This, it may be added, is the sort of stuff--_incredibile dictu_--that our children have to get by heart; for this Press, be it remembered, practically controls half the English Literature examinations in England. As students know quite well that nine examiners out of ten will set their questions from “the Clarendon Press notes,” it is with “the Clarendon Press notes” that they are obliged to cram themselves. But to continue. Even a well-read man might be excused for not knowing the exact meaning of the following expression:-- “They clepe us drunkards, and with _swinish phrase Soil our addition_.” He turns to the notes, and having been briefly informed that _clepe_ means “call,” and _addition_ “title,” is left to flounder with what he can get out of--“Could Shakespeare have had in his mind any pun upon ‘Sweyn,’ which was a common name of the kings of Denmark?” Another leading characteristic of the _genus_ philologist, we mean the preposterous importance attached by them to the smallest trifles, finds ludicrous illustration in the following note:-- “My father, in his habit, as he lived!” exclaims Hamlet to his mother. This is the signal for:-- “There is supposed to be a difficulty in these words, because in the earlier scenes the Ghost is in his armour, to which the word ‘habit’ is regarded as inappropriate. In the earlier form of the play, as it appears in the quarto of 1603, the Ghost enters ‘in his nightgowne,’ and as the words ‘in the habit as he lived’ occur in the corresponding passage of that edition, it is probable that on this occasion the Ghost appeared in the ordinary dress of the king, although this is not indicated in the stage directions of the other quartos or of the folios.” As a possible solution of this grave difficulty, we would suggest that, as the Ghost was undoubtedly in a very hot place, he might have found his nightgown less oppressive than his armour, and though it would certainly have been more decorous to have exchanged his nightgown for his uniform on revisiting the earth, yet, as the visit was to his wife, he thought perhaps less seriously about his apparel than our editors have done. We have nothing to warrant us in assuming that he was in his “ordinary dress.” The choice must lie between the nightgown and the armour. But a truce to jesting. If any one would understand the opacity and callousness which philological study induces, we would refer them to the note on Hamlet’s last sublime words, “The rest is silence”:-- “The quartos have ‘Which have solicited, the rest is silence.’ The folios, ‘Which have solicited. The rest is silence.’ ‘O, O, O, O. _Dyes._’ If Hamlet’s speech is interrupted by his death it would be more natural that the words ‘The rest is silence’ should be spoken by Horatio.”