king's time, there seems a manliness and honesty in the old counsellor's undue fears and harsh commands being so free from any plots for catching the prince, as the finest match the land can afford his daughter.

On Ophelia's part, we have the indifference with which she had replied to her brother's impertinences, exchanged for timid yet earnest anxiety in defending her love,—or rather Hamlet's love, for she forgets herself, to her father. Her answers are all in the fewest, simplest words: when Polonius, with most unnecessary harshness demands

What is between you? give me up the truth :—

she relates the matter in the way that it most naturally presents itself to her loving and trusting heart:—

He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

And then when Polonius, with his sneers and violence at the notion of such a thing as affection, has brow-beaten the frightened girl into uttering the timid

I do not know, my lord, what I should think

she regains her courage to add

My lord, he hath importun'd me with love,
In honourable fashion :—

hoping that this assurance of the honourable intentions of her lover may give to her father's mind that satisfaction which her heart had found in the conviction that Hamlet's tenders were really the tenders of his affection.' But when even her additional confirmation

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With all the vows of heaven :

is treated with fresh scorn, followed finally by an express charge from her father never henceforth to hold even a moment's private conversation with Hamlet, she simply replies,

I shall obey, my lord.

PORTRAIT OF A PERFECT WOMAN.

43

How few and slight are the touches of the artist here, and yet what a perfect portrait of a perfect woman they present us with! Innocence, simplicity, tenderness, quietness, modesty, gentleness, patience, self-forgetfulness, trust, affection deep though still, and obedience, which knows how to sacrifice the woman's inclinations, hopes, nay love itself, to the daughter's duty, though obedience not unsustained nor unrewarded, we may be sure, by the sense that, in the sacrifice which it thus consummates, love finds in death only a truer and purer life; all these, united in, and making up, a character which is free from all those strongly-marked features, those muscular developments, which are as much defects in a woman as they are merits in a man,—all these we have before us, in Ophelia.

ACT I, SCENE 4.-The criticism of Coleridge on this and the following scene is too long to extract, too full of thought to abridge, and too perfect for any meaner band to presume to imitate it. Commending it to the reader's study, I will notice a few other points. In Hamlet's speech, just before the entrance of the Ghost, he shows, in speaking of the national vice of drunkenness, his love of country, and the fineness both of his moral and intellectual perceptions, which are alike shocked by gross animal indulgence. Then he begins to generalize:

So, oft it chances in particular men,

That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners; that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,)

Shall in the general censure take corruption

From that particular fault: The dram of ill
Doth all the noble substance of a doubt,*

To his own scandal.

Observe how the course of his thoughts and words, which was so clear in the former part of his speech, becomes obscure when he passes from practical statement and remark, to philosophical reasoning. Deeper thoughts, and more of them, than can find an adequate and orderly expression in words, pour themselves out, just as in mountainous countries a clear brook will sometimes, by a sudden rush of waters from above, change in a few minutes into a swollen and turbulent torrent, too large for its channel. Observe too how Hamlet's generalizations are really drawn from the excessive brooding over his own character and circumstances, and only afterwards applied to the men and things about him. It is plainly he himself who is the original of this his description of the man in whom either nature or circumstances have unduly developed some one tendency of the character, to the injury of the proper and rational balance and harmony of the whole; and who, in consequence of this one defect for which he is not responsible, and should be rather pitied than blamed, is looked on with disparagement by the world, however excellent all his other qualities may be. Coleridge has not noticed how exactly this description agrees with his own estimate and explanation of Hamlet's character, and the unobserved coincidence is a strong confirmation, if any can be needed, of the true insight of the great critic.

On the entrance of the Ghost-immediately that there is something to be done-Hamlet's dreamy abstractedness changes into practical energy: he sees at once what is to

* This it appears is the genuine text: the editors all adopt Steevens's conjectural emendation "often dout," i. e. often do out, quench. But the old text seems to me better: the noble substance is not quenched or destroyed, but 'soiled,' 'o'er-leavened,'' corrupted,' and so its proper excellence brought into doubt.

HAMLET, AFTER SEEING THE GHOST.

45

be done, and does it without hesitation, while the coolheaded and practical men are all fear and doubt.

ACT I, SCENE 5.—I have already spoken of the Ghost at so great length, that I will only observe here how thoroughly ghostly his demeanour and speeches are, while yet every word marks the king, the father, and the husband,—just noticing the father's love, pride, and complacency, shown in such little phrases as 'thy young blood,'' thou noble youth,' and the frequent appeals to Hamlet by name: the dignity and delicacy of the husband's faith and affection, as well as the recognition of the reverence due from the son to the mother, displayed in the manner in which he speaks of his queen, unworthy as she has proved herself to be: and lastly that reliance upon the power of conscience which none have but the great and good:

But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act,

Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

The mind of the man who has seen a ghost,—that is, who has brooded over his own thoughts and feelings till they have in spectral forms intruded themselves into the place of the objects of the actual world,-is in a hazardous state. It is tottering and reeling, it sways from side to side like a tree in a storm, and each time that it over-passes the line of healthful equipoise of the faculties, there is reason to apprehend that the still remaining inherent elasticity and conservative force may be insufficient to recover it. Every word and act of Hamlet in this scene, from the exit of the Ghost, shows this to be his state. His head is, as he says himself, distracted; his words are wild and hurling;' he tries to relieve his over-strained mind by passing from the terrific to the ludicrous, taking out his note book to make a memorandum that a man may

smile and smile, and be a villain, at least in Denmark;' answering his friends with a falconer's hillo; and interrupting the solemnity of swearing secresy with jokes at the 'fellow in the cellarage,' and the old mole that works i' the ground so fast. "A sort of cunning bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium: for you may, perhaps, observe that Hamlet's wildness is but half false; he plays that subtle trick of pretending to act only when he is very near really being what he acts." I know an instance (and probably it is the usual course) in which one of the great London physicians who devote themselves to the treatment of insanity, was called in to a person whose mind was giving way, and one of whose delusions was that of seeing spirits, and his first words to his patient "You are becoming deranged; you must make an effort to exert your reason and controul your feelings, or you will speedily be mad." And this is now Hamlet's only chance, if he can still keep the mastery of himself, by the force of his strong reason. And that he does keep it hereafter, though not without occasional aberrations, we must refer to that same aiding influence of religion which had already restrained him from suicide,* and which now prompts him to sum up the present state of things with

were,

I will go pray :

For mine own poor part,

and which we shall see re-appearing at the last crisis of his life.

Hamlet had, as usual, shown his practical energy in taking steps to secure the secresy of his friends: but then the matter of revenging his father's death, (the proper manner and means of effecting which the Ghost had left utterly vague) comes back upon him, and he shrinks from

*Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.