Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare

by David Nichol Smith

He is such a grym syre!—Edit. 1568.

Mr. Upton and some other Criticks have thought it very scholar-like in Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a Sword: but this is for ever met with. For instance, in the Passus primus of Pierce Plowman,

Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes,

And did hem swere on her sword to serue truth euer.

And in Hieronymo, the common Butt of our Author, and the Wits of the time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano,

Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true—

But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,

This very sword, whereon thou took'st thine oath,

Shall be the worker of thy Tragedy!

We have therefore no occasion to go with Mr. Garrick as far as the French of Brantôme to illustrate this ceremony: a Gentleman who will be always allowed the [pg 194] first Commentator on Shakespeare, when he does not carry us beyond himself.