Page 413 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

306 CORRECTION S AN D 4.4.

the most •warlike souldiers of the Low Countreys, Spaine,
England, France, Scotland and Italy, whitest they most
eagerly contended for a barren plot of sand, had as it •were
one common sepulcher, but an eternall monument of their
valour.
The news-pamphlets, the number of which testifies to
the public interest taken in the siege, all insist upon the
terrific struggle, the magnitude of the sacrifice, the
unexampled bravery of those taking part, and the in-
significance and sterility of the little plot of sandy ground
fought for. Perhaps the most interesting testimony is to
be found in a volume of French poems on the siege,
entitled Ostende, 1603 (B.M. press mark 1192. g. 6),
of which the lines
Tout le subiect de ce siege hazardeux
N'est que ce champ infertile et poudreux
give the key-note of the whole. That Sh. had himself
read the earliest news-pamphlet (ent. S.R. Aug. 5,1601)
looks probable from its reference to a man 'very
miraculously saved... upon a piece of a mast' in the
sea outside the town, which seems to have suggested
Sebastian's escape in Tw. Nt. 1. 2.12-14.
36-9. Sure he.. .unused Cf. Bright, p. 70:
Moreover, if a man were double fronted (as the Poets
have fained Ianus)... the same facultie of sighfwould addresse
it selfe to see both before and behind at one instant, which
now it doth by turning.... So the mind, in action wonderful,
and next vnto the supreme maiestie of God, and by a
peculiar maner proceeding from him selfe...of present
things determineth: and that which the eye doth by turning
of the head, beholding before, behind, and on ech side, that
doth the mind freely at once.

4.5.
99-102. The ocean.. .officers Cf. Donne, A Vale-
diction; of the iooke, 1. 25:
Vandals and Goths inundate us.