Rosin. I thinke their Inhibition comes by the meanes of the late Innouation?[10]
[Footnote 1: A genuine description, so far as it goes, of the state of Hamlet's mind. But he does not reveal the operating cause—his loss of faith in women, which has taken the whole poetic element out of heaven, earth, and humanity: he would have his uncle's spies attribute his condition to mere melancholy.]
[Footnote 2: —said angrily, I think.]
[Footnote 3: —a ready-witted subterfuge.]
[Footnote 4: came alongside of them; got up with them; apparently rather from Fr. côté than coter; like accost. Compare 71. But I suspect it only means noted, observed, and is from coter.]
[Footnote 5: —with humorous imitation, perhaps, of each of the characters.]
[Footnote 6: —the man with a whim.]
[Footnote 7: This part of the speech—from [7] to [8], is not in the Quarto.]
[Footnote 8: Halliwell gives a quotation in which the touch-hole of a pistol is called the sere: the sere, then, of the lungs would mean the opening of the lungs—the part with which we laugh: those 'whose lungs are tickled a' th' sere,' are such as are ready to laugh on the least provocation: tickled—irritable, ticklish—ready to laugh, as another might be to cough. 'Tickled o' the sere' was a common phrase, signifying, thus, propense.
1st Q. The clowne shall make them laugh That are tickled in the lungs,]