shakespeare was this:

The troubled heart was never

cured by words: To give it poetical force, he altered the phrafe;

The wounded heart was never

reached through the ear: Wounded heart he changed to broken, and that to bruised, as a more uncommon exprefiion. Reach, he altered to touched, and the tranfition is then eafy to pierced, i. e. thoroughly touched. When the fentiment is brought to this ftate, the commentator, without this unraveling clue, expounds piercing the heart, in its common acceptation, wounding the heart, which making in this place nonL14

fenfe,

fenfe, is corrected to pieced the beart, which is very stiff, and as Polonius fays, is a vile phrafe.

Mr. REYNOLDS. P. 355. A Veronefe, Michael Caffio.] The Revisal suppoles, I believe rightly, that Michael Caffio is a Veronese.

It fhould just be obferved, that the Italian pronunciation of the word must be retained, other wife the measure will be defective. Mr. STEEVENS. P. 362. To fuckle fools, and chronicle fmall beer.] I fee no more humour in this line than is obvious to the most careless reader. After enumerating the perfections of a woman, he adds, that if ever there was one fuch as he had been defcribing, fhe was, at the best, of no other use than to fuckle children and keep the accounts of a boujebold. The expreffions of to fuckle fools and chronicle fmall beer, are only two inftances of the want of natural affection, and the predominance of a critical cenforioufnefs in Iago, which he allows himself to have, where he fays, oh, I am nothing if not critical! Shakespeare never thought of any thing like the "Onate mecum confule Man "lio."

Mr. STEEVENS.

This is certainly right. P. 366. Or tainting his dif cipline-] If the feofe in this place was not fufficiently clear, I hould have thought taunting his difcipline might have been the word, fince it was more likely for Roderigo, from his general foolish character, to be able to throw out fomething in contempt of what he did not underfland, than to fay any thing which

might really fully it, which taint-
ing feems to imply...
Mr. STEEVENS.

P. 368. If this poor brach of
Venice, whom I tracena, as
For his quick hunting, ftand the

putting on.] The old reading was traf, which Dr. Warburton judiciously turned into brach. But it seems to me, that trash belongs to another part of the line, and that we ought to read trash for trace. To trash a bound, is a term of hunting ftill ufed in the North, and perhaps elsewhere; i. e. to correct, to rate. The fenfe is, "If this "hound Roderigo, whom I rate "for quick hunting, for over"running the fcent, will but "fland the putting on, will but "have patience to be properly "and fairly put upon the scent, " &c." The context and sense is nothing if we read trace. This very hunting-term, to traf, is metaphorically ufed by ShakeSpeare in the Tempest, act i. fc. ii.

"Pro. Being once perfected

"how to grant suits, "How to deny them; whom "t' advance, and whom "To trash for overtopping."To trash for overtopping; i. e. "what fuitors to check for their "too great forwardness." To overtop, is when a hound gives his tongue, above the reft, too loudly or too readily; for which he ought to be trajh'd or rated. Topper, in the good sense of the word, is a common name for a hound, in many parts of England. Shakespeare is fond of alluficns to hunting, and appeare to be well acquainted with its language. Mr. WARTON.

P. 404. The fpirit-ftirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife.] In mentioning the fife joined with the drum, Shakespeare, as ufual, paints from the life: thofe inftruments accompanying each other, being ufed, in his age, by the English foldiery. The fife, however, as a martial inftrument, was afterwards entirely difcontinued among our troops for many years, but at length revived in the war before the laft. It is commonly fuppofed, that our foldiers borrowed it from the Highlanders in the laft rebellion: but I do not know that the fife is peculiar to the Scotch, or even used at all by them. It was firft ufed, within the memory of man, among our troops, by the British guards, by order of the duke of Cumberland, when they were encamped at Maeftricht, in the year 1747, and thence foon adopted into other English regiments of infantry. They took it from the allies with whom they ferved. This inftrument, accompanying

the drum, is of confiderable an tiquity in the European armies, particularly the German. In a curious picture in the Afhmolean Mufeum at Oxford,painted 1525, representing the fiege of Pavia by the French king, where the emperor was taken prisoner, we fee fifes and drums. In an old English treatife written by William Garrard before 1587, and published by one captain Hichcock in 1591, entitled the Arte of Warre, there are feveral woodcutts of military evolutions, in which these inftruments are both introduced. In Rymer's Fadera, in a diary of king Henry's fiege of Bulloigne, 1544, mention is made of the "drommes and viff"leurs," marching at the head of the king's army. Tom. xv. P. 53.

The drum and fife were alfo much used at antient festivals, fhows, and proceffions. Gerard Leigh, in his Accidence of Armory, printed in 1576, defcribing a christmas magnificently celebrated at the inner temple, fays,

66

1

we entered the prince his hall, "where anon we heard the noyfe “ of drum and fife," p. 119. At a ftately mafque on Shrove-funday 1509, in which Henry VIII. was an actor, Hollinshed mentions the entry of " a drum and fife

apprelled in white damafke " and grene bonnettes." Chron. iii. 805. col. 2. There are many more inftances in Hollinfbed, and Stowe's Survey of London.

From the old French word viffleur, above cited, came the Eng lifh word whiffler, which anciently was used in its proper li teral sense. Strype, speaking of

a grand