This must be known; which, being kept close, might move More grief to hide, than hate to utter, love. [Exeunt. SCENE III. Changes to the Palace. Enter King, Queen, Rofincrantz, Guildenstern, Lords, and other Attendants. King.WELCOME, dear Rofincrantz, and Guild enftern! Moreover that we much did long to fee you, I cannot dream of. I entreat you both, That being of fo young days brought up with him, 9 This must be known; which, being kept clofe, might move More grief to hide, than hate to utter, love. i. e. This must be made known to the King, for (being kept fecret) the hiding Hamlet's love might occafion more mifchief to us from him and the Queen, than the uttering or revealing of it will occafion hate and resentment Hanmer reads, So So much as from occafions you may glean, Queen. Good gentlemen, he hath much talk'd of And, fure I am, two men there are not living, Rof. Both your majesties Might, by the fov'reign pow'r you have of us, Guil. But we both obey, And here give up ourselves, in the full bent, King. Thanks, Rofincrantz, and gentle Guildenstern. crantz. And, I beseech you, inftantly to visit My too much changed fon. Go, fome of ye, Guil. Heav'ns make our presence and our practices Pleasant and helpful to him! [Exeunt Rof. and Guil. Queen. Amen. Enter Polonius. Pol. Th' ambaffadors from Norway, my good Lord, Are joyfully return'd. • To shew us so much gentry- -] Gentry, for comWARB. p'aifance. raifed may be completed by the defired effect. 3 in the full bent,] Bent, For the Supply, &c.] That the for endeavour, application. hope which your arrival has WARBURTON. N 2 King. King. Thou still haft been the father of good news. Pol. Have I, my Lord? affure you, my good Liege, I hold my duty, as I hold my foul, Both to my God, and to my gracious King; As I have us'd to do, that I have found King. Oh, fpeak of that, that I do long to hear. [Exit Pol. He tells me, my fweet Queen, that he hath found The head and fource of all your fon's diftemper. Queen. I doubt, it is no other but the main, His father's death, and our o'er-hafty marriage. Re-enter Polonius, with Voltimand, and Cornelius. King. Well, we fhall fift him.Welcome, my good friends! Say, Voltimand, what from our brother Norway? His Nephew's levies, which to him appear'd 4 -the trail of policy-] The 5 the fruit] The dif trail is the courfe of ur animal fert after the meat. perfued by the fcent. It was against your Highness: Whereat griev'd, King. It likes us well; And at our more confider'd time we'll read, Mean time, we thank you for your well-took labour. Go to your Reft; at night we'll feast together. Moft welcome home! [Exeunt Ambaf. Pol. This bufinefs is well ended. 'My liege, and Madam, to expoftulate Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee ;] This reading first obtain'd in the edition put out by the players. But all the old quarto's (from 1605, downwards) read, as I have reform'd the text. THEOB. 7 at night we'll fe ft] The King's intemperance is never fuffered to be forgotten. 8 My Lie e, and Madam, to expoftulate] The ftrokes of humour in this fpeech are admirable. Polonius's character is What What Majefty should be, what duty is, And how exquifitely does the poet ridicule the rofoning in fafhion, where he makes Polonius remark on Hamlet's madness; Though this be madnef, yet there's method in't : As if method, which the wits of that age thought the moft effential quality of a good difcourfe, would make amends for the madnefs. It was madness indeed, yet Polonius could comfort himself with this reflexion, that at least it was mith d. It is certain Shake ear excels in nothing more than in the prefervation of his characters; To this life and ariety of character (fays our great post in his admirable preface to Shakespear) we must aid the wonderful prefervation of it. We have faid what is the character of Polonius; and it is allowed on all hands to be drawn with wonderful life and fpirit, yet the unity of it has been thought by fome to be grofly violated in the excellent precepts and inftructions which Shakespear makes his ftatef man give to his fon and fervant in the middle of the fift, and beginning of the fecond ad. But 1 will venture to fay, thefe criticks have not entered into the poet's art and addrefs in this particular. He had a mind to ornament his scenes with thofe fine leffons of focial life; but his Polonius was too weak to be the author of them, tho' he was pedant enough to have met with them in his reading, and fop encugh to get them by heart, and retail them for his own. And this the poet has finely fhewn us was the cafe, where, in the middle of Polonius's inftructions to his fervant, he makes him, tho' without having received any interruption, forget his lesson, and fay, And then, Sir, docs be this; He does what was I about to say? I was about to fav Some king? where did I leave ?. The fervant replies, At, clofes in the confequence. This fets Polonius right, and he goes on, At, clofes in the confequence. He clofes thus I know the gentleman, &c. which fhews they were words got by heart which he was repeating. Otherwife clofes in the confequence, which conveys no particular idea of the fubje&t he was upon, could never have made him recollect where he broke off. This is an extraordinary inftance of the poet's art, and attention to the prefervation of Character. WARE. This account of the character of Polonius, though it fufficiently reconciles the feeming inconfiftency of fo much wifdom with fo much folly, does not perhaps correfpond exactly to the ideas of our authour. The commentator makes the character of Polonius, a character only of manners, difcriminated by properties fuperfi cial, accidental, and acquired. The |