Next, the abrupt exclamation, "Now to my word."
And finally, the dictating, to the pen, the express words of the last line of the ghost's speech.
In point of fact, the best possible stage direction is given by Shakspeare himself, when he makes Hamlet exclaim, "Now to my word," or, now to my memorandum, reverting to the purpose for which he had got his tables forth. In the old reading, Steevens was driven to explain "now to my word" in this way, "Hamlet alludes to the watchword given every day in military service."
It is of the more importance that this point, raised by me, should be fairly and impartially examined, because, being in correction of alleged misinterpretation, its decision must have some influence upon a right discrimination of the character of Hamlet's madness, as opposed to the deduction drawn by Coleridge. In taking it into consideration, the following alterations in the existing punctuation must be premised:—
After "set it down," a full stop; after "and be a villain," a note of admiration; the stage direction "(writing)" to be removed two lines lower down.
A. E. B.
Leeds.
FOLK LORE.
Burning Fern brings Rain.
—In a volume containing miscellaneous collections by Dr. Richard Pococke, in the British Museum, MS. Add. 15,801, at fol. 33. is the copy of a letter written by Philip Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain, to the Sheriff of Staffordshire, which illustrates a curious popular belief of the period, from which even the king was not free. It is as follows: