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As for Meffieurs D'Alembert and Marmontel, they might fafely be paffed over with that neglect which their impotence of criticifm deferves. Voltaire, in fpite of his natural difpofition to vilify an English poet, by adopting fentiments, characters, and fituations from Shakspeare, has bestowed on him involuntary praise. Happily, he has not been difgraced by the worthlefs encomiums or disfigured by the aukward imitations of the other pair, who follow in the chafe not like hounds that hunt, but like those who fill up the cry." When D'Alembert declares that more sterling fenfe is to be met with in ten French verfes than in thirty English ones, contempt is all that he provokes,-fuch contempt as can only be exceeded by that which every fcholar will exprefs, who may chance to look into the profe tranflation of Lucan by Marmontel, with the vain expectation of difcovering either the fenfe, the fpirit, or the whole of the original. STEEVENS.

I formerly thought that the lines which have given rife to the foregoing obfervations, were extracted from fome old play, of which it appeared to me probable that Chriftopher Marlowe was the authour; but whatever Shakspeare's view in producing them may have been, I am now decidedly of opinion that they were written by himself, not in any former unfuccefsful piece, hut exprefsly for the play of Hamlet. It is obfervable that what Dr. Warburton calls "the fine fimilitude of the ftorm," is likewife found in our poet's Venus and Adonis.

The levity of behaviour which Hamlet affumes immediately after the difappearance of the ghoft in the first act, [fc. v.] has been objected to; but the writer of fome fenfible Remarks on this tragedy, published in 1736, juftly obferves, that the poet's object there was, that Marcellus "might not imagine that the ghost had revealed to Hamlet fome matter of great confequence to him, and that he might not therefore be fufpected of any deep defign."

"I have heard (adds the fame writer,) many persons wonder, why the poet should bring in this ghoft in complete armour.-I think thefe reafons may be given for it. We are to confider, that he could introduce him in thefe drefles only; in his regal drefs, in a habit of interment, in a common habit, or in fome fantaftick one of his own invention. Now let us examine, which was most likely to affect the fpectators with paffions proper on the occafion.

"The regal habit has nothing uncommon in it, nor surprising, nor could it give rife to any fine images. The habit of interment was fomething too horrible; for terror, not horror, is to be raised in the fpectators. The common habit (or babit de ville, as the French call it,) was by no means proper for the occafion. It remains then that the poet should choofe fome habit from his own brain: but this certainly could not be proper, because invention in fuch a cafe would be fo much in danger of falling into the grotesque, that it was not to be hazarded. "Now as to the armour, it was very fuitable to a king who is defcribed as a great warrior, and is very particular; and confequently affects the spectators without being fantaftick.

"The king fpurs on his fon to revenge his foul and unnatural murder,

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from thefe two confiderations chiefly; that he was fent into the other world without having had time to repent of his fins, and without the necellary facraments, according to the church of Rome, and that confequently his foul was to fuffer, if not eternal damnation, at leaft a long courfe of penance in purgatory; which aggravates the circumftances of his brother's barbarity; and fecondly, that Denmark might not be the scene of ufurpation and inceft, and the throne thus polluted and profaned. For thefe reafons he prompts the young prince to revenge; eife it would have been more becoming the character of fuch a prince as Hamlet's father is reprefented to have been, and more fuitable to his prefent condition, to have left his brother to the divine punishment, and to a poffibility of repentance for his bafe crime, which, by cutting him off, he must be deprived of.

"To conform to the ground-work of his plot, Shakspeare makes the young prince feign himfelf mad. I cannot but think this to be injudicious; for to far from fecuring himfelf from any violence which he feared from the ufurper, it seems to have been the most likely way of getting himself confined, and confequently debarred from an opportunity of revenging his father's death, which now feemed to be his only aim; and accordingly it was the occafion of his being fent away to England; which defign, had it taken effect upon his life, he never could have revenged his father's murder. To fpeak truth, our poet by keeping too close to the ground-work of his plot. has fallen into an abfurdity; for there appears no reason at all in nature, why the young prince did not put the ufurper to death as foon as poffible, especially as Hamlet is reprefented as a youth fo brave, and fo careless of his own life. "The cafe indeed is this. Had Hamlet gone naturally to work, as we could fuppofe fuch a prince to do in parallel circumftances, there would have been an end of our play. The poet therefore was obliged to delay his hero's revenge: but then he should have contrived fome good reafon for it.

"His beginning his feenes of Hamlet's madness by his behaviour to Ophelia, was judicious, becaufe by this means he might be thought to be mad for her, not that his brain was disturbed about state affairs, which would have been dangerous.

"It does not appear whether Ophelia's madness was chiefly for her father's death, or for the lofs of Hamlet. It is not often that young women run mad for the lofs of their fathers. It is more natural to fuppofe that, like Chimene in the Cid, her great forrow proceeded from her father's being killed by the man fhe loved, and thereby making it indecent for her ever to marry him.

"Laertes's character is a very odd one; it is not eafy to fay whether it is good or bad: but his confenting to the villainous contrivance of the ufurper's to murder Hamlet, makes him much more a bad man than a good one. It is a very nice conduct in the poet to make the ufurper build his fcheme upon the generous unfufpicious temper of the perfon he intends to murder, and thus to raise the prince's character by the confeffion of his enemy; to make the villain ten times more odious from his own mouth. The contrivance of the foil unbated (i.e.

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without a button,) is methinks too grofs a deceit to go down even with a man of the most unfufpicious nature.

"Laertes's death and the queen's are truly poetical juftice, and very naturally brought about, although I do not conceive it so easy to change rapiers in a fcuffle without knowing it at the time. The death of the queen is particularly according to the strictest rules of poetical justice; for the lofes her life by the villainy of the very person, who had been the caufe of all her crimes.

"Since the poet deferred fo long the Ufurper's death, we must own that he has very naturally effected it, and fill added fresh crimes to thofe the murderer had already committed.

"Upon Laertes's repentance for contriving the death of Hamlet, one cannot but feel fome fentiments of pity for him; but who can fee or read the death of the young prince without melting into tears and compaffion? Horatio's earnest defire to die with the prince, thus not to furvive his friend, gives a ftronger idea of his friendship for Hamlet in the few lines on that occafion, than many actions or expreffions could poffibly have done. And Hamlet's begging him to draw bis breath in this barsh world a little longer, to clear his reputation, and manifeft his innocence, is very fuitable to his virtuous character, and the honest regard that all men fhould have not to be mifreprefented to pofterity; that thay may not fet a bad example, when in reality they have fet a good one: which is the only motive that can, in reason, recommend the love of fame and glory.

"Horatio's defire of having the bodies carried to a ftage, &c. is very well imagined, and was the best way of fatisfying the request of his deceafed friend: and he acts in this, and in all points, fuitably to the manly honest character, under which he is drawn throughout the piece. Befides, it gives a fort of content to the audience, that though their favourite (which must be Hamlet) did not efcape with life, yet the greatest amends will be made him, which can be in this world, viz. justice done to his memory.

"Fortinbras comes in very naturally at the clofe of the play, and lays a very just claim to the throne of Denmark, as he had the dying voice of the prince. He in a few words gives a noble character of Hamlet, and ferves to carry off the deceafed hero from the stage with the honours due to his birth and merit." MALONE.

OTHELLO.

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