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then he seemed fit for nothing but to make sport to the pages and ruffling courtiers that attended in the court of his uncle and father-inlaw. But many times he did divers actions of great and deep consideration, and often made such and so fit answers, that a wise man would soon have judged from what spirit so fine an invention might

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"Hamblet likewise had intelligence in what danger he was like to

fall, if by any means he seemed to obey, or once like the wanton toys and vicious provocations of the gentlewoman sent to him by his uncle; which much abashed the prince, as then wholly being in affection to the lady; but by her he was likewise informed of the treason, as being one that from her infancy loved and favored him, and would have been

exceeding sorrowful for his misfortune.

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"Among the friends of Fengon there was one that, above all the rest, doubted of Hamblet's practices in counterfeiting the madman. His device to entrap Hamblet in his subtleties was thus-that King Fengon should make as though he were to go some long voyage concerning affairs of great importance, and that in the meantime Hamblet should be shut up alone in a chamber with his mother, wherein some other should secretly be hidden behind the hangings, there to stand and hear their speeches, and the complots by them to be taken concerning the accomplishment of the dissembling fool's pretense; and withal offered himself to be the man that should stand to hearken and

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bear witness of Hamblet's speeches with his mother. This invention

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"Meantime, the counselor entered secretly into the queen's chamber, and there hid himself behind the arras, not long before the queen and Hamblet came thither, who, being crafty and politic, as soon as he was within the chamber, doubting some treason, used his ordinary manner of dissimulation, and began to come like a cock, beating with his arms (in such manner as cocks use to strike with their wings) upon the hangings of the chamber; whereby, feeling something stirring under them, he cried, "A rat! a rat!" and presently drawing his sword, thrust it into the hangings, which done, he pulled the counselor, half dead, out by the heels, and made an end of killing him. By which means having discovered the ambush, and given the inventor thereof his just reward, he came again to his mother, who in the meantime wept and tormented herself; and having once again searched every corner of the chamber, perceiving himself to be alone with her, he began in sober earnest and discreet manner to speak unto her, saying,

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who,

""What treason is this, O most infamous woman, under the vail of a dissembling creature, covereth the most wicked and detestable crime that man could ever imagine or was committed? Now may I be assured to trust you, that like a vile wanton adulteress, altogether impudent and given over to her pleasure, runs spreading forth her arms to embrace the traitorous villainous tyrant that murdered my father? O, Queen Geruth! it is licentiousness only that has made you deface out of your mind the memory of the valor and virtues of the good king, your husband and my father. Be not offended, I pray you, madam, if, transported with dolor and grief, I speak so boldly unto you, and that I respect you less than duty requireth; for you, having forgotten me, and wholly rejected the memory of the deceased king, my father, must not be ashamed if I also surpass the bounds and limits of due consideration.'

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"Although the Queen perceived herself nearly touched, and that Hamblet moved her to the quick, where she felt herself interested, nevertheless she forgot all disdain and wrath, which thereby she might as then have had, hearing herself so sharply chidden and reproved, to behold the gallant spirit of her son, and to think what she might hope, and the easier expect of his so great policy and wisdom. But on the one side, she durst not lift up her eyes to behold him, remembering her offense, and on the other side, she would gladly have embraced her son, in regard of the wise admonitions by him given unto her.

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"After this, Fengon came to the court again, and determined that Hamblet should be sent into England. Now to bear him company were assigned two of Fengon's faithful ministers, bearing letters engraved in wood, that contained Hamblet's death, in such sort as he had advertised the King of England. But the subtle Danish prince, while his companions slept, having read the letters, and known his uncle's great treason, with the wicked and villainous minds of the two courtiers that led him to the slaughter, erased out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, with commission to the King of England to hang his two companions.

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"Hamblet, while his father lived, had been instructed in that devilish art, whereby the wicked spirit abuseth mankind, and advertiseth him of things past. It toucheth not the matter herein to discover whether this prince, by reason of his over-great melancholy, had received those impressions, divining that which never any but himself had before declared."-Finally, Hamblet, after a complete revenge, becomes King of Denmark, marries two wives, and dies in battle. See PAYNE COLLIER'S SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY, vol. i.

IV. THE MADNESS OF HAMLET.

"Under Shakespeare's treatment Hamlet's madness becomes something altogether different from the obstinate premeditation or melancholy enthusiasm of a young prince of the Middle Ages, placed in a dangerous position, and engaged in a dark design: it is a grave moral condition, a great malady of soul, which, at certain epochs and in certain states of society and of manners, frequently attacks the most highly gifted and the noblest of our species, and afflicts them with a disturbance of mind which sometimes borders very closely upon madness. The world is full of evil, and of all kinds of evil. What sufferings, crimes, and fatal, although innocent errors! What general and private iniquities, both strikingly apparent and utterly unknown! What merits, either stifled or neglected, become lost to the public and a burden to their possessors! What falsehood, and coldness, and levity, and ingratitude, and forgetfulness, abound in the relations and feelings of men! Life is so shortand yet so agitated-sometimes so burdensome and sometimes so empty! The future is so obscure! So much darkness at the end of so many trials! In reference to those who only see this phase of the world and of human destiny, it is easy to understand why their mind becomes disturbed, why their heart fails them, and why a misanthropic melancholy becomes an habitual feeling, which plunges them by turns into irritation or doubt-into ironical contempt or utter prostration. Read the four great monologues in which the Prince of Denmark abandons himself to the reflective expression of his inmost feelings; gather together from the whole play the passages in which he casually gives them utterance; seek out and sum up that which is manifest and that which is hidden in all that he thinks and says, and you will everywhere recognize the presence of the moral malady just described. Therein truly resides, much more than in his personal griefs and perils, the source of Hamlet's melancholy; in this consists his fixed idea and his madness. In order to render the exhibition of so sombre a disease not only endurable but attractive, Shakespeare has endowed the sufferer himself with the gentlest and most alluring qualities. He has made Hamlet handsome, popular, generous, affectionate, and even tender." GUIZOT.

