Cour.]
[Footnote B: Here in the Quarto:—
Ham. I dare not confesse that, least I should compare with him in excellence, but to know a man wel, were to knowe himselfe.[32]
Cour. I meane sir for this weapon, but in the imputation laide on him,[33] by them in his meed, hee's vnfellowed.[34]
[Footnote 1: 'in good faith, it is not for manners, but for my comfort I take it off.' Perhaps the hat was intended only to be carried, and would not really go on his head.]
[Footnote 2: The Quarto has not 'at his weapon,' which is inserted to take the place of the passage omitted, and connect the edges of the gap.]
[Footnote 3: So far from having envied Laertes' reputation for fencing, as the king asserts, Hamlet seems not even to have known which was Laertes' weapon.]
[Footnote 4: laid down—staked.]
[Footnote 5: This and the following passages seem omitted for curtailment, and perhaps in part because they were less amusing when the fashion of euphuism had passed. The good of holding up the mirror to folly was gone when it was no more the 'form and pressure' of 'the very age and body of the time.']
[Footnote 6: of great variety of excellence.]