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Ib.—

“The spirit that I have seen,

May be a devil: and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and, perhaps

Out of my weakness, and my melancholy

(As he is very potent with such spirits),

Abuses me to damn me.”

See Sir Thomas Brown:—

“I believe ... that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and villany, instilling and stealing into our hearts, that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander solicitous of the affairs of the world.”—Relig. Med. part. i. sect. 37.

Act iii. sc. 1. Hamlet's soliloquy:—

“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” &c.

This speech is of absolutely universal interest,—and yet to which of all Shakespeare's characters could it have been appropriately given but to Hamlet? For Jaques it would have been too deep, and for Iago too habitual a communion with the heart; which in every man belongs, or ought to belong, to all mankind.

Ib.—

“The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns.”

Theobald's note in defence of the supposed contradiction of this in the apparition of the Ghost.

O miserable defender! If it be necessary to remove the apparent contradiction,—if it be not rather a great beauty,—surely, it were easy to say, that no traveller returns to this world, as to his home, or abiding-place.

Ib.—

“Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?

Oph. My lord?

Ham. Are you fair?”

Here it is evident that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy; and his after speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts for a certain harshness in him;—and yet a wild up-working of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful self-tormenting strain of irony, is perceptible throughout. “I did love you once:”—“I lov'd you not:”—and particularly in his enumeration of the faults of the sex from which Ophelia is so free, that the mere freedom therefrom constitutes her character. Note Shakespeare's charm of composing the female character by the absence of characters, that is, marks and out-juttings.

Ib. Hamlet's speech:—

“I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live: the rest shall keep as they are.”

Observe this dallying with the inward purpose, characteristic of one who had not brought his mind to the steady acting point. He would fain sting the uncle's mind;—but to stab his body!—The soliloquy of Ophelia, which follows, is the perfection of love—so exquisitely unselfish!

Ib. sc. 2. This dialogue of Hamlet with the players is one of the happiest instances of Shakespeare's power of diversifying the scene while he is carrying on the plot.

Ib.—

“Ham. My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?”

(To Polonius.)

To have kept Hamlet's love for Ophelia before the audience in any direct form, would have made a breach in the unity of the interest;—but yet to the thoughtful reader it is suggested by his spite to poor Polonius, whom he cannot let rest.

Ib. The style of the interlude here is distinguished from the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the players by epic verse.

Ib.—

“Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.”

I never heard an actor give this word “so” its proper emphasis. Shakespeare's meaning is—“lov'd you? Hum!—so I do still,” &c. There has been no change in my opinion:—I think as ill of you as I did. Else Hamlet tells an ignoble falsehood, and a useless one, as the last speech to Guildenstern—“Why look you now,” &c.—proves.

Ib. Hamlet's soliloquy:—

“Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such business as the bitter day

Would quake to look on.”

The utmost at which Hamlet arrives, is a disposition, a mood, to do something:—but what to do, is still left undecided, while every word he utters tends to betray