_State_: _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 1.--Professor Wilson proposed that in the
"high and palmy _state_ of Rome," _state_ should be taken in the sense
of _city_:
"Write henceforth and for ever _State_ with a towering capital.
State, properly republic, here specifically and pointedly means
Reigning City. The ghosts walked in the city, not in the
republic."--Vide "Dies Boreales," No. III., _Blackwood_, August,
1849.
Query, Has this reading been adopted by our skilled Shakspearian
critics?
Coleridge uses _state_ for _city_ in his translation of _The Death of
Wallenstein_, Act III. Sc. 7.:
"What think you?
Say, shall we have the _State_ illuminated
In honour of the Swede?"