tables,—meet it is I set it down."

This line (which might have suggested to our worthy patron, Captain Cuttle, the posy on our title-page) has, in my opinion, been misapplied and misinterpreted; and, as I am unable to convince myself that the view I take of it, albeit in opposition to all other readers of Shakspeare, is wrong, I venture to remove my light from under the bushel, although in so doing am sorely in dread of its being rudely puffed upon.

The more so, because the natural hesitation which must be felt, in any case, when challenging for the first time the correctness of a generally received reading, is, in this instance, greatly augmented, by finding that an illustrious commenter upon Shakspeare—himself a great and congenial poet—has conferred a special approbation upon the old reading, by choosing it out as an item in his appreciation of Hamlet's character.

I allude to Coleridge, whose remark is this:

"Shakspeare alone could have produced the vow of Hamlet, to make his memory a blank of all maxims and generalised truths that 'observation had copied there,' followed immediately by the speaker noting down the generalised fact—

"'That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.'

"Now, that this last line is really what Shakspeare intended to be noted down, is precisely the point that goes so much "against the stomach of my sense!"

This jotting down by Hamlet, upon a real substantial table, of one of those "generalised truths" which he had just excluded from the table of his memory, would be such a literalising of the metaphor, that it is a great relief to me to feel convinced that Shakspeare never intended it.

In Hamlet's discourse there may be observed an under current of thought that is continually breaking forth in apostrophe. In the present instance it is directed to his uncle:

Is not all this one continued apostrophe? The second line an admirative comment upon the first, and the fourth line, even in the present day, a common exclamation expressive of misdeeds, or intentions, unexpectedly brought to light? But it is not this most trite reflection, in the second line, that Hamlet wishes to set down. No, it is the all-absorbing commandment:

Set it down, in order that the exact words of the commandment—subsequently quoted to the very letter—may be preserved.

To suppose that Hamlet gets forth his tables for the purpose of setting down a common-place truism, because he has reserved no place for such matters in the table of his memory, is surely to materialise a fine poetical image by contrasting it with a substantial matter of fact operation.

And to suppose, with Coleridge, that the very absurdness of the act is a subtle indication of incipient madness, is an over refinement in criticism, as intenable as it is unnecessary.

Hamlet evinces no semblance of unsettled mind, real or assumed, until joined by Horatio and Marcellus; and, even then, his apparently misplaced jocularity does not commence until he has finally determined to withhold the secret he had twice been on the point of disclosing:

Again:

I do not know whether I am singular in the view I take of these two sentences, but I understand them as inchoate disclosures, suddenly broken off through the irresolution of the speaker.

For instance, I do not understand the last, as Horatio understood it—"There needs no ghost from the grave to tell us this;" but I understand it as an intended revelation, begun, withdrawn, and cleverly turned off by the substitution of a ridiculous termination. It is then, when Hamlet finally resolves to withhold the secret, at least from Marcellus (when or where Horatio afterwards acquires it, is not explained), that he seeks to conceal his overwrought feelings by assumed levity.

Such is the way I read this scene; and, while I freely admit the difficulty presented in the fact, that, amongst so many acute students of Shakspeare, no one before should have seen any difficulty in the usual interpretation of this passage, I must at the same time declare, that I can perceive no single point in favour of that interpretation, save and except the placing of the "stage direction" where it now is. But this may have arisen from the early printers being misled by the apparent sequence of the word "that," with which the next line commences:

It may be observed, however, that such a commencement, to a sentence expressive of wonder or incredulity, was by no needs uncommon. As, for example, in the first scene of Cymbeline:

I really can perceive little else than this "stage direction" to favour the usual reading, while, in that proposed by me, the sequence of action appears to be the most natural in the world:—

First, "My tables, my tables," &c.

Next, the continuation of the interrupted apostrophe, which occupies the time while getting forth and preparing the tables.

Next, the abrupt exclamation, "Now to my word."

And finally, the dictating, to the pen, the express words of the last line of the ghost's speech.

In point of fact, the best possible stage direction is given by Shakspeare himself, when he makes Hamlet exclaim, "Now to my word," or, now to my memorandum, reverting to the purpose for which he had got his tables forth. In the old reading, Steevens was driven to explain "now to my word" in this way, "Hamlet alludes to the watchword given every day in military service."

It is of the more importance that this point, raised by me, should be fairly and impartially examined, because, being in correction of alleged misinterpretation, its decision must have some influence upon a right discrimination of the character of Hamlet's madness, as opposed to the deduction drawn by Coleridge. In taking it into consideration, the following alterations in the existing punctuation must be premised:—

After "set it down," a full stop; after "and be a villain," a note of admiration; the stage direction "(writing)" to be removed two lines lower down.

A. E. B.

Leeds.

FOLK LORE.

Burning Fern brings Rain.

—In a volume containing miscellaneous collections by Dr. Richard Pococke, in the British Museum, MS. Add. 15,801, at fol. 33. is the copy of a letter written by Philip Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, to the Sheriff of Staffordshire, which illustrates a curious popular belief of the period, from which even the king was not free. It is as follows:

"Sr.—His Majesty taking notice of an opinion entertained in Staffordshire, that the burning of Ferne doth draw downe rain, and being desirous that the