a fine but not invisible chain. The transient beauty of ladies, the degradations awaiting the bodily remains of conquerors, present themselves to his mind; and in these reveries are thoughts preserved in which at some period of life all mortal men indulge. The pictures of the past arise fitfully in every imagination, in various circumstances; in the crowd or in solitude. Some happy expression, some witty combination of ideas and words, some song so sweet and merry that for a time it charmed away trouble and pain, calls from the grave the memory of youthful companions with whom, in earlier days, no forethought of sorrow and death was ever associated; and yet, as to-morrows creep in their petty pace from day to day, lessons of the uncertainty of joy, and of fame, and of life, make up a fuller representation of our brief and incomprehensible existence.

Hamlet's reflections are suddenly stopped. The very churchyard seemed a place foreshadowing some evil; and what immediately follows is productive of anguish and desperation. All at once an unexpected procession appears, of priests and of mourners for the

dead.

Among the mourners are Laertes, and the king, and the queen, and their followers. For awhile no thought arises in Hamlet's mind that this pomp has any relation to the modest grave about which the sexton had been so equivocating. He looks on, wondering whose body it is, that the king and queen and courtiers follow. Wherefore with maimed rites! and one of some estate ! He observes that the funeral rites are such as betoken that

The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo its own life.

He listens, standing apart, to the remonstrance of Laertes with the priest, who intimates that but for great command the body would have been lodged in ground unsanctified; and shards, flints, and pebbles thrown upon it, instead of charitable prayers until Laertes can patiently bear no more, and exclaims—

LAER.

Lay her i' the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,

A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

And thus Hamlet learns that the dead body is that of Ophelia; learns, indeed, for the first time, that she is dead. Absorbed and tossed as he has been, he has given no thought to her since his return, and has not, it would seem, heard anything of Ophelia until now, by the side of her new-made grave. The news drives him again from all composure, and all his madness returns, and even all the love for her which he once so cruelly or so madly disavowed. Pretence for feigning in such a situation, there can be none; there can be no reasonable suspicion that Hamlet would mock the grief of Laertes and the grave of the dead Ophelia so grossly and unnaturally. He hears the queen's

affectionate lament over the sweet maid who she once fondly hoped would be her Hamlet's wife. hears the responsive curse of Laertes on the same Hamlet, as the cause of his sister's madness; sees the desperate brother leap into his lost sister's grave, once more to hold her in his arms. He

listens, with increasing agitation, to the brother's frantic request that the dust may be piled on both; on the quick and the dead; and to the wild exaggeration that it may o'ertop old Pelion, or the skyish head of blue Olympus. But he can bear to hear no more, and can restrain himself no further, but breaks out into desperate actions and words; even leaping after Laertes into Ophelia's grave,

HAM. [advancing.]

What is he whose grief

Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? this is I,-

Hamlet the Dane.

After a short and fierce struggle with Laertes, who has seized him by the throat, they are parted;

and this remarkable scene follows:

HAM. Why, I will fight with him upon this theme, Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN. O, my son! what theme?

HAM. I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers

Could not, with all their quantity of love,

Make up my sum.-What wilt thou do for her?

KING. O, he is mad Laertes.

QUEEN. For love of God, forbear him.

HAM. Come, show me what thou'lt do:

Woul't weep? woul't fight? woul't fast? woul't tear thyself?
Woul't drink up Esil? eat a crocodile ?
I'll do 't.-Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I ;
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us; till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,

Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an thou'lt mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN.

This is mere madness:

And thus awhile the fit will work on him;

Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclos'd,
His silence will sit drooping.

НАМ.

Hear you, sir;

What is the reason that you use me thus?
I loved you ever. But it is no matter;
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

[Exit.

These passages are assuredly productive of a conviction that it was Shakspeare's intention to represent Hamlet as completely relapsed into distraction. Hamlet's recent voyage, his successful countermining of the king and his agents, his singular escape when the hostile ships parted, his return, and the