Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cearments? Why the fepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To caft thee up again? What may this mean,

That thou, dead corfe, again, in compleat fteel,
Revifit'ft thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?

Never did the Grecian Mufe of Tragedy relate a tale fo full of pity and terror, as is imparted by the Ghoft. Every circumstance melts us with compaffion; and with what horror do we hear him fay!

GHOST.

But that I am forbid

To tell the fecrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold; whofe lightest word
Would harrow up thy foul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like ftars, start from their spheres,

Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to ftand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:

But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.

All

All that follows is folemn, fad, and deeply affecting.

Whatever in Hamlet belongs to the præ ́ternatural, is perfectly fine; the rest of the play does not come within the subject of this chapter.

The ingenious criticism on the play of the Tempest, published in the Adventurer, has made it unneceffary to enlarge on that admirable piece, which alone would prove our Author to have had a fertile, a fublime, and original genius.

THE

THE

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