tation to tread "the path of dalliance" by the side of her whom he loves. Shakespeare only allows us a glimpse-but what a vivid one it is of the fearful struggle that must have gone on in Hamlet's mind before he resolved to give up his love, in that beautiful description which Ophelia gives her father of Hamlet's strange visit to her. He could not, it seems, trust himself to speak a word, but his actions, as she describes them, tell us all that we need know. In the future which lies before him there is no room for love or marriage. Whether he succeeds or whether he fails in the duty supernaturally enjoined him, he will succeed or fail alone. Ophelia must have clearly understood that this strange silent interview was meant by Hamlet to be their last; and she may well be forgiven for lending herself as she undoubtedly does in the first scene of the third act, however some commentators may try to deny the fact-to an innocent deception, which she believes may aid in at once restoring her lover to reason and to her. It is absolutely necessary, in order to understand that scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, to recognize this fact; that, suspicious as he then is of all around him, Hamlet is convinced, on evidence which would be sufficient even for a more dispassionate mind, that Ophelia has sought that interview, not of her own accord, but at the instigation of those whom Hamlet naturally looks upon as his worst enemies. Thus there comes to him the second great disillusion of his life, more terrible if possible than that which shattered the image of his mother cherished from childhood. For he now learns that she, whom he loved with a love which inspired that bitter cry by the side of her grave (see v. 1. 292-294), is leagued with his enemies, at least so far that she does not scruple to lend herself as an instrument of deception, and as the bait of a trap which they have laid for him. Henceforth there is one being, and one only, in all the world whom Hamlet feels that he can trust, namely, Horatio; and in him his trust remains unshaken to the end.

In the great soliloquy, which concludes the second act, Hamlet shows how clearly he is sensible of his own weakness. He distrusts

even his father's ghost, and, for a short time at least, entertains the idea that the spirit he has seen "may be the devil," who has imposed upon his weakness and his melancholy disposition. One expression in this soliloquy is very remarkable, and that is where Hamlet, comparing his inactivity with the emotion shown by the player in reciting the sufferings of Hecuba, does not say "I can do nothing," but "I can say nothing." Even now he shrinks from any action, till the Ghost's word has been confirmed by the device of the play. After the success of that experiment he declares that he has no longer any doubt; yet the very next moment he has an opportunity of killing the king when on his knees and unprepared for any attack. The reasons, which Hamlet assigns for not killing Claudius then, are couched in what one cannot but call repulsive language; but the fact is that they are not his real reasons at all. His nature shrinks from the wild justice of revenge; to him an assassination is always an assassination; and therefore he spares Claudius at that moment; though, scarce half an hour afterwards, he does not hesitate to stab him, as he believes, through the arras behind which he thinks that his uncle is concealed. He has worked himself up to such a state of mental exaltation that when he finds his mistake, and that it is Polonius and not Claudius whom he has killed, he does not at the moment feel any remorse; his energies are all concentrated on the first real action which he is about to take in obedience to the command of his father's spirit. This action, if it can be called so, is to be performed by words rather than by deeds. He has resolved to make a bold attempt to awaken his mother's conscience; and the reappearance of the Ghost, while he is engaged in this, serves to confirm him in the idea, of which he has shown some trace in the scene with Ophelia, that he is appointed by heaven as an instrument of vengeance. After the excitement of the scene with his mother, reaction sets in. He weeps over the body of Polonius; and submits without a struggle to the King's command which sends him away to England; though by doing so it would seem, at first sight, that he puts it for ever out of

his power to punish his father's murderer. It was, perhaps, because Shakespeare felt this that he introduced the final part of act iii. scene 4 (lines 177-217). For there Hamlet distinctly states to his mother (lines 200-210), that he knew there was some plot against him in sending him to England. This affected knowledge of his uncle's intended treachery may have been only suspicion; but there is another reason for Hamlet falling in with his uncle's plan; if he remained in Denmark he might have to answer for the death of Polonius.

