269 Hamlet] Thirlby (1723-): “I am persuaded Mr Pope left this word out [Hamlet] without any authority, notwithstanding wt he says in his preface, only to help the verse, which was well enough before & better than it is now.”

269 Hamlet]

269 Hamlet]

268-88a Thirlby (1747-), about the king’s admonitory speech, perhaps responding to Warburton’s designation of this as a shining passage, comments: “fitter for sermon than a stage play.”

268-99 Gentleman (ed. 1773), having cut 276b-288a, 292-8, says, “Here again, as written, the King was unpardonably prolix.”

268-9, 272 Seymour (1805, 1:6-7): <p. 6>“It is plain that the hypermeter in the </p. 6><p. 7> first and fourth lines has been impertinently or carelessly obtruded, and that the verse ran thus:(b) ‘’Tis sweet and commendable in you, Hamlet, . . . That father his, and the survivor bound,’ &c.

“The last of these lines, indeed, Pope very properly corrected. But let us proceed, and see if we can rationally associate such crudities with the mellow harmony of what follows [quotes 272b - 288a].”

<n.b, 1:19> Lofft (1805, 1:19): “It is not improbable that the poet himself might have introduced the word which is here rejected; and that the line, at first, stood thus: ‘’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature.’

“But when, upon revisal, he judged it fitting to insert “Hamlet,” it was, doubtless, to follow that the word ‘Nature,’ with the possessive termination of the pronoun, was to be expunged.’ C. Lofft.” </n.b, 1:19>

268-9 Seymour (1805, 2:145): “The hypermeter here was probably occasioned by the poet’s having altered the expression, without expunging what he meant to omit; or else by the transcriber’s resolution to retain the old word, while he inserted the new; the line at first might have been—‘‘Tis commendable in your nature, Hamlet.’

“The desire of more animation, perhaps, suggested the epithet ‘sweet,’ and, what the author undoubtedly would have expunged, might, by haste or ignorance, have been retained . . . .”

268 commendable] Delius (ed. 1854): “Sh. kennt das Wort in doppelter Accentuation: cómmendable und comméndable.” [Sh could accent the word in two ways, either cómmendable or comméndable.]

269 Hamlet] Tschischwitz (1868, apud Furness, ed. 1877): “The names of persons addressed are very frequently not counted in the number of feet in a verse.”

268 commendable] Abbott (§ 490), in “Words in which the accent is nearer the end than with us,” states that the pronunciation of “comménd | able” in MV 1.1.111 (119) “shows how we must scan ‘’Tis swéet and | comménd | able ín | your ná | ture, Hamlet.’” See also § 497, “Apparent Alexandrines.”

268 commendable] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “has the accent on the first syllable, as in [Cor. 4.7.51 (3142)]. It has the accent on the second in [MV 1. 1. 111 (119)].”

268 commendable] Schmidt (1854) lists only MV 1.1.111 (119) with “perhaps” an accent on the second syllable.

268 commendable]

269 Hamlet]

268-99 Meikeljohn (ed. 1880): “Observe that the king, being in an artificial and self conscious state of mind all through the play, employs Latin words, a pompous diction, and elaborate phrases. Feeling that he was the cause of all this sorrow, it was simply impossible that he should be able to use the simple and natural words that would be fit for the occasion. This speech is full of words which S. has used only here—and once—in all his plays.”

268 commendable] Meikeljohn (ed. 1880): “with the accent on the first syllable. S. uses the word eight times, and only once with the accent on the second syllable.”

268-88 Trench (1913, p. 51) comments on the king’s astuteness in appealing to Ham.’s behavior in ethical and religious terms.

268-9 Travers (ed. 1929), contrary to Abbott (see above), says, “According to the usual mode of scansion the line is an Alexandrine, ending in something like suspense.“

268 sweete] Travers (ed. 1929) “(then more freely used than now . . .) lovable, as showing lovingness.”

268-91 Granville-Barker (1930, rpt. 1946, 1: 51): The king, responding to Hamlet’s Seems speech [257-67], “expert at an argument, and still admirably calm and kindly, then delivers a veritable sermon, which both sets us questioning what sort of nature can be hidden beneath such banal piety, and shows—this is at once plain—that, clever as he may be, he quite misconstrues Hamlet, or he would not, surely, treat him in his sorrow to such frigidities as ’For what we know . . . . death of fathers’ [280-7 ] or, very certainly, ask him for consolation to ’think of us . . . throne . . .’ [289-91]. ”

268-90 Tis sweete . . . as of a father] Knight (1930, p.37): “Now throughout the first half of the play Claudius is the typical kindly uncle, besides being a good king. His advice to Hamlet about his exaggerated mourning for his father’s death is admirable common sense . . . .”

268 commendable] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "Accented on the first syllable."

268-99 van Lennep (1959, p. 11): creates a version of the king without a single redeeming feature. “The would-be-ingratiating-suave-and-gracious-king’s long effusion, his fatuous, unctuous grandiloquence, as pompous as it is unmoving, evokes no response.”

Ed. note: A sharp contrast to the views of Knight and Kittredge.

268 commendable] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(accented on the first syllable).”

268 commendable] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “The stress on the first syllable was normal usage.”

268 commendable] Edwards (ed. 1985): "The main accent falls on the first and not the second syllable."

268 commendable] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "accented on the first syllable."

268-99 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “The King’s speech against ’obstinate condolement’ is echoed in a different vein in Feste’s ’catechism’ of Olivia in TN 1.5.63-9.”

268 commendable] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “The stress is on the first syllable.”