Birmingham.
_"Discourse of Reason"_ (Vol. vii., p. 497.).--This phrase, "generally
supposed to be peculiarly Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated in
his quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in Dr. T. Bright's
_Treatise of Melancholy_, the date of which is 1586. In the third page of
the dedicatory epistle there is this sentence:
"Such as are of quicke conceit, and delighted in _discourse of reason_
in naturall things."
Here, then, is another authority against Gifford's proposed "emendation" of
the expression as it occurs in _Hamlet_.