t._]

[Footnote 3: Can this indicate any point in the history of English
society?]

[Footnote 4: so fastidious; so given to _picking_ and choosing; so
choice.]

[Footnote 5: The word is to be found in any dictionary, but is not
generally understood. Lord Byron, a very inaccurate writer, takes it to
mean _heel_:

Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,
Tread on each others' kibes:

_Childe Harold, Canto 1. St. 67._

It means a _chilblain_.]

[Footnote 6: Then Fortinbras _could_ have been but a few months younger
than Hamlet, and may have been older. Hamlet then, in the Quarto
passage, could not by _tender_ mean _young_.]

[Footnote 7: 'In what way strangely?'--_in what strange way_? Or the
_How_ may be _how much_, in retort to the _very_; but the intent would
be the same--a request for further information.]

[Footnote 8: Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is,
from what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the
word _ground_ materially.]

[Footnote 9: The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton--but how
naturally and informally--by a stupid joke!--in order a second time, and
more certainly, to tell us Hamlet's age: he must have held it a point
necessary to the understanding of Hamlet.

Note Hamlet's question immediately following. It looks as if he had
first said to himself: 'Yes--I have been thirty years above ground!' and
_then_ said to the sexton, 'How long will a man lie i' th' earth ere he
rot?' We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.]

[Page 236]

_Ham_. Why he, more then another?

_Clo_. Why sir, his hide is so tan'd with his Trade,
that he will keepe out water a great while. And [Sidenote: a will]
your water, is a sore Decayer of your horson dead
body. Heres a Scull now: this Scul, has laine in
[Sidenote: now hath iyen you i'th earth 23. yeeres.]
the earth three and twenty years.

_Ham_. Whose was it?

_Clo_. A whoreson mad Fellowes it was;
Whose doe you thinke it was?

_Ham_. Nay, I know not.

_Clo_. A pestlence on him for a mad Rogue, a
pou'rd a Flaggon of Renish on my head once.
This same Scull Sir, this same Scull sir, was _Yoricks_
[Sidenote: once; this same skull sir, was sir _Yoricks_]
Scull, the Kings Iester.

_Ham_. This?

_Clo_. E'ene that.

_Ham_. Let me see. Alas poore _Yorick_, I knew
[Sidenote: _Ham_. Alas poor