count that the least show of perfect sense and wisdom that Hamblet should make, would be sufficient to cause him to lose his life; and therefore by certain signs he gave Hamblet intelligence into what danger he was likely to fall, if by any means he seemed to obey, or once like the wanton toys and vicious provocations of the gentlewoman sent thither by his uncle; which much abashed the prince, as then wholly being in affection to the lady." The result was that the prince deceived the courtiers, who "assured themselves that without doubt he was distraught of his senses."

The failure of this plot was succeeded by a new experiment. It was thought that an unrestrained expression of his natural feelings might be anticipated from Hamlet in an interview with his mother, and a proper knowledge of his real character and views could be obtained by one concealed under the arras for the purpose of overhearing the conversation. But the wariness of Hamlet was not inferior to the craft of his enemies. Entering the chamber with his customary air of folly, he began to crow like a cock, beating his arms against the hangings in imitation of that bird's action with his wings. Feeling something stir behind the arras, he cried "A rat! a rat!" and drawing his sword thrust it through

the concealed spy, whose body he cut in pieces and cast into a vault. Returning to the chamber, Hamlet replied, in an authoritative tone, to the lamentations of the queen who bewailed her son's unhappy loss of intellect, justly upbraiding her shameless licentiousness, and characterising in the worst of colours a woman who could wantonly embrace the brother and murderer of her husband.

Fengon now lived in daily apprehension of meeting the same fate that had overtaken the courtier spy; and resolving to get rid of Hamlet at once, despatched him with letters to the king of England containing secret solicitations to put the prince immediately to death. "But the subtle Danish prince (being at sea), whilst his companions slept, having read the letters, and knowing his uncle's great treason, with the wicked and villainous minds of the two courtiers that led him to the slaughter, razed out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, with commission to the king of England to hang his two companions; and not content to turn the death they had devised against him upon their own necks, wrote further, that king Fengon willed him to give his daughter to Hamblet in marriage." Every thing fell out as Hamlet desired; his attendants were

executed, and himself was betrothed to the English princess. After a twelvemonths' residence in the British court, he returned to Denmark, and revenged himself on his enemies; first intoxicating his uncle's courtiers, and then setting fire to the banquet-hall where their senses were absorbed in drunken sleep. He next rushed into the apartment of Fengon, and gave "him such a violent blowe upon the chine of his neck, that he cut his head clean from the shoulders." Hamlet now discarded the cloak of folly in which he had hitherto disguised his intellect, and, convening an assembly of the nobility, explained and justified his conduct. Pity for his misfortunes, and indignation at the cruelty of his oppressor, were the sentiments of every bosom; and the title and dignity of king were conferred on Hamlet by the unanimous voice of the assembly.

Devoid of interest itself, and entirely unconnected with the drama, the remainder of the Danish prince's history may well be spared; while an attempt is made to extract from more promising passages a clue to the interpretation of one of the most debated, and perhaps, after all, least understood, of Shakspeare's dramatic portraits.

The character of Hamlet, complicated, and apparently contradictory, will be divested of

much ambiguity by separating its natural from its artificial qualities, and both from those features which were induced by circumstances. The innate goodness of his heart, and the glowing warmth of his affections speak in his reverence to the memory of his father, his manly friendship for Horatio, and his tender attachment to Ophelia. What greater proof can be required of the refinement and high-toned morality of his mind, than the impassioned enforcement of his admonitions on the queen to abjure her disgusting association with his uncle? Let Hamlet's awful reverence of the Great Supreme, his reflections on man, and his admiration of the works of nature, testify the philosophic turn of his mind; let his mental accomplishments, his excursive inquisitiveness, his acute penetration, be estimated by his observations on an infinity of unconnected and dissimilar subjects; and, in glancing back on the whole, it will perhaps be found, that in his natural disposition Hamlet combined almost every quality that can elevate man into dignity.

Hamlet was yet young* when his mind re

* The first scene of the fifth act makes Hamlet exactly thirty years by computation; but I much doubt whether Shakspeare seriously thought of these matters, and there

A

ceived a shock from the death of his father, the depravity of his mother, and the wreck of his own fortunes, which the tremulous sensitiveness of his nature was incapable of resisting. morbid melancholy preyed upon his heart: his views of life were clouded. Doubts assailed him; and, in endeavouring to disentangle himself by the efforts of reason, he became perplexed in a maze of uncertainty, which deprived him of the power of action in a moment that demanded the most vigorous exertion. The operation of external causes modified, without essentially chang ing, Hamlet's character: he is still an amiable, reflecting, philosophic being, though the bril liancy of his virtues and the powers of his understanding are obscured. He yields himself a prey to unavailing sorrow, neglectful of his duties, unthankful for his existence, weary of the world, and disgusted with his fellow-creatures. Hence his regrets that his corporeal substance could not "resolve into a dew," that he was forbid by a canon of the Almighty to put a period at once to his sorrows and his life; and

fore prefer following his first idea, that of representing Hamlet a mere youth "going back to school in Wittenberg," Act I. sc. 2.