[Footnote 4: to lay down beforehand as postulates.]
[Footnote 5: We may suppose a dash and pause after 'Dutie is'. The meaning is plain enough, though logical form is wanting.]
[Footnote 6: As there is no imagination in Polonius, we cannot look for great aptitude in figure.]
[Footnote 7: The nature of madness also is a postulate.]
[Footnote 8: She is impatient, but wraps her rebuke in a compliment. Art, so-called, in speech, was much favoured in the time of Elizabeth. And as a compliment Polonius takes the form in which she expresses her dislike of his tediousness, and her anxiety after his news: pretending to wave it off, he yet, in his gratification, coming on the top of his excitement with the importance of his fancied discovery, plunges immediately into a very slough of art, and becomes absolutely silly.]
[Footnote 9: It is no figure at all. It is hardly even a play with the words.]
[Page 80]
But farewell it: for I will vse no Art.
Mad let vs grant him then: and now remaines
That we finde out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect;
For this effect defectiue, comes by cause,
Thus it remaines, and the remainder thus. Perpend,
I haue a daughter: haue, whil'st she is mine, [Sidenote: while]
Who in her Dutie and Obedience, marke,
Hath giuen me this: now gather, and surmise.
The Letter.[1] To the Celestiall, and my Soules Idoll, the most beautified Ophelia. That's an ill Phrase, a vilde Phrase, beautified is a vilde Phrase: but you shall heare these in her thus in her excellent white bosome, these.[2] [Sidenote: these, &c]
Qu. Came this from Hamlet to her.