lent play; well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said, there were no sallets' in the lines, to make the matter savoury; nor no matter in the phrase, that might indite the author of affection:2 but called it, an honest method, as wholesome as more tongue than the rest of the cry. To this, I believe, Hamlet refers, and he afterwards mentions a CRY of players. HENLEY.

9

set down with as much modesty-] Modesty, for simplicity. WARBurton.

1

there were no sallets &c.] Such is the reading of the old copies. I know not why the later editors continued to adopt the alteration of Mr. Pope, and read,-no salt, &c.

Mr. Pope's alteration may indeed be in some degree supported by the following passage in Decker's Satiromastix, 1602: “—a prepar'd troop of gallants, who shall distaste every unsalted line in their fly-blown comedies." Though the other phrase was used as late as in the year 1665, in A Banquet of Jests, &c. for junkets, joci; and for curious sallets, sales."

66

STEEVENS. indite the author of affection:] Indite, for convict. WARBURTON.

indite the author of affection:] i. e. convict the author of being a fantastical affected writer. Maria calls Malvolio an affectioned ass: i. e. an affected ass; and in Love's Labour's Lost, Nathaniel tells the Pedant, that his reasons" have been witty, without affection."

Again, in the translation of Castiglione's Courtier, by Hobby, 1556: "Among the chiefe conditions and qualityes in a waiting gentlewoman," is, " to flee affection or curiosity,'

Again, in Chapman's Preface to Ovid's Banquet of Sense, 1595: "Obscuritie in affection of words and indigested concets, is pedanticall and childish." STEEVENS.

3

but called it, an honest method,] Hamlet is telling how much his judgment differed from that of others. One said, there were no sallets in the lines, &c. but called it an honest method. The author probably gave it,—But I called it an honest method, &c. JOHNSON.

an honest method,]

as wholesome &c.] the quartos by Dr. Johnson.

Honest, for chaste. WARBurton.
This passage was recovered from
STEEVENS.

sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Æneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter: If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me see, let me see ;The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,5---'tis not so; it begins with Pyrrhus.

"Fabula nullius veneris, morataque recte."

.

M. MASON.

The rugged Pyrrhus, &c.] Mr. Malone once observed to me, that Mr. Capell supposed the speech uttered by the Player before Hamlet, to have been taken from an ancient drama, entitled, "Dido Queen of Carthage." I had not then the means of justifying or confuting his remark, the piece alluded to having escaped the hands of the most liberal and industrious collectors of such curiosities. Since, however, I have met with this performance, and am therefore at liberty to pronounce that it did not furnish our author with more than a general hint for his description of the death of Priam, &c.; unless with reference to— the whiff and wind of his fell sword "The unnerved father falls,

we read, ver. *:

"And with the wind thereof the king felldown;" and can make out a resemblance between

"So as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood;"

and ver. **:

"So leaning on his sword, he stood stone still."

The greater part of the following lines are surely more ridiculous in themselves, than even Shakspeare's happiest vein of burlesque or parody could have made them:

"At last came Pirrhus fell and full of ire,

"His harnesse dropping bloud, and on his speare
"The mangled head of Priams yongest sonne;
"And after him his band of Mirmidons,

"With balles of wild-fire in their murdering pawes,
"Which made the funerall flame that burnt faire Troy:

"All which hemd me about, crying, this is he.

"Dido. Ah, how could poor Æneas scape their hands? "En. My mother Venus, jealous of my health,

"Convaid me from their crooked nets and bands

"So I escapt the furious Pirrhus wrath,
Who then ran to the pallace of the King,

The rugged Pyrrhus,-he, whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

"And at Jove's Altar finding Priamus,
"About whose witherd neck hung Hecuba,
66 Foulding his hand in hers, and joyntly both
"Beating their breasts and falling on the ground,
"He with his faulchions point raisde up at once;
"And with Megeras eyes stared in their face,
"Threatning a thousand deaths at every glaunce.
"To whom the aged king thus trembling spoke: &c.-
"Not mov'd at all, but smiling at his teares,
"This butcher, whil'st his hands were yet held up,
"Treading upon his breast, stroke off his hands.
"Dido. O end, Æneas, I can hear no more.

66

"Æn. At which the franticke queene leapt on his face, "And in his eyelids hanging by the nayles, "A little while prolong'd her husband's life: "At last the souldiers puld her by the heeles, "And swong her howling in the emptie ayre, "Which sent an echo to the wounded king: "Whereat he lifted up his bedred lims, "And would have grappeld with Achilles sonne, Forgetting both his want of strength and hands; "Which he disdaining, whiskt his sword about, *" And with the wound thereof the king fell downe: "Then from the navell to the throat at once, "He ript old Priam; at whose latter gaspe "Jove's marble statue gan to bend the brow, "As lothing Pirrhus for this wicked act: "Yet he undaunted tooke his fathers flagge, "And dipt it in the old kings chill cold bloud, "And then in triumph ran into the streetes, "Through which he could not passe for slaughtred men: **So leaning on his sword he stood stone still,

Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt." Act II. The exact title of the play from which these lines are copied, is as follows: The-Tragedie of Dido | Queen of Carthage | Played by the Children of her | Majesties Chappel. | Written by Christopher Marlowe, and | Thomas Nash, Gent. -Actors Jupiter. Ganimed. Venus. | Cupid. | Juno. | Mercurie, or -Hermes, | Eneas. | Ascanius. | ́Dido. | Anna. |_ Achates. Ilioneus. Iarbas. Cloanthes. Sergestus. | At London, Printed, by the Widdowe Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke, and

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot

6

Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd'
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons;
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light

To their lord's murder: Roasted in wrath, and fire,

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,

8

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks ;-So proceed you." POL. 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken; with good accent, and good discretion.

1 PLAY. Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword, Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls, Repugnant to command: Unequal match'd, Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage, strikes wide;

are to be solde at his shop, in Paules Church-yeard, at | the signe of the black Beare. 1594. | STEEVENS.

6 Now is he total gules;] Gules is a term in the barbarous jargon peculiar to heraldry, and signifies red. Shakspeare has it again in Timon of Athens:

"With man's blood paint the ground; gules, gules." Heywood, in his Second Part of the Iron Age, has made a verb from it:

7

old Hecuba's reverend locks

"Be gul'd in slaughter-." STEevens.

trick'd-] i. e. smeared, painted. An heraldick term.

See Vol. VIII. p. 212, n. 8. MALONE.

• With eyes like carbuncles,] So, in Milton's Paradise Lost, B. IX. 1. 500:

and carbuncles his eyes." STEEVENS.

9 So proceed you.] These words are not in the folio.

MALONE.

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base; and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword
Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick :
So, as a painted tyrant,' Pyrrhus stood;
And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.

But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death:2 anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region: So, after Pyrrhus' pause,
A roused vengeance sets him new a work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour, forg'd for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.-

1 as a painted tyrant,] Shakspeare was probably here thinking of the tremendous personages often represented in old tapestry, whose uplifted swords stick in the air, and do nothing.

2 as we often see, against some storm,-
The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
As hush as death:] So, in Venus and Adonis :
"Even as the wind is hush'd before it raineth.”

MALONE.

This line leads me to suspect that Shakspeare wrote the bold wind speechless. Many similar mistakes have happened in these plays, where the word ends with the same letter with which the next begins. MALONE.

* And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall

On Mars's armour, &c.] This thought appears to have been adopted from the 3d Book of Sidney's Arcadia: "Vulcan, when he wrought at his wive's request Æneas an armour, made not his hammer beget a greater sound than the swords of those noble knights did" &c. STEEVEns.