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V.-INCIDENTS AND SCHEME OF HAMLET.

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"Hamlet is disqualified for action by his excess of the reflective tendencies, and by his unstable will, which alternates between complete inactivity and fits of excited energy. Naturally sensitive, he receives a painful shock from the hasty second marriage of his mother; already the springs of faith and joy in his nature are embittered; then follows the terrible discovery of his father's murder, with the injunction laid upon him to revenge the crime; upon this, again, follow the repulses which he receives from Ophelia. A deep melancholy lays hold of his spirit, and all of life grows dark and sad to his vision. Although hating his father's murderer, he has little heart to push on his revenge. He is aware that he is suspected, and surrounded by spies. Partly to baffle them; partly to create a vail behind which to seclude his true self; partly because his whole moral nature is, indeed, deeply disordered, he assumes the part of one whose wits have gone astray. Except for one loyal friend, he is alone among enemies or supposed traitors. Ophelia he regards as no more loyal or honest to him than his mother had been to her dead husband. The ascertainment of Claudius's guilt by means of the play still leaves him incapable of the last decisive act of vengeance. Not so, however, with the king, who, now recognizing his foe in Hamlet, does not delay to despatch him to a bloody death in England. But there is in Hamlet a terrible power of sudden and desperate action. From the melancholy which broods over him after the death of Ophelia, he rouses himself to the play of swords with Laertes, and at the last, with strength which leaps up before its final extinction, he accomplishes the punishment of the malefactor." EDWARD DOWDEN.

VI. THE KEY-NOTE OF HAMLET.

"In Hamlet, Shakespeare seems to have wished to exemplify the moral necessity of a due balance between our attention to the objects of our senses and our meditation on the workings of our mind-an equilibrium between the real and the imaginary worlds. In Hamlet this balance is disturbed; his thoughts and the images of his fancy are far more vivid than his actual perceptions; and his very perceptions, instantly passing through the medium of his contemplation, acquire, as they pass, a form and color not actually their own. Hence, we see a great, an almost enormous, intellectual activity, and a proportionate aversion to real action consequent upon it, with all its symptoms and accompanying qualities. This character Shakespeare places in circumstances under which it is obliged to act on the spur of the moment. Hamlet is brave, and careless of death; but he vacillates from sensibility, and procrastinates from thought, and loses the power of action in the energy of resolve." COLERIDGE.

"By an internal impulse, Hamlet is continually aiming at his own idea
of man; whom he calls a work of wonder, 'noble in reason, infinite in
faculties, in action like an angel, in apprehension like a god.' And,
accordingly, because it is, on this account, repugnant to his nature to
adopt any course of conduct upon external compulsion, there arises a
conflict between the inward bias of his mind and the pressure of outward
circumstances. He is unable to enter upon the enjoined work, not
simply because it is too great and weighty for him, but because he
cannot transmute it into an inward spontaneous impulse of his own.
Hence come his vacillation, his hesitating and procrastinating, and his
fluctuating purpose, now advancing and now falling back; hence, too,
the vehemence of his self-accusation, with which he would goad himself
into prompt measures, without, however, being able to control time
and its flight; hence, too, the inconsistency and irresolution of his
proceedings, and apparently also of his character."
ULRICI.

VII.-TIME, AGE AND PERSONS OF HAMLET.

Queen Gertrude is married to King Claudius within a month after the death of King Hamlet. Within two months after that occurrence the spirit of the deceased monarch appears to the Prince. The first act opens at midnight, and covers about twenty-four hours. In the playscene it is stated by Ophelia that King Hamlet has been dead four months. About two months, therefore, must be supposed to elapse between Hamlet's meeting with his father's ghost and the scene in which he catches the conscience of the King. On the night of the play he kills Polonius. The next day [see the beginning of Act IV.] he is embarked for England. He has been two days at sea when he escapes to the pirate galley. It may be assumed that his homeward journey occupies two days more, - perhaps longer. Polonius, meanwhile, has been hurriedly and privately buried, and Ophelia has gone mad and been accidentally drowned. Hamlet is in Elsinore on the day of Ophelia's burial, and he, by chance, meets the funeral train in the church-yard. The final catastrophe seems to occur immediately after the interment,albeit, a bout with foils is an incident but harshly consorted with the day of such a solemnity. Altogether, the action of "Hamlet" is seen to be circumscribed, certainly, within ten weeks. The season of the year is indeterminate. "The air bites shrewdly" in the first act; but Ophelia gathers flowers in the fourth, and a military expedition is seen to be in progress. Late autumn is the season most consonant with the tone of the tragedy. The grave-digger's words show that Hamlet is thirty years

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