Theobald's note from Warburton, who conjectures "plethory."

I rather think that Shakespeare meant "pleurisy," but involved in it the
thought of _plethora_, as supposing pleurisy to arise from too much blood;
otherwise I cannot explain the following line--

"And then this _should_ is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing."

In a stitch in the side every one must have heaved a sigh that "hurt by
easing."

Since writing the above I feel confirmed that "pleurisy" is the right
word; for I find that in the old medical dictionaries the pleurisy is
often called the "plethory."

_Ib._--

"_Queen._ Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

_Laer._ Drown'd! O, where?"

That Laertes might be excused in some degree for not cooling, the Act
concludes with the affecting death of Ophelia,--who in the beginning lay
like a little projection of land into a lake or stream, covered with
spray-flowers, quietly reflected in the quiet waters, but at length is
undermined or loosened, and becomes a faery isle, and after a brief
vagrancy sinks almost without an eddy!

Act v. sc. 1. O, the rich contrast between the Clowns and Hamlet, as two
extremes! You see in the former the mockery of logic, and a traditional
wit valued, like truth, for its antiquity, and treasured up, like a tune,
for use.

_Ib._ sc. 1 and 2. Shakespeare seems to mean all Hamlet's character to be
brought together before his final disappearance from the scene;--his
meditative excess in the grave-digging, his yielding to passion with
Laertes, his love for Ophelia blazing out, his tendency to generalise on
all occasions in the dialogue with Horatio, his fine gentlemanly manners
with Osrick, and his and Shakespeare's own fondness for presentment:--

"But thou wouldst not think, how ill all's here about my heart:
but it is no matter."

"Macbeth."

"Macbeth" stands in contrast throughout with _Hamlet_; in the manner of
opening more especially. In the latter, there is a gradual ascent from the
simplest forms of conversation to the language of impassioned
intellect,--yet the intellect still remaining the seat of passion: in the
former, the invocation is at once made to the imagination and the emotions
connected therewith. Hence the movement throughout is the most rapid of
all Shakespeare's plays; and hence also, with the exception of the
disgusting passage of the Porter (Act ii. sc. 3), which I dare pledge
myself to demonstrate to be an interpolat