_Crants_ therefore was the original word, which the author, discovering it to be provincial, and perhaps not understood, changed to a term more intelligible, but less proper. _Maiden rites_ give no certain or definite image. He might have put _maiden wreaths_, or _maiden garlands_, but he perhaps bestowed no thought upon it, and neither genius nor practice will always supply a hasty writer with the most proper diction. V.i.310 (323,6) When that her golden couplets] [W: E'er that] Perhaps it should be, _Ere yet_-- _Yet_ and _that_ are easily confounded. V.ii.6 (324,7) mutinies in the bilboes] _Mutinies_, the French word for seditious or disobedient fellows in the army or fleet. _Bilboes_, the _ship's prison_. V.ii.6 (324,8) Rashly,/And prais'd be rashness for it--Let us know] Both my copies read, --Rashly, _And prais'd be rashness for it_, let _us know_. Hamlet, delivering an account of his escape, begins with saying, that he _rashly_--and then is carried into a reflection upon the weakness of human wisdom. I rashly--praised be rashness for it--_Let us_ not think these events casual, but _let us know_, that is, _take notice and remember_, that we sometimes succeed by _indiscretion_, when we _fail_ by _deep plots_, and infer the perpetual superintendance and _agency_ of the _Divinity_. The observation is just, and will be allowed by every human being who shall reflect on the course of his own life. V.ii.22 (325,9) With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life] With _such causes of terror_, arising from my character and designs. V.ii.29 (325,2) Being thus benetted round with villainies,/ Ere I could make a prologue to my brains] [W: mark the prologue ... bane] In my opinion no alteration is necessary. Hamlet is telling how luckily every thing fell out; he groped out their commission in the dark without waking them; he found himself doomed to immediate destruction. Something was to be done for his preservation. An expedient occurred, not produced by the comparison of one method with another, or by a regular deduction of consequences, but before he _could make a prologue to his brains, they had begun the play_. Before he could summon his faculties, and propose to himself what should be done, a complete scheme of action presented itself to him. His mind operated before he had excited it. This appears to me to be the meaning. V.ii.41 (326,5) As peace should still her wheaten garland wear,/ And stand a comma 'tween their amities] HANMER reads, _And stand a_ cement-- I am again inclined to vindicate the old reading.