I ask myself whether Virgil's "Rerum Pulcherrima" may not mean "Fairest of Things"--of Creatures--of earthly existences? To a young English reader, probably that is the first impression. It was, I think, mine. But fairest of earthly States and Seats of State is so much more idiomatic and to the purpose, that I conceive it--indubitable. NORTH. You all remember what Horatio sayeth to the soldiers in Hamlet, on the coming and going of the Ghost. 'In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; Stars shone with trains of fire, dews of blood fell; Disasters veiled the sun, and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse.' What does Horatio mean by high and palmy state? That Rome was in a flourishing condition? BULLER. That, I believe, sir, is the common impression. Hitherto it has been mine. NORTH. Let it be erased henceforth and for ever. BULLER. It is erased--I erase it. NORTH. Read henceforth and for ever high and palmy State. Write henceforth and for ever State with a towering Capital. RES! "Most high and palmy State" is precisely and literally "_Rerum Pulcherrima_." SEWARD. At your bidding--you cannot err. NORTH. I err not unfrequently--but not now, nor I believe this evening. Horatio, the Scholar, speaks to the two Danish Soldiers. They have brought him to be of their watch because he is a Scholar--and they are none. This relation of distinction is indeed the ground and life of the Scene. "Therefore I have entreated him, along With us to watch the minutes of the night; That if again this apparition come, He may approve our eyes, and speak to it." TALBOYS. "Thou art a Scholar--speak to it, Horatio." NORTH. You know, Talboys, that Scholars were actual Conjurors, in the mediæval belief, which has tales enow about Scholars in that capacity. Horatio comes, then, possessed with an especial Power; he knows how to deal with Ghosts--he could lay one, if need were. He is not merely a man of superior and cultivated intellect, whom intellectual inferiors engage to assist them in an emergency above their grasp--but he is the _very_ man for the work. TALBOYS. Have not the Commentators said as much, sir? NORTH. Perhaps--probably--who? If they have in plenitude, I say it again--because I once did not know it--or think of it--and I suppose that a great many persons die believing that the Two resort in the way of general dependence merely on Horatio. TALBOYS. I believed, but I shall not die believing so. NORTH. Therefore, the scholarship of Horatio, and the non-scholarship of Bernardo and Marcellus, strikes into the life, soul, essence, ground, foundation, fabric, and organisation of this First Ghost Scene--sustain and build the whole Play. TALBOYS. Eh? NORTH.