e would have him.]

[Footnote 6: The gallants of Shakspere's day would challenge each other
to do more disagreeable things than any of these in honour of their
mistresses.

'_Esil._ s.m. Ancien nom du Vinaigre.' _Supplement to Academy Dict._,
1847.--'Eisile, _vinegar_': Bosworth's _Anglo-Saxon Dict_., from
Somner's _Saxon Dict._, 1659.--'Eisel (_Saxon), vinegar; verjuice; any
acid_': Johnson's _Dict_.

_1st Q_. 'Wilt drinke vp vessels.' The word _up_ very likely implies the
steady emptying of a vessel specified--at a draught, and not by
degrees.]

[Footnote 7: --pretending care over Hamlet.]

[Footnote 8: Emphasis on _Be_, which I take for the _imperative mood_.]

[Footnote 9: The moment it is uttered, he recognizes and confesses to
the rant, ashamed of it even under the cover of his madness. It did not
belong _altogether_ to the madness. Later he expresses to Horatio his
regret in regard to this passage between him and Laertes, and afterwards
apologizes to Laertes. 252, 262.

Perhaps this is the speech in all the play of which it is most difficult
to get into a sympathetic comprehension. The student must call to mind
the elements at war in Hamlet's soul, and generating discords in his
behaviour: to those comes now the shock of Ophelia's death; the last tie
that bound him to life is gone--the one glimmer of hope left him for
this world! The grave upon whose brink he has been bandying words with
the sexton, is for _her_! Into such a consciousness comes the rant of
Laertes. Only the forms of madness are free to him, while no form is too
strong in which to repudiate indifference to Ophelia: for her sake, as
well as to relieve his own heart, he casts the clear confession of his
love into her grave. He is even jealous, over her dead body, of her
brother's profession of love to her--as if any brother could love as he
loved! This is foolish, no doubt, but human, and natural to a certain
childishness in grief. 252.

Add to this, that Hamlet--see later in his speeches to Osricke--had a
lively inclination to answer a fool according to his folly (256), to
outherod Herod if Herod would rave, out-euphuize Euphues himself if he
would be ridiculous:--the digestion of all these things in the retort of
meditation will result, I would fain think, in an understanding and
artistic justification of even this speech of Hamlet: the more I
consider it the truer it seems. If proof be necessary that real feeling
is mingled in the madne