(One modern editor of Hamlet has given "bestill'd:" but I doubt if the verb still (to fall in drops, melt) ever was, or could be, used with the augmentative prefix be.) Why should the "distill'd" of the quartos be considered as "not perfectly satisfactory ?"-" they, melted, dissolved almost to jelly with the act of fear," &c. Examples of the word in that sense are not wanting in modern writers: a passage of Claudian (De Sexto Cons. Hon. v. 345), 66 liquefactaque fulgure cuspis Canduit, et subitis fluxere vaporibus enses," is thus rendered by Addison, "Swords by the lightning's subtle force distill'd, And the cold sheath with running metal fill'd." Act i. sc. 4. "Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,” &c. Whatever may have been the original meaning of "rouse," and whatever may be its precise signification in the above line (see a long note on the word by GiffordMassinger's Works, i. 239, ed. 1813), it undoubtedly was sometimes used in the sense of a large draught of liquor ; "Where slightly passing by the Thespian spring, Nature then fruitfully forth these men did bring, (Concerning "wake" in the present passage, see my Remarks on Collier's and Knight's eds. of Shakespeare, p. 210.) Act i. sc. 4. "why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd, Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, Perhaps the reading of the quartos (of all the quartos), "interr'd," is preferable, because "in-urn'd" implies that the body had been reduced to ashes. (Compare act i. sc. 1; "What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night In which the majesty of buried Denmark Act i. sc. 4. "Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason." There seems to be no doubt that Gifford was wrong in supposing "sovereignty" to be here "a title of respect;" and that the meaning is-Which might take away the sovereignty of your reason (or, as Steevens explains it, "take away from you the command of reason, by which man is governed”). In a note on Beaumont and Fletcher, Works, ix. 272, I have shewn that "deprive" is used there, as it is here, in the sense of take away. Compare also; S "And now, this hand, that, with vngentle force The Tryall of Cheualry, 1605, sig. F 3. "For pitty, do not my heart blood deprive, Make me not childless," &c. Sylvester's Du Bartas,-The Magnificence, p. 210, ed. 1641, (where the original has "Ne me priue du sang," &c.). "But yet the sharp disease (which doth his health deprive) A Paradox against Liberty, from the French of "In short, this day our scepter had depriv'd, Had I not," &c. The History of Judith, translated by Hudson,ibil. p. 377. Act i. sc. 5. "Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand, Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd." "An advantageous proposal is made in the corrected folio, 1632.... 'Dispatch'd' cannot be right, and why should Shakespeare employ a wrong word when another, that is unobjectionable, at once presented itself, viz.— 'Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despoil'd'? Misreading was, most likely, the cause of this blunder; the earliest quarto, 1603, has depriv'd for 'dispatch'd,' of the other quartos and folios; but we may feel confident that the poet's misprinted word was despoil'd. It is written upon an erasure, and possibly the old corrector first inserted depriv'd, and afterwards saw reason to change it to despoil'd, as the true language of the poet." Collier's Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 422. Why "despatch'd," the reading of all the old editions (for the quarto of 1603 is not of any authority), should be condemned by Mr. Collier as a decided error of the press, I am at a loss to conceive. The "proposal" of the Manuscript-corrector is so far from being " advantageous," that, strictly speaking, we lose something by it,-" despoil'd" conveying merely the idea of deprivation, while "despatch'd" expresses the suddenness of the bereavement. Act i. sc. 5. "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, According to Warburton, "uneffectual" means "shining without heat;" according to Steevens, " that is no longer seen when the light of morning approaches." The former explanation is, I apprehend, the true one. Compare Nash; "The moral of the whole is this, that as the Estrich, the most burning-sighted bird of all others, insomuch as the female of them hatcheth not hir egs by couering them, but by the effectual raies of hir eies," &c. The Vnfortunate Traveller. Or, The Life of Jacke Wilton, 1594, sig. H 4. Act ii. sc. 2. "for his picture in little." Here Steevens cites Rowley, Drayton, and Massinger. He might have shewn that the expression "in little" was used by writers long after the time of Shakespeare: so in Shadwell's Sullen Lovers; "I will paint with Lilly [Lely], and draw in little with Cooper for 5000l." Works, i. 27. Act ii. sc. 2. "for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall I should have fatted all the region kites Mr. Collier observes; "It was not 'oppression,' but crime, that was to be punished by him; and to read [with the Manuscript-corrector of the folio] 'To make transgression bitter' is so far an improvement: the similarity in the sound of the terminations of both words may have misled the copyist. 'Oppression' is, however, quite intelligible." Notes and Emendations, &c. p. 424. This alteration is nothing less than villanous. Could the Manuscript-corrector be so obtuse as not to perceive that "lack gall to make oppression bitter," means "lack gall to make me feel the bitterness of oppression ?" Act iii. sc. 2. "Ham. Ay, sir, but, While the grass grows, the proverb is something musty." |