another passage of this author, that breathes all the enthu- . siasm of pure, genuine poetry-simul ipsa silentia terrent.

I shall not enter into the comparative merit of Homer's night-piece, and the copy of it in Pope's translation. The curious reader may find this subject handled with great ingenuity by two eminent writers; Cooper in his elegant Letters concerning Taste, and Melmoth in the Letters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne. Caerhaes, near Tregony, in Cornwall,

Q. Feb. 18.

1774, March.

LVIII. Critical Illustrations of obsolete Passages in Shakespeare.

Mr. URBAN, THERE is a passage or two in the tragedy of Hamlet, which I have never yet seen explained to my satisfaction by any commentator. In Act. I. Sc. 2, the King thus addresses himself to the Prince, his nephew:

But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son; to which Hamlet (aside) replies,

A little more than kin, and less than kind. Bishop Warburton, without the least necessity, considers kind, as an adjective; having first, without the least authority, proposed an alteration in the text, as stiff* as it is arbitrary :

But now, my cousin Hamlet, kind my son.

Dr. Johnson remarks, that kind is the Teutonic word for child; “Hamlet therefore,” says he, “ answers with propriety to the titles of cousin and son, which the king, bad given him, that he was somewhat more than cousin, and less than son." The explanation is plausible; but does not, I think, come up to the full meaning of the text, frittering away all the smartness and sting of the reply.

I have always supposed, with Sir Thomas Hanmer, that " this was a proverbial expression," of very ancient date; and have lately been confirmed in this opinion by the fol lowing passage in Gorboduc, a tragedy, written by Lord Buckhurst, and first printed about two years after "Shakespeare was born, 1565. Videna, Gorboduc's Queen, Act iv. Sc. 1, thus expresses her resentment against her younger son Porrex, the murderer of Ferrex, her elder son:

Thou, Porres, thou this damned deed has wrought,
Thou, Porrex, thou shalt dearly bye the same;
Traitor to kin and kind, to sire and me,

To thine ówn flesh, and traitor to thyself.
A passage also in Shakespcare, Richard II. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels, ,
And, in this seat of peace, tumultuous wars

Shall kin with kin, and kind with kind confound
serves to prove the truth of Hanmer's observation, that this
was indeed “a proverbial expression;" though I cannot
agree with him, when he adds, “known in former times for
a relation so confused and blended, that it was hard to de.
fine it.” For nothing can be more certain, than that the
word kind, which occasions all the difficulty, in the passages
above produced, uniformly signifies nature, as may still far-
ther appear, by comparing them with the quotations*

below, from the same authors, where that word will evidently admit of no other sense. Hence we easily discover Hamlet's meaning to be, that the relation which he hore to the King, his uncle, was something more than that of cousin, or nephew-{a little more than kin)—the King having now married his mother; but though he was become his son by this marriage, yet was his new relationship still inferior to that of nature, still an unnatural one,-Fansul less than kind the marriage being founded in two unnatural crimes, murder and incest; hereby sarcastically glancing at the enormity of the king's villainy, who, by such a complication of vice, was against nature, entitled to call him his son, as well as his nephew, or cousin.

The other passage is in Act i. Sc. 8, where the Ghost, describing the unprepared state in which he was hurried by

1

May not be thought for their unworthy life,
Aud for their lawless serving out of kind,
Worthy to lose what law and kind them gave.

Ibid. Sc. 2.
Only I mean to shew by certain rules,
Which kind hath graft within the inind of man,
That nature hath her order and her course.

his brother to the grave, uses the term unanneal'd. The line, in Mr. Capell's edition, runs thus :

Unhousel'd, unanointed *, unanneal'd. This word has been variously written, and variously interpreted :-unaneld-importing, according to Pope, “no knell rung"-"unknell’d,” as it were, or “unknollid :" unaneal'clv-signifying, in Theobald's opinion, “unanointed, not having the extreme unction; from the Teutonic preposition an, and ole, i. e. oil :"_and unanneal'd, " that is (says Hanmer) unprepared;" because to anneal metals is to prepare thein in manufacture.--Perhaps, after all, the proper reading may be unannul'd, from annulus [a ring), the obvious signification of which is, without a ring on the finger. Dr. Ducarel, in a curious work published a few years ago, entitled “ Anglo-Norman Antiquities considered,” &c. shews it to have been the general practice to bury our ancient kings with rings upon their fingers; and mentions particularly the will of Richard II. who directs that he would be buried in this manner, according to royal custom. This custom might, probably, prevail in Denmark, as it did in this kingdom; and, if so, will serve to explain this passage, which has been given up by Dr. Johnson, with some others of the critics, and has proved a puzzle to all. Caerhaes, Cornwall, Oct. 18.

Q.

MR. URBAN,

YOU will much oblige some of your northern readers by inserting in your collection the following remarks on a difficult passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Scene III. Act. I. Folic Edit. Hemings and Condell. 1685..

“Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

“Unhouzzled, disappointed, unaneld.” The word unaneld has perplexed all the commentators :

Pope explains it “having no kneli rung."-Hanmer sup. poses it to signify unprepared, because to anneal metals is to prepare them in manufacture. Theobald, indeed, guessed at the true meaning, but his explication has been invalidated by the learned Dr. Johnson, who, after having given the notes of his predecessors, observes, on his own authority, “ that it is a difficult passage, and that he had not by his inquiry been able to satisfy himself.” The subsequent.extract from a very scarce and curious copy of Fabian's Chronicle, printed by Pynsen, 1516, seems to remove every possibility of doubt concerning the true signification of the words vinhouseld and unaneld. The historian, speaking of Pope Innocent's having laid the whole kingdom of England under an interdict, has these words; Of the maner of this Enterdiccion of this Lande have I seen dyverse opynyons, as some ther be that saye that the Lande was enterdyted thorowly and the Churchis and Housys of Relygyon closyd, that no where was used Masse, nor dyvyne Servyce, by whiche reason none of the VII, Sacramentis all this terme shulde be mynystred or occupyed, nor Chylde crystened, nor Man confessyd, nor marryed; but it was not so strayght. For there were dyverse placys in Englond, whiche were uccupyed with dyvyne Servyce all that season by Lycence purchaсed thau or before, also Chyldren were crystengd ihoroughe all the Lande and Men houselyd and anelyd.” Fol. 14. Septima Pars Johannis.

The Anglo-Saxon noun-substantives husel (the eucharist) and ele (oil) are plainly the roots of these last quoted compound adjectives. For the meaning of the athix an to the last, I quote Spelman's Gloss. in loco. "Quin et dictionibus (an) adjungitur, siquidem vel majoris notationis gratia," vel ad singulare aliquid, vel unicum demonstrandum." ence an-elyd should seem to signify oiled or anointed by way of emmence, i. e. having received extreme unction. For the confirmation of the sense given here there is the strongest internal evidence in the passage. The historian is speaking of the VII. Sacraments, and he expressly names five of them, viz. baptism, marriage, auricular confession, the eucharist, and extreme unction.

The publishing a discovery made by accident cannot justly subject me to the imputation of vanity, yet I cannot help thinking it rather a lucky hi to have stumbled upon a passage that leads to the certain investigation of that which has perplesed the most eininent commentators on the text of Shakespeare. The antiquary is desired to consult the edition of Fabian, printed by Pynsen, 1516, because there are