The Society to date has elected the following honorary members: J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, C. M. Ingleby, LL. D., Rev. Henry Paine Stokes, Mr. J. Addington Symonds, and Dr. Karl Elze. Dr. Brinsley Nicholson contributes several "Notings" on Macbeth to Notes and Queries for June 6th They are chiefly metrical, and the results attained are worthy of more extended comment than we can give them here. In the line (I, i, 7), There to meet with [-] Macbeth, he would insert thee for the obviously omitted word, in place of great, suggested by Capell, or Thane, which he himself had formerly adopted. The third line of the quotation My plenteous joys, Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrows. | Sons, kins | men, thanes, And you whose places are the nearest, know is defective and requires the insertion of a word, noble, perhaps, before thanes. Several changes of punctuation are suggested. For it is a knell That summons thee to heaven-or to hell (II, i, 64)— the last words being an afterthought, Well may you see things well done there,―adieu,— in which the word adieu is used interjectionally. In the same issue Mr. W. Watkiss Lloyd suggests that the lines from Antony and Cleopatra, O that his fault should make a knave of thee, That art not what thou'rt sure of! get thee hence, should be punctuated― O that his fault should make a knave of thee, Thou art not! What? thou'rt sure of it? Get thee hence a reading adopted by Steevens on a conjecture of Monck's, but disregarded by subsequent editors. PESSIMISM ON THE STAGE. HAMLET From Schlegel's Commentaries to Professor Dowden's, J. Feis's, and George Macdonald's recent studies, what multitudes of explanations and analyses have been given of the tragedy of Hamlet! It has been said that a fresh one is published almost yearly. I hope, therefore, I shall not be considered presumptuous in attempting a little sketch in which I shall endeavour to explain Hamlet's character from a sociological standpoint. I know this will be by no means an easy task; I recollect reading in a book of Mr. Frank Marshall's, who had devoted fourteen years to the study of Hamlet that he had found out how little he knew about it. I was studying Hamlet at the time of the "Coup d'Etat" of 1852. This event dismayed me. Before the year 1848 I looked forward with confidence to a general disarmament, to peaceful progress, and to the coming triumph of liberty in the world; and, a little later, when Lamartine addressed words of affection and friendship, in the name of Republican France, to all other nations, he seemed to me to be realizing the Utopia of poets and prophets. A new era was commencing; as Beranger writes: La paix descendait sur la terre Semant de l'or, des fleurs et des épis ; and the swords would be turned into ploughshares. Democracy would become established without violence or bloodshed, as the result of a regular and apparently irresistible movement. The sovereignty of the people seemed to be assured, and St. Simon's programme of the moral, intellectual, and material amelioration of the masses appeared likely to be set on foot. But alas! these bright dreams were visionary ! The days of June partly marred their splendour, and soon afterwards, on a dark winter's night, an adventurer, armed only with the power borrowed from the memory of an odious despot, drives out the people's representatives, shoots those who resist, stifles liberty, and reinstates absolute and autocratic government. This unexpected triumph of evil was a great blow to me, and a cause of deep anguish. I could not help questioning whether justice was to be found at all in the world. I said to myself: A perverse man rules supreme. The just and the true friends of the people and of liberty are exiled and imprisoned. How can God permit such violation of His equitable laws? In reading Hamlet I found the expression of similar sentiments. It seemed to me that his mind was troubled by sight of the triumph. of evil over good, by the distressing enigma ever meeting us in human societies where, as in Nature, happiness is not reserved to the deserving, and trouble to sinners. I found Louis Napoleon marching to the Tuileries, through the pools of blood of December, in Hamlet's imprecation, when speaking to his mother of his father's assassin, her husband, he says:— A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; That from a shelf the precious diadem stole, Under the empire of these feelings of indignation and despair I thought I attained a better conception of Shakespeare's drama. Hamlet is an accomplished prince, to whom all the pleasures of life are apparently reserved. He is young and handsome, and a throne awaits him. He is a philosopher and a poet, and well versed in sword-craft. He has studied at the Wittenberg University, and his thoughtful and reflective mind penetrates to the depths of the great problem of human life. As becomes his age, the young philosopher loves a maiden whose charm and whose very name are poetry personified. As Ophelia says, he has a noble mind : The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword: When the ghost of his father appears to him and reveals the abominable crime committed by his uncle, his mother's husband, the usurper of the throne, the spectacle of triumphant and unpunished crime so overwhelms him that his mental faculties are in danger. Suffering not only affects Hamlet, like most men, in his sentiments, but it completely upsets his metaphysical theories, and attacks his reason. Yea, from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records; All saws of books, all forms, all pleasures past, Oh, villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain; At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.-I, v. Crime smiling and remorseless-this is what disturbs and confuses all his notions of justice. Agony, doubt, and despair take hold on Hamlet, and he is haunted by the idea of suicide. His faith in the universal order of things is attacked more severely than his love for his father. Henceforth, buried in the bitterest reflections, he must commence a fresh existence. Good-by, dear studies; good-by, pleasure; good-by, love; good-by, Ophelia. He bursts all the bands which bind him to life, and buries himself completely in his one dominant thought; and how admirably Shakespeare describes the effect of this on the young prince :— Ophelia-My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber, Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac'd; Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other; And with a look so piteous in purport As if he had been loos'd out of hell To speak of horrors,-he comes before me. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard; As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so; At last, a little shaking of mine arm, And thrice his head thus waving up and down, He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound, That it did seem to shelter all his bulk, And end his being.—II, i. He very soon reaches a despairing state of pessimism. In his sight the most beautiful aspects of Nature are darkened by evil. All is going wrong : I have of late lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire,-why it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilential congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension. how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman either.— II, ii. One of the most eloquent singers of modern pessimism, Madame Ackermann, designates man as that summary of all miseries," and uses terms so bitter that Hamlet would not have disowned them. The poetess thus addresses Nature: Oui, je souffre, et c'est toi, Mère, qui m' extermine, Tantôt frappant mes flancs, tantôt blessant mon cœur. Plonge sans fond dans la douleur. J'offre sous la ciel un lugubre spectacle, Mais jusque sous le coup du desastre suprême, Qu'envahissant les cieux, l'immobilité morne In Leopardi we find the same state of absolute and complete despair, but there it is resigned and without revolt. In Hamlet's case it is more thrilling from the fact of its being more human, more life-like, more varied in its expression. It has always been a subject of astonishment that Hamlet was so long before avenging the death of his father. The reason for this is apparent. The creed of the philosopher, who believed in the triumph of the good and the punishment of the wicked, has received a more severe shock than the filial affection of the son. These general thoughts and reflections trouble him and weigh on his mind. far more than the mere personal desire for revenge. Will the death of the murderer re-establish an order of justice in society? "The world's a goodly prison, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one of the worst" (II, ii.). "To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand" (II, ii.). "How very stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world" (I, ii.). "Oh, cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right" (I, v.). "For in the fatness of these pursy times, virtue itself of vice must pardon |