The careful reader will observe that, after his interview with his mother, his conduct is much more outrageous towards Claudius. His assumption of insanity is more marked, and he is quite reckless as to what language he uses towards the King. It is also most noticeable that from this time, especially after his interview with the captain of Fortinbras's "lawless resolutes," much of the irresolution of his character disappears. The remarkable soliloquy, suggested by the sight of the young Norwegian prince's force on its march, ends with the words

O, from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! -iv. 4. 65, 66. This resolution Hamlet certainly fulfils. He loses no time, according to the account he gives Horatio, in securing himself against the treachery of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and providing, most cleverly, for their substitution in his place as victims of the king's treachery. When the pirates take possession. of the ship, instead of philosophizing in the background, Hamlet is in the very front of the action, and so is taken prisoner. When Horatio tells him that the king must soon learn from England the trick that has been played him, Hamlet's answer is, "The interval is mine." In fact, from being a man of mere words, he has now become a man of action. No doubt Shakespeare was indebted more or

1 Perhaps the real meaning of line 211 in that scene, This man shall set me packing,

is that Hamlet recognizes the fact that his rashness, in killing Polonius, has left him no choice as to his going to England.

less to the old history of Hamlet, whether in the form of a play or in that of a story, for the incidents in the latter part of his own tragedy; but still we are justified in supposing that he adopted those incidents deliberately; for the design of the play shows far too much thought and care to admit of the theory that the character of Hamlet was not presented to his mind as a consistent whole, consistent in its very inconsistencies. It is true that Hamlet allows an interval, as it were, to take place in the fencing bout with Laertes; and that he treats Claudius, both in the hypocritical letter he sends him after being set on shore by the pirates, and throughout what may be called the prologue to the fencing scene, with an almost exaggerated courtesy. His innate aversion to open violence, which, as shown by his conduct to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, has been overcome so far that he does not mind shedding human blood by proxy, might have caused him still to delay his vengeance against his father's murderer, had not the treachery practised towards himself driven him into sudden action.

As to the objections which are so freely advanced against the slaughter-house aspect of the stage at the end of the play, I cannot but think that they are somewhat superficial; for surely the many deaths which are the result, partly of the crime of Claudius and Gertrude, and partly of Hamlet's own irresolution, point sternly and appropriately the moral of the tragedy. Had Hamlet proceeded directly to the task imposed on him by his father's spirit, many of the lives forfeited would have been spared, and he himself might have succeeded to the throne of Denmark; but it is the very essence of crimes, such as are portrayed in this play, that their consequences are far-reaching, and involve the lives of the innocent, as well as those of the guilty.

The other characters of the play, with the exception of Polonius and Laertes, have not very much individuality, but they serve admirably as contrasts or foils to Hamlet. His great fault is that he is too introspective; he is always trying to take himself to pieces as it were, and to examine the moral machinery

of his nature; to dissect his own soul, to trace every nerve and fibre of its inner and spiritual nature; but those around him in the court of Denmark cannot be accused of holding overmuch converse with their consciences. They take the world just as it comes, and do what those around them do, without ever troubling themselves whether it is right or wrong. Hamlet the elder was a courageous and noble king; his nature, perhaps, was a little too high to be quite appreciated by them, still they appear to have detected that the metal of Claudius had a good deal of alloy in it. But then the latter is king, and, after all, he is a good sort of fellow; he entertains, and does not stint his hospitality; therefore they do not trouble themselves how it was that he came to find himself on his brother's throne and in his brother's bed. Polonius no doubt was a very good servant to the elder brother; but he is not much troubled by the fact that Claudius does not keep the court in mourning quite as long as etiquette, to say nothing of decency, demanded. He serves the younger brother with precisely the amount of laborious vacuity, and short-sighted penetration, which he devoted to the service of the elder. As for Laertes, once the favourite companion and playfellow of the young Hamlet, he is a thorough contrast to his prince. He is essentially a young man of the period, and finds the society of Paris gayer than that of Elsinore. He has any amount of theoretical morality; with amazing self-confidence he can read his sister lectures upon prudence and chastity, but to the practical exposition of such precepts he evidently does not devote much of his time or energy. At any rate, his moral principles do not rest on a very firm basis; and when Claudius proposes to him to take advantage of an apparently friendly contest with Hamlet, and so assassinate him, he is in no way shocked at the proposition; but, with admirable presence of mind, remembers that he has a poison, with which to make his treacherous work more certain. But still he was, from a certain point of view, not a bad sort of son and brother; and had he been in Hamlet's place he would, doubtless, have fulfilled the Ghost's injunctions with greater alacrity,

