mare excessively affected than persons of a more reserved and inflexible constitution. Yet, by thus giving vent to their inquietude, they find relief, while those of a taciturn humour are the victims of unabating pain: and the reason is, that the emotion, raised to its highest extreme, can no longer continue equally violent, and so subsides. In cases of this nature, that is, when emotions, by being expressed, become excessive, the mind passes from general reflections to minute and particular circumstances: and imagination, the pliant flatterer of the passion in power, renders these circumstances still more particular, and better adapted to promote its vehemence. In the foregoing lines the reflections are general; but, in these that follow, they become particular; and the emotion waxing stronger, the imagination, by exhibiting suitable images, and by fitting to its purpose even the time between the death and the marriage, renders it excessive.

That it should come to this!

But two months dead! nay, not so much; not two:
So excellent a king, that was, to this,

Hyperian to a satyr! So loving to my mother,

G

That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.

The emotion grows still more vehement, and overflows the mind with a tide of corresponding images.

Heaven and earth!

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite hid grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month

6

Observe too, that Hamlet's indignation is augmented gradually, by admiration of his father, So excellent a king;' by abhorrence of Claudius, That was, to this, Hyperion to a Satyr;' and, finally, by a stinging reflection on the Queen's inconstancy:

Why, she would hang on him,

As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: and yet, within a month

This affects him so severely, that he strives to obliterate the idea.

Let me not think on't

By this effort he loses sight, for a moment,

of the particular circumstances that gave him pain. The impression, however, is not entirely effaced; and he expresses it by a general reflection.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

This expression is too refined and artificial for a mind strongly agitated: yet, it agrees entirely with such a degree of emotion and pensiveness as disposes us to moralize. Considered as the language of a man violently affected, it is improper: considered in relation to what goes before and follows after, it appears perfectly natural. Hamlet's laboured composure is imperfect; it is exceedingly transient; and he relapses into deeper anguish. Though he turned aside from a painful idea, he was unable to remove the impression, or vary in any considerable degree his state of mind: the impression remained, and restored the idea in its fullest vigour.

A little month; or ere those shoes were old,
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears-Why, she, even she—
O heaven ! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,

Would have mourn'd longer-married with my uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.

It is also observable, that, in consequence of the increasing violence of his emotion, the time so dexterously diminished from two months, to a little month, and to even less than a little month, is rendered as it were visible by allusions and circumstances so striking, as to have in themselves a powerful tendency to stimulate and augment his anguish.

Or ere those shoes were old,

With which she follow'd my poor father's body, &c.

And again:

Within a month

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing on her galled eyes—

She married!

The crisis of his agitation, heightened to its extremity, is strongly marked in the following exclamation:

Oh, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

The observation following immediately after, is that of a mind reflecting, with some composure, on effects and consequences.

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

Hamlet, in his retirement, expresses his agony without reserve, and by giving it utterance he receives relief. In public he restrains it, and welcomes his friends with that ease and affability which are the result of polished manners, good sense, and humanity. Influenced by an exquisite sense of propriety, he would do nothing unbecoming*: he therefore suppresses every emotion which others cannot easily enter into: he strives, as much as possible, to bring the tone of his own mind into unison with theirs ; he not only conceals his internal affliction, but would appear unconcerned: he would seem sprightly, or at least cheerful: he even jests with his friends; and would have his conversation, though graceful, appear easy and familiar. Yet in his demeanour we discover a certain air of pensiveness and so

* Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments.