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Act ii. sc. 1. Polonius and Reynaldo.

In all things dependent on, or rather made up of, fine address, the manner is no more or otherwise rememberable than the light notions, steps, and gestures of youth and health. But this is almost everything:—no wonder, therefore, if that which can be put down by rule in the memory should appear to us as mere poring, maudlin, cunning,—slyness blinking through the watery eye of superannuation. So in this admirable scene, Polonius, who is throughout the skeleton of his own former skill and statecraft, hunts the trail of policy at a dead scent, supplied by the weak fever-smell in his own nostrils.

Ib. sc. 2. Speech of Polonius:—

“My liege, and madam, to expostulate,” &c.

Warburton's note.

“Then as to the jingles, and play on words, let us but look into the sermons of Dr. Donne (the wittiest man of that age), and we shall find them full of this vein.”

I have, and that most carefully, read Dr. Donne's sermons, and find none of these jingles. The great art of an orator—to make whatever he talks of appear of importance—this, indeed, Donne has effected with consummate skill.

Ib.—

“Ham. Excellent well;

You are a fishmonger.”

That is, you are sent to fish out this secret. This is Hamlet's own meaning.

Ib.—

“Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog,

Being a god, kissing carrion.”

These purposely obscure lines, I rather think, refer to some thought in Hamlet's mind, contrasting the lovely daughter with such a tedious old fool, her father, as he, Hamlet, represents Polonius to himself:—“Why, fool as he is, he is some degrees in rank above a dead dog's carcase; and if the sun, being a god that kisses carrion, can raise life out of a dead dog,—why may not good fortune, that favours fools, have raised a lovely girl out of this dead-alive old fool?” Warburton is often led astray, in his interpretations, by his attention to general positions without the due Shakespearian reference to what is probably passing in the mind of his speaker, characteristic, and expository of his particular character and present mood. The subsequent passage,—

“O Jephthah, judge of Israel! what a treasure hadst thou!”

is confirmatory of my view of these lines.

Ib.—

“Ham. You cannot, Sir, take from me any thing that I will

more willingly part withal; except my life, except my life, except

my life.”

This repetition strikes me as most admirable.

Ib.—

“Ham. Then are our beggars, bodies; and our monarchs, and

out-stretched heroes, the beggars' shadows?”

I do not understand this; and Shakespeare seems to have intended the meaning not to be more than snatched at:—“By my fay, I cannot reason!”

Ib.—

“The rugged Pyrrhus—he whose sable arms,” &c.

This admirable substitution of the epic for the dramatic, giving such a reality to the impassioned dramatic diction of Shakespeare's own dialogue, and authorised too, by the actual style of the tragedies before his time (Porrex and Ferrex, Titus Andronicus, &c.)—is well worthy of notice. The fancy, that a burlesque was intended, sinks below criticism: the lines, as epic narrative, are superb.

In the thoughts, and even in the separate parts of the diction, this description is highly poetical: in truth, taken by itself, that is its fault that it is too poetical!—the language of lyric vehemence and epic pomp, and not of the drama. But if Shakespeare had made the diction truly dramatic, where would have been the contrast between Hamlet and the play in Hamlet?

Ib.—

... “Had seen the mobled queen,” &c.

A mob-cap is still a word in common use for a morning cap, which conceals the whole head of hair, and passes under the chin. It is nearly the same as the night-cap, that is, it is an imitation of it, so as to answer the purpose (“I am not drest for company”), and yet reconciling it with neatness and perfect purity.

Ib. Hamlet's soliloquy:—

“O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” &c.

This is Shakespeare's own attestation to the truth of the idea of Hamlet which I have before