and the tragedy would have been in one or two, instead of in five acts. Horatio is quite a different type of man, poor, and, though brought up in the atmosphere of a court, no sycophant; devoid almost, as it would seem, even of ambition, but loyal to the bottom of his heart; one who knew how to respect his prince without servility, and to love his friend without adulation. Of the other male characters Fortinbras is a mere sketch. He serves as a contrast, suggested more than carried out, to Hamlet, representing as he does the restless active nature that never weighs the consequences of any action. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are admirable portraits of the conventional courtier. They are as like one another as two pieces of Italian paste cut out by the same stamp. They are loyal to the king for the time being, whoever he may be; and are always ready to give proof of their loyalty by doing promptly any dirty action that royalty may bid them do.

1

With regard to the female characters, the Queen is an excellent type of those women who are wax in the hands of any strongminded man, but whose honour rests upon a foundation of sand that a passing puff of passion can overthrow; kind-hearted, averse to cruelty, and affectionate enough if they can only make up their minds where their affection is to be placed. Such women drift into crime, because they never look inside themselves, but always at the outside. Ophelia 1 has been shamefully maligned by some critics, who, following Goethe's utterly false and sensuous picture of her, have failed to see the beautiful picture of purity that Shakespeare has drawn in her character. It is only necessary to read what Shakespeare has written about her, and not what some critics may say he has written, to perceive that, though there may be traces of weakness about her, she has not lost her honour; but that she was justly entitled to her "virgin crants," and to the reverence that such a simple, innocent, and loving nature should inspire in a man.

1 Any reader, who wishes to see the whole question of Ophelia's chastity argued at length, may be referred to my Study of Hamlet.-See Appendix D, pp. 128–151.

THE RELATIONS OF HAMLET AND OPHELIA.1

There is one deep note in this play of "Hamlet" which sounds through all the discords of fate, love, and ambition. This note is Hamlet's profound affection for his father. In no literature is there any filial devotion which surpasses that. It is outraged by the beloved father's murder and by the mother's frailty; it is tortured by doubt and irresolution; it is the motive and the cue for the passion which wrecks Ophelia's hopes and ruins her life.

If we do not bear this in mind, Hamlet's conduct in the last interview with the unhappy girl becomes inexplicable, and may easily be assigned to that insanity which is the simplest but most unsatisfactory solution of the problem. In this scene, perhaps, the actor has the most difficult task in the whole range of the drama. He has to present the conflict in Hamlet's soul so clearly that it shall connect itself in the minds of the audience with the whole train of thought which precedes it, instead of seeming the brutal outbreak of a mere madman. So grave is the difficulty of interpretation that I am anxious, in the interests of any young actor who may undertake it, that playgoers should think out the story before they see the tragedy.

Let us remember that the terrible duty which has been laid upon Hamlet by the spirit of his dead father forces him to wipe away from the tablets of his brain all “trivial, fond records," for in a soul doomed to be the avenger of "a dear father murdered," there is no room for the love of woman. Was it not a woman, too, who was the cause of this appalling crime? What crime? "What evidence," reasons Hamlet with himself, "what evidence have I to sustain my story? The testimony of a visitor from another world! With a disclosure made only to me-for nobody else heard it. Who will believe it? Who will believe such witness to the justice of my

1 From the President's Annual Address to the Wolverhampton Literary and Scientific Society, delivered by Henry Irving, 19th February, 1890.

vengeance?" Should Hamlet revenge himself upon his father's murderer, he will appear to the people of Denmark just what he charges Claudius with being a murderer -and the people will wreak their vengeance upon him. Distracted by doubt, he is actually contemplating suicide when he is disturbed by the approach of Ophelia, and on this innocent victim of destiny, who had been the idol of this sweet prince's heart-by a process familiar in human experience-all the elements in his mental struggle are at once concentrated with overwhelming force, spurred, too, by the suspicion that she is privy to the eaves-dropping of her father and Claudius.

