And so, without more circumstance at all,

I hold it fit, that we shake hands, and part;

You, as your business, and desire, shall point you;

For every man hath business, and desire,

Such as it is, and for my own poor part,

Look you, I will go pray.

Hor. These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

Ham. I am sorry they offend you, heartily;

Yes, 'faith, heartily.

Hor. There's no offence, my lord.

Ham. Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:

For your desire to know what is between us,

O'ermaster it as you may.

Of the virtue of truth, Hamlet displays a total destitution. It appears in various passages. I shall cite only two.

Ros. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend. Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

This was an arrant falsehood. The perturbation of Hamlet's mind arose not in the slightest degree from "lack of advancement," and it was a most unworthy subterfuge to assign for it a reason utterly destitute of foundation.

Again:

Ham. Give me your pardon, sir: I have done you wrong;

But pardon it as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,

How I am punish'd with a sore distraction.

What I have done,

That might your nature, honour and exception,
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never, Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away,

And, when he's not himself, does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness: If't be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;

His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.

Sir, in this audience,

Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil

Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot my arrow o'er the house,
And hurt my brother.

This is inexpressibly base. At the interment of the lovely Ophelia, he had been guilty of a Beargarden outrage, and grossly insulted and assaulted Laertes. And to apologize for the indecency, he ascribes it to madness, which had no existence!

There is one incident in the drama, wherein Hamlet displays such horrible depravity, that even Johnson, however zealous on all occasions to gloss over defects, and to magnify beauties, consigns him to unqualified reprobation.

We have seen that Hamlet was totally incapable of aspiring to, or attempting to execute, vengeance in any mode that savored of courage or heroism. He was incapable of soaring beyond assassination. He was on the qui vive for an opportunity to perpetrate this crime. A favourable one offers. He finds his uncle alone, who, stung with remorse for his crimes, is on his knees supplicating heaven for forgiveness. Hamlet is on the point of executing his baleful design. But fearful that he shall only destroy the bodyand desirous of entailing perdition upon the soul, he desists, in order to take some other chance of accomplishing his fell purpose completely. But let him detail his own reasons—

Ham Now might I do it, pat, now he is praying,
And now I'll do't;-And so he goes to heaven:
And so am I reveng'd? that would be scann'd:

A villain kills my father; and, for that,

I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.

Why, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

He took my father grossly, full of bread;

With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;

And, how his audit stands, who knows, save heaven,

But in our circumstance and course of thought,

'Tis heavy with him: And am I then reveng'd,

To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?

No.

Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk, asleep, or in his rage;
Or in the incestuous pleasures of his bed;
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't:

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven;

And that his soul may be as damn'd, and black,

As hell, where it goes.

In the widest range of history there can be no single incident

found more horrible than this. The foulest monsters that have scourged mankind, hardly ever thought of carrying their vengeance beyond the limits of this world, and giving up their victims to perdition, with " their souls as damn'd and black as hell.".

The most odious and detestable point of view in which Hamlet exhibits himself is on board ship. Here he perpetrates three crimes, any one of which would in most civilized countries have insured him an ignominious death.

By some means which do not appear to the reader of the drama, Hamlet has discovered the view with which his uncle has shipped him for England, with the two courtiers, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. He had, therefore, previous to his departure from Denmark, resolved on their destruction

Ham. I must to England; you know that?

Queen. Alack, I had forgot; 'tis so concluded on.
Ham. There's letters seal'd: my two schoolfellows,-
Whom I will trust, as I will adders fang'd,—
They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

For 'tis the sport, to have the engineer

Hoist with his own petar; and it shall go hard,

But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet,

When in one line two crafts directly meet!

Conformably with this view, he rises under the cover of darkness, like a midnight robber, and steals their despatches.

Ham. Up from my cabin,

My sea gown scarf'd about me, in the dark

Grop'd I to find them out; had my desire;

Finger'd their packet; and in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again.

He furtively breaks them open—

making so bold,

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal

Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
A royal knavery; an exact command-

Larded with many several sorts of reasons,

Importing Denmark's health, and England's too,

With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life

That, on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

After this grand exploit, he adds forgery to robbery, and writes a new set of instructions.

I sat me down;

Devis'd a new commission; wrote it fair:

I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman's service. Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

Hor. Ay, good my lord.

Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king—
As England was his faithful tributary;

As love between them like the palm might flourish;
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear,

And stand a comma 'tween their amities;

And many such like as's of great charge—
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more, or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving time allow'd.

Thus he completes his career by downright murder. The old maxim, qui facit per alium, facit per se, is too well known, to require me to prove that Hamlet is the murderer of the two courtiers. And this heinous crime, perpetrated in cold blood, and with no adequate provocation to extenuate, far less justify it, he appears to regard as almost meritorious-at least it excites, after a lapse of time, no remorse of conscience. He recounts the story to Horatio on his return, not merely with sang froid, but even boastngly

Hor. So Guildenstern and Rozencrantz go to't.

Ham. Why, man, they did make love to this employment;

They are not near my conscience; their defeat

Doth by their own insinuation grow:

'Tis dangerous, when the baser nature comes

Between the pass and fell incensed points

Of mighty opposites.

To what I have here advanced, I might make large additions, did leisure allow. But I presume I have established the point I had in view. I shall therefore draw to a close, and leave the reader to decide whether Hamlet was the worthless character I have represented him to be-or whether he is justly described by the celebraVOL. IV. 3 D

ted Richardson, who asserts that "A sense of virtue seems to be his ruling principle. In other men it may appear with the ensigns of high authority. In Hamlet, it possesses absolute power. United with amiable affections, with every graceful accomplishment, and every agreeable quality, it embellishes and exalts them."-" The acquisitions that Hamlet values, and the happiness he would confer, are a conscience void of offence, the peace and the honour of virtue." He is further described, as endowed "with purity of moral sentiment-with eminent abilities, exceedingly cultivated and improved-with manners the most elegant and becomingwith the utmost rectitude of intention—and the most active zeal in the exercise of every duty!"*

Light and darkness-truth and falsehood are not more opposite to each other, than this portrait is to that of Hamlet.

DRAMATICUS.

Nov. 30, 1811.

⚫ Analysis, page 138.