IV.ii.32 (282,7) Of nothing] Should it not be read, Or nothing?  When the courtiers remark, that Hamlet has contemptuously called the king a thing, Hamlet defends himself by observing, that the king must be a thing, or nothing.

IV.ii.46 (283,9) the wind at help] I suppose it should be read, The bark is ready, and the wind at helm.

IV.ii.68 (284,3) And thou must cure me:  till I know ’tis done,/ Howe’er my haps, my joys will ne’er begin] This being the termination of a scene, should, according to our author’s custom, be rhymed.  Perhaps he wrote,

  Howe’er my hopes, my joys are not begun.

If haps be retained, the meaning will be, ’till I know ’tis done, I shall be miserable, whatever befall me (see 1785, VIII, 257, 3)

IV.iv.33 (286,4)

  What is a man,
  If his chief good and market of his time
  Be but to sleep and feed?]

If his highest good, and that for which he sells his time, be to sleep and feed.

IV.iv.36 (286,5) large discourse] Such latitude of comprehension, such power of reviewing the past, and anticipating the future.

IV.iv.53 (286,6) Rightly to be great,/Is not to stir without great argument] This passage I have printed according to the copy.  Mr. THEOBALD had regulated it thus: 

  —­’Tis not to be great,
  Never to stir without great argument;
  But greatly, &c.

The sentiment of Shakespeare is partly just, and partly romantic.

  —­Rightly to be great,
  Is not to stir without great argument;

is exactly philosophical.

  But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
  When honour is at stake,

is the idea of a modern hero. But then, says he honour is an argument, or subject of debate, sufficiently great, and when honour is at stake, we must find cause of quarrel in a straw.

IV.iv.56 (287,7) Excitements of my reason and my blood] Provocations which excite both my reason and my passions to vengeance.

IV.v.37 (289,4) Larded all with sweet flowers] The expression is taken from cookery. (1773)

IV.v.53 (290,6) And dupt the chamber-door] To dup, is to do up; to lift the latch.  It were easy to write,

  And op’d—­

IV.v.58 (290,7) By Gis] I rather imagine it should be read,

  By Cis,—­

That is, by St. Cecily.

IV.v.83 (291,8) but greenly] But unskilfully; with greenness; that is, without_ maturity_ of judgment.

IV.v.84 (291,9) In hugger-mugger to inter him] All the modern editions that I have consulted give it,

  In private to inter him;—­

That the words now replaced are better, I do not undertake to prove; it is sufficient that they are Shakespeare’s:  if phraseology is to be changed as words grow uncouth by disuse, or gross by vulgarity, the history of every language will be lost; we shall no longer have the words of any author; and, as these alterations will be often unskilfully made, we shall in time have very little of his meaning.