How remove it? It is impossible. His whole nature

In all Hamlet's assumptions of mental wandering he is greatly aided by the excitability of his temperament. His emotions are always ready to carry him away, and his wild imaginings easily lend themselves to the maddest disguises of speech. A flash of volition may often be the exponent of a chain of thought, and perhaps the action of Hamlet's mind was somewhat after this manner: He feels the woe of Ophelia and his own. He writhes under the stigma of heartlessness which he cannot but incur. How wipe away the stain? Cursed then be the cause. surges up against it-the incestuousness of this king; the havoc of illicit passion, which has killed his noble father, wrecked his fairest hopes, stolen from him his mother's lovenay, robbed him even of the maternal idea, which remains to many a man in unblemished purity and even sweetness, long after a breach has taken place between his mother and himself. His (Hamlet's) mother was once fair and honest, honest as Ophelia now. Is Ophelia honest? Impossible to think otherwise. But it were a mad quip to ask her, and let the after dialogue take its own course. Take what course it will, it must dwell on the one subject which will harden Hamlet's heart, and give rigour to his nature. Thus comes the paradox:

Hamlet. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Ophelia. My lord!
Hamlet. Are you fair?

Ophelia. What means your lordship?

Hamlet. That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. Ophelia. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Hamlet. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.

Hamlet's mother's beauty had been her snare. Her honesty had fallen a victim to her beauty. Let beauty and honesty therefore-here was the stroke of mad exaggeration-have no discourse.

Hamlet. I did love you once.

Ophelia. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. Hamlet. You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it.

The thought underlying this is one of almost peevish aggravation of the root-grievance cankering in the speaker's mind: "I am nothing but vicious. You should not have believed me. My old stock-that is, the vice I had from my mother-would so contaminate all that was honest in my nature, or all the good I might have got through my intercourse with you, would be so polluted by the overpowering bad impulses in me that you had better not have known me-infinitely better not have loved me." And then with a wild "bolt," as it were, he utters the words that may most sharply end all-"I loved you not." This is the surgeon's knife for such complaints, and many a man has used it coolly and callously. But such men were not Hamlets. He uses it more in frenzy than in judgment, in an agony of pain, amid a thousand fond remembrances, but dominated by the one conviction that he must break with Ophelia, cost what it may. His instincts were accurate, though his temperament was not calculating, and the impetus of necessity drove him, in that moment of miserable stress, to use words which could not have been more ruthlessly and effectually chosen by the most cold-blooded of deceivers.

There is nothing more pitiable, tender, or forlorn, in the whole range of the drama, than Ophelia's reply: "I was the more deceived."

These are her last voluntary words, except her ejaculations of prayer that Heaven may help and restore her lover; but these do not come till further wild and whirling words have convinced her that it is with a madman she is talking. For the moment it is enough that she is abandoned, and the past repudiated. Her heart is wrecked. She incoherently answers the one question Hamlet puts to her

"Where's your father?"-and gazes and listens in frozen horror to the tirades which he has now worked himself up to deliver.

But his words are not devoid of sequence, nor is their harshness untouched with sympathy. "Get thee to a nunnery." Where else, but in such a sanctuary, should so pure a being be sheltered? Where else could Ophelia so well escape the contamination on which her lover's mind was still running? The next lines, violent, self-accusing, cynical, almost gross in their libel of humanity, are probably uttered in desperate and yet restrained anxiety to snatch at and throw to the heart-pierced maiden some strange, morbid consolation, but without giving her any faint shadow of the one solace which he so well knows would be all-sufficing. It is neither necessary nor possible to suppose that all this was deliberately thought out by Hamlet. At such moments as he was passing through, the high pressure of a forcible mind carries it over the difficulties in its course, and as truly so when the leaps and bounds seem without system as when the progress is more regular. But for any purpose of comfort, how utterly is this without effect! Mute is Ophelia, and after his burst of self-concondemning, man-condemning fury, her lover is mute also.

Let us imagine them thus together, when suddenly Hamlet remembers-there is no need for him to have any reminder-the hidden presence of the king. He sharply asks Ophelia, "Where's your father?" How shall we interpret her reply?

Her words are, "At home, my lord." How comes she to say this? If she had known her father and the king were behind the arras, as you know in this play they are supposed to be, she might still have made the same