present nothing new to those whose painful duty it is to live with the insane. Hamlet has his days of calmness and his days of excitement; and the presence of different persons affects him differently, and sometimes excessively, of some to contempt and anger, some to ridicule, and some to quieter reflection. In the first interview with the players, Polonius is present, upon whom he exercises his customary jokes; the second interview is with the players only, who know nothing of his suspected malady or of the designs he entertains, and to converse with them is agreeable to him, and even in some degree restorative of mental composure. Scenic performances have been among the intellectual pleasures habitual to him before disturbing interruptions and serious responsibilities came upon him. Occupied with the ordinary duties, and enjoying the refined relaxations of princely life, he might have lived on with an untroubled brain; accomplished, courteous, and kind, an easy ruler, a loving husband, a generous protector of those beneath him, and "loved of the multitude." But his quiet days of scholarship and courtly life have been rudely broken in upon, and

clouds and darkness encompass his future.

For a

time the players make him almost forget the wretchedness the thought of which has unsettled his reason.

Almost immediately after he dismisses the players he sees Horatio. Since Hamlet parted from him so wildly after the scene on the platform, we gather that he had on some occasion entrusted him with the story related by the ghost. He does not now quite maintain the composure observable in his late interview with the players, and he utters protestations of regard with a fervour and fulness which he himself becomes conscious of as being "something too much of this." The idea of what is about to be done agitates him, and he breaks off to say

There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death.
I prithee, when thou seest that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy,

We perceive that still he is harassed by uneasy doubts as to the real nature of the spirit he has seen, and whether it was indeed a spirit of health, or some goblin bringing blasts from hell to delude and defile his soul. To his exhortation to watch his uncle during the acting of the play, Horatio replies with his usual cheerfulness,

Well, my lord,

If he steal aught, the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Whilst they are thus conversing, the king and queen, and Polonius, and Ophelia, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, and other lords attendant, enter; with torches, and music, and the flourishes of trumpets: and then, it must be confessed that Hamlet instantly betrays, or appears at once to feign, an extravagance of manner and language at variance even with the deportment just maintained with Horatio. The real promptings of malady seem at this particular time to be mingled with a wildness affected in order to bewilder the company, or to deceive the king and the court; but the affected wildness is further stimulated by the

ungovernable excitement of a brain too unfeignedly disordered to be made the subservient instrument of a wish merely to seem to be disordered. Part of the wild talk of the prince seems only put on, to tease or to insult the king, or Polonius, but from this he soon passes on to expressions and conduct plainly dictated by a mind which, however cunning, he cannot control.

"How fares our cousin Hamlet," says the king. "Excellent, i'faith," replies Hamlet, "of the cameleon's dish : I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so."-Well may the king rejoin, "I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet, these words are not mine." Then, after some jesting and mockery with Polonius, and some coarseness towards Ophelia, when the pained and patient girl says "You are merry, my lord," he exclaims, "Who, I?" and then gambols off as follows,

HAM. O God! your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.

OPH. Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

HAM. So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and

not forgotten yet! Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year but by 'r lady, he must build churches then or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse; whose epitaph is, For o, for o, the hobby-horse is forgot.

Much of this may readily be allowed to be feigned ; and it is foolish enough; but even amidst this folly his thoughts alight on his mother, on her forgetfulness of the respect due to his dear father's memory, and of those faults in her which led to her second marriage, the event which first unsettled his reason; and flying from this theme, he is soon lost in utter incoherence.

Throughout the whole of the play-scene there is the same vein of craziness in Hamlet's language and deportment. Except his previous conduct toward Ophelia, there is nothing more offensive in Hamlet's expressions than those which he indulges when speaking to her in this scene. Malady and not feigning have appeared to change the refined prince into an indelicate mocker, who addresses a young lady in terms coarser than he would have employed if his controlling respect had not been obscured and his habitual courtesy gone from his mind. In this disordered state he has no apparent