plicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature: for any thi: g so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one, must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,-and heard others praise, and that highly,—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of christians, nor the gait of christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellow'd, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

He moreover recites, memoriter, a long and intricate passage from an old play, on the catastrophe of Priam when he fell into the hands of the bloody and inexorable Pyrrhus. In the whole, therefore, of his proceedings with the players there appears not the most distant semblance of madness.

This deportment must be allowed to have been in direct hostility with the plan he had formed, and to have betrayed extreme inconsistency.

But the case of the queen is still more striking and forcible than that of all the rest of the dramatis personæ. As Hamlet's principal object must have been to deceive the king, it was highly essential for that purpose to keep the queen in ignorance of the real state of his mind, and of his views. But in the whole of the extended dialogue with her, every pretence of madness is discarded. Every line teems with wholesome, sound advice, perfectly suited to her situation. Neither Sherlock, nor Blair, nor Massillon, could have argued with more intelligence, acuteness, or conviction. Indeed, he not only does not affect madness, but he most explicitly disclaims all pretence to it, and most earnestly labours to convince his mother of the perfect sanity of his mind.

Ham. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness

That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks;~
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue:
For, in the fatness of these pursy times,

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg;

Yea, curb, and woo, for leave to do him good.

This was most completely tearing off the mask, and totally abandoning an awkward contrivance, by no means calculated, under the very best management, to answer the purpose he had in view. It was morally certain, that she would directly reveal the communication to the king, whose guilty conscience would suggest means of freeing himself from the danger of his situation.

But Hamlet's imprudence carries him a step further. He has, in some manner that does not appear in the tragedy, discovered the plot laid for his destruction in England, and reveals this knowledge to the queen, thus inexpressibly increasing the difficulties by which he was surrounded, and still further awakening the jealousy of his enemies.

Ham. I must to England; you know that?

Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.

Ham. There's letters seal'd: and my two school-fellows,

Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For 'tis the sport to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar: and it shall go hard,

But I will delve one yard below their mines,

And blow them at the moon:-O, 'tis most sweet,

When in one line two crafts directly meet!

It is not easy to define exactly the character of mind displayed in the treatinent of Polonius by Hamlet. Pure madness it certainly is not. There is, it must be confessed, occasionally a tincture of a certain something, that wears the semblance of derangement. But the most predominant features are, a paltry attempt at wit, and a rude and indelicate kind of sarcasm, from which the age and rank

of Polonius ought to have protected him. Had it been intended to impose on him an idea that the prince was really insane, the course pursued was very far indeed from bearing strong marks of sagacity.

Ham. My lord, you play'd once i' the university, you say?

Pol. That I did, my lord: and was accounted a good actor.
Ham. And what did you enact?

Pol. I did enact Julius Cæsar: I was killed in the capitol;-Brutus kill'd me. Ham. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.—Be the players ready?

This, to some readers, may appear very witty. But by every correct mind it must be regarded as a most miserable attempt at punning, combined with a brutal outrage upon the feelings of a man incapable of resenting the injury.

Again on another occasion:

Pol. What do you read, my lord?

Ham. Words, words, words!

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here, that old men have gray beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber, and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

This procedure was not, as I have already stated, calculated to carry on the deception which Hamlet had begun. But even admitting for a moment that it had been, how can it be reconciled to a good heart-a clear head-or to the excellent character lavished on Hamlet by the critics generally? He was, by his elevated rank, in a great measure, if not altogether, protected from the resentment or vengeance of those whom he injured or insulted. Was it then decent-was it decorous-nay, was it not dishonourable, for a person thus intrenched by "the sanctity of high dignity," to offer outrage to the feelings of any man, and more particularly of one in the wane of life, whose age, as far as we can infer from the drama, was his only offence? This circumstance, of itself, would have secured him kindness and attention from any magnanimous mind, far from exposing him to the keen and biting jeers and sarcasms VOL. IV..

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which he uniformly experienced whenever he encountered a prince who is preposterously styled

"The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

"The glass of fashion, and the mould of form."

I come now to the conduct of Hamlet to Ophelia. To do justice to the subject, it is necessary to bear constantly in mind the relative situation of the parties. The one was a prince, the other a lady of high rank, of the most unblemished reputation, and of such exquisite sensibility that she was easily driven to madness. She loved him to distraction; and, after she had been hurried to a premature grave, probably by his conduct, he professed to have most ardently loved her:

Forty thousand brothers

"Could not, with all their quantity of love,

"Make up my sum."

There is more appearance of madness in his deportment towards her, than can be extracted from all the rest of the tragedy together. It is, however, more visible in her description of his conduct than in any thing that passes before the audience:

Oph. My, lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd;
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look, so piteous in purport,

As if he had been loosed out of hell,

To speak of horrors,-he comes before me.

Pol. Mad for thy love?

Oph. My lord, I do not know;

But, truly, I do fear it.

Pol. What said he?

Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard:

Then goes he to the length of all his arm;

And, with his other hand thus o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face,

As he would draw it. Long staid he so;

At last a little shaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He raised a sigh so piteous and profound,

As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,

And end his being: that done, he lets me go,
And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd,

He seem'd to find his way without his eyes;
For out o'doors he went, without their helps,
And, to the last, bended their light on me.

In this detail, there appears a complete simulation of madness, and nothing that detracts from the respect due to the lady, or that commits either the head or the heart of Hamlet.

His conversation with her, as it takes place on the stage, is broken, disjointed, and irregular; occasionally, and not unfrequently, disgraced by the grossest indecency. The dialogue between them, previous to the commencement of the mock tragedy, contains some allusions as licentious perhaps as are to be found in any drama written by Farquhar, Congreve, or Wycherley. It is better adapted to the tenant of a stew, addressing one of the votaries of the Cyprian deity, than to a prince addressing a court belle.

What would be the consequence, were any man even in the middle walks of life, at present, to address a female of his own rank, in a large circle, in such an indecent style? The good sense of the gentlemen present would rise up in judgment against him, and he would inevitably be expelled the company with disgrace-perhaps with chastisement.

For the obscene allusions and expressions used by Hamlet, I must refer the reader to the drama itself, as originally penned. I dare not quote them here. But of the rudeness and want of feeling manifested in his treatment of Ophelia, I submit a few specimens.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?

Oph. My lord?

Ham. Are you fair?

Oph. What means your lordship?

Ham. That, if you be honest, and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty.

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into its likeness: this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.

Again

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them