1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so.

1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform2; Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good; here stands the man; good: If the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2 Clo. But is this law?

is so common as this mode of expression: straight is merely a contraction of straightway, immediately. Numerous examples are to be found in Shakspeare, one may suffice from this very play, in Act iii. Sc. 4, Polonius says:—

'He will come straight.'

And Malone cites from G. Herbert's Jacula Prudentium, 1651: -There is no churchyard so handsome that a man would desire straight to be buried there.'

2 Warburton says that this is a ridicule on scholastic divisions without distinction; and of distinctions without difference. Shakspeare certainly aims at the legal subtleties used upon occasion of inquests. Sir John Hawkins points out the case of Dame Hales, in Plowden's Commentaries. Her husband Sir James drowned himself in a fit of insanity (produced, it was supposed, by his having been one of the judges who condemned Lady Jane Grey), and the question was about the forfeiture of a lease. There was a great deal of this law logic used on the occasion, as whether he was the agent or patient; or in other words (as the clown says), whether he went to the water, or the water came to him. Malone thinks because Plowden was in law French that Shakspeare could not read him! and yet Malone has shown that Shakspeare is very fond of legal phraseology, and supposes that he must have passed some part of his life in the office of an attorney.

1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law.

2 Clo. Will you ha' the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of christian burial.

1 Clo. Why, there thou say'st: And the more pity; that great folks shall have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even-christian 3. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam's profession. 2 Clo. Was he a gentleman?

1 Clo. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2 Clo. Why, he had none*.

1 Clo. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the scripture? The scripture says, Adam digged: Could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself

2 Clo. Go to.

1 Clo. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

2 Clo. The gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1 Clo. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the

3 Even-christian, for fellow-christian, was the old mode of expression; and is to be found in Chaucer and the Chroniclers. Wicliffe has even-servant for fellow-servant. The fact is, that even, like, and equal were synonymous. I will add one more ancient example of the phrase to those cited by Malone :

For when a man wol rigt knowe,

Al maner of dette that he owe,
Bothe to God that is ful of migt
And to his even cristen rigt.'

Hampole's Speculum Vitæ.

In Alfred's Saxon version of S. Gregory's Pastoralis Cura, we have efon-deow, consocius.

4 This speech and the next, as far as arms, is not in the quarto.

gallows does well: But how does it well? it does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to say, the gallows is built stronger than the church : argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again:

come.

2 Clo. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1 Clo. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke 5.

2 Clo. Marry, now I can tell.

1 Clo. To't.

2 Clo. Mass, I cannot tell.

Enter HAMLET and HORATIO, at a distance.

1 Clo. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating: and, when you are asked this question next, say, a grave-maker; the houses that he makes, last till doomsday. Go, get thee to Vaughan and fetch me a stoup of liquor. [Exit 2 Clown.

1 Clown digs, and sings.

In youth, when I did love, did love,
Methought, it was very sweet,

To contract, O, the time, for, ah, my behove
O, methought, there was nothing meet.

5 Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.' This was a common phrase for giving over or ceasing to do a thing, a metaphor derived from the unyoking of oxen at the end of their labour. Thus in a dittie of the Workmen of Dover, preserved in the additions to Holinshed:

My bow is broke, I would unyoke,

My foot is sore, I can worke no more.'

These pithy questions were doubtless the fireside amusement of our rustic ancestors. Steevens mentions a collection of them in print, preserved in a volume of scarce tracts in the university library at Cambridge, D. 5. 2. 'The innocence of these demaundes joyous (he says) may deserve a praise not always due to their delicacy.'

6 The original ballad from whence these stanzas are taken is

Ham. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave-making.

Hor. Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

Ham. 'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

1 Clo. But age, with his stealing steps,

Hath claw'd me in his clutch,
And hath shipped me into the land,
As if I had never been such.

[Throws up a scull.

Ham. That scull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: How the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jawbone, that did the first murder! This might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'erreaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?

Hor. It might, my lord.

Ham. Or of a courtier; which could say, Goodmorrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord? This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my lord

printed in Tottel's Miscellany, or Songes and Sonnettes' by Lord Surrey and others, 1575. The ballad is attributed to Lord Vaux, and is printed by Dr. Percy in the first volume of his Reliques of Antient Poetry. The ohs and the ahs were most probably meant to express the interruption of the song by the forcible emission of the grave digger's breath at each stroke of the mattock. The original runs thus:

'I lothe that I did love;

In youth that I thought swete:
As time requires for my behove,
Methinks they are not mete.

For age with stealing steps
Hath claude me with his crowch;
And lusty youthe away he leaps,
As there had bene none such.'

7 The folio reads-ore-offices.

such-a-one's horse, when he meant to beg it; might

it not?

Hor. Ay, my lord.

Ham. Why, e'en so: and now my lady Worm's9; chapless, and knocked about the mazzard with a sexton's spade: Here's fine revolution, an we had · the trick to see't. Did these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats 10 with them? mine ache to think on't.

1 Clo. A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, [Sings. For—and a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.

[Throws up a scull. Ham. There's another: Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits11 now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce 12 with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Humph! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with

My lord, you gave

Good words the other day of a bay courser

I rode on; it is yours, because you liked it.'

Timon of Athens, Act i. 9 The skull that was my lord such-a-one's is now my lady

worm's.

10 Loggets, small logs or pieces of wood. Hence loggets was the name of an ancient rustic game, in which a stake was fixed in the ground at which loggats were thrown; in short, a ruder kind of quoit play.

11 Quiddits are quirks, or subtle questions; and quillets are nice and frivolous distinctions. The etymology of this last foolish word has plagued many learned heads. I think that Blount, in his Glossography, clearly points out quodlibet as the origin of it. Bishop Wilkins calls a quillet a frivolousness;' and Coles in his Latin Dict. res frivola. I find the quarto of 1603 has quirks instead of quiddits.

6

12 See Comedy of Errors, Act i. Sc. 2, p. 139, note 6.