How these things came about. So fhall you hear Fall'n on the inventors' heads. All this can I Fort. Let us hafte to hear it, And call the nobleffe to the audience. For me, with forrow I embrace my fortune; Hor. 3 Of that I fhall have alfo caufe to fpeak, * And from his mouth whofe voice will draw on more: But 3 Of that I shall have also caufe to speak,] Voltaire's firft remark on this play is, that the old king had been poifon'd by Claudius, and his own queen Gertrude, which is far from being certain, as the ghoft himself does not accufe her as an acceffary to the deed, but, on the contrary, recommends her to the mercy of her fon. His concluding obfervation has no lefs veracity to boat of, for (fays he) all the actors in the piece are now deftroyed, and one Monfieur Fort-en-bras is introduced to conclude the play; whereas Horatio, the friend of Hamlet, furvives as well as Ofrick; nor do we hear of any accident that has befallen Voltimand and Cornelius, who, as well as the whole court of Denmark, may be fupposed to be prefent at the catastrophe. Even Monf. D'Alembert, a puny whipster, in comparifon to the bard of Geneva, has had the infolence to declare, that there is more fterling fenfe in ten French verses, than can be found in any thirty Italian or English ones. STEEVENS. And from his mouth whofe voice will draw no more:] This is the reading of the old quartos, but certainly a mistaken one. We fay, a man will no more draw breath; but that a man's voice will draw no more, is, I believe, an expreffion without any authority. I choose to efpoufe the reading of the elder folio: And from his mouth, whofe voice will draw on more. And this is the poet's meaning. Hamlet, juft before his death, had faid; But I do prophefy, the election lights On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice; Accord But let this fame be presently perform❜d, Even while mens' minds are wild; left more mifchance On plots and errors happen. Fort. Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a foldier, to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov'd most royally. And for his paffage, The foldiers' mufic, and the rites of war, Speak loudly for him. Take up the bodies. Such a fight as this [Exeunt: after which a peal of ordnance is Accordingly, Horatio here delivers that meffage; and very justly infers, that Hamlet's voice will be feconded by others, and procure them in favour of Fortinbras's fucceffion. THEORALD. If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which diftinguishes it from the reft, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are fo numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The fcenes are interchangeably diverfified with merriment and folemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and inftructive obfervations, and folemnity, not ftrained by poetical violence above the natural fentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual fucceffion, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of converfation. The pretended madness of Hamlet caufes much mirth, the mournful diftraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every perfonage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the firft act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that expofes affectation to juft contempt. The conduct is perhaps not wholly fecure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progrefiion, but there are fome fcenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate caufe, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of fanity. He plays the madman moft, when he treats Ophelia with fo much rudeness, which feems to be ufelefs and wanton cruelty. Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an inftrument than an agent. After he has, by the fratagem of the play, convicted convicted the king, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at lait effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in producing. The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of neceffity, than a ftroke of art. A fcheme might eafily have been formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. The poet is accused of having fhewn little regard to poetical juftice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpofe; the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification which would arife from the deftruction of an ufurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious. JOHNSON. The rugged Pyrrhus, he, &c.] The two greatest poets of this and the last age, Mr. Dryden, in the preface to Troilus and Creffida, and Mr. Pope, in his note on this place, have concurred in thinking that Shakespeare produced this long paffage with defign to ridicule and expofe the bombaft of the play from whence it was taken; and that Hamlet's commendation of it is purely ironical. This is become the general opinion. I think juft otherwife; and that it was given with commendation to upbraid the falfe taste of the audience of that time, which would not suffer them to do juftice to the fimplicity and fublime of this production. And I reafon, first, from the character Hamlet gives of the play, from whence the paffage is taken. Secondly, from the paffage itfelf. And thirdly, from the effect it had on the audience. Let us confider the character Hamlet gives of it, The play, I remember, pleased not the million, 'twas Caviare to the general; but it was (as I received it, and others, whofe judgment in fuch matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play, well digefted in the fcenes, fet down with as much modefty as cunning. I remember, one faid, there was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury; nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection; but called it an honest method. They who fuppofe the paffage given to be ridiculed, muft needs fuppofe this character to be purely ironical. But if fo, it is the strangest irony that ever was written. It pleafed not the multitude. This we muft conclude to be true, however ironical the rest be. Now Now the reafon given of the defigned ridicule is the fuppofed bombaft. But those were the very plays, which at that time we know took with the multitude. And Fletcher wrote a kind of Rehearsal purpofely to expofe them. But fay it is bombaft, and that therefore it took not with the multitude. Hamlet prefently tells us what it was that displeased them. There was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury; nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection; but called it an honeft method. Now whether a perfon fpeaks ironically or no, when he quotes others, yet common fenfe requires he fhould quote what they fay. Now it could not be, if this play difpleafed becaufe of the bombaft, that thofe whom it displeased hould give this reafon for their dislike. The fame inconfiftencies and abfurdities abound in every other part of Hamlet's fpeech fuppofing it to be ironical: but take him as fpeaking his fentiments, the whole is of a piece; and to this purpofe, The play, I remember, pleased not the multitude, and the reafon was, its being wrote on the rules of the ancient drama to which they were entire ftrangers. But, in my opinion, and in the opinion of thofe for whofe judgment I have the higheft efteem, it was an excellent play, well digefted in the scenes, i. e, where the three unities were well preferved. Set down with as much modefty as cunning, i. e. where not only the art of compofition, but the fimplicity of nature, was carefully attended to. The characters were a faithful picture of life and manners, in which nothing was overcharged into farce. But these qualities, which gained my efteem, loft the public's. For I remember one faid, There was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury, i. e. there was not, according to the mode of that time, a fool or clown to joke, quibble, and talk freely. Nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection, i. e. nor none of thofe paffionate, pathetic love scenes, fo effential to modern tragedy. But he called it an honeft method, i. e. he owned, however taftelefs this method of writing, on the ancient plan, was to our times, yet it was chaste and pure; the diftinguishing character of the Greek drama. I need only make one obfervation on all this; that, thus interpreted, it is the jufteft picture of a good tragedy, wrote on the ancient rals. And that I have rightly interpreted it appears farther from what we find in the old quarto, An honest method, as wholefime as feweet, and by very much more HANDSOME than FINE, i. e. it had a natural beauty, but none of the fucus of falfe art. 2. A fecond proof that this fpeech was given to be admired, is from the intrinfic merit of the fpeech itself: which contains the defcription of a circumftance very happily imagined, namely, Ilium and Priam's falling together, with the effect it had on the deftroyer. -The The unnerved father falls, &c. -So after Pyrrhus' paufe. Now this circumftance, illuftrated with the fine fimilitude of the storm, is fo highly worked up, as to have well deferved a place in Virgil's fecond book of the Eneid, even though the work had been carried on to that perfection which the Roman poet had conceived. 3. The third proof is, from the effects which followed on the recital. Hamlet, his beft character, approves it; the player is deeply affected in repeating it; and only the foolish Polonius tired with it. We have faid enough before of Hamlet's fentiments. As for the player, he changes colour, and the tears ftart from his eyes. But our author was too good a judge of nature to make bombaft and unnatural fentiment produce fuch an effect. Nature and Horace both inftructed him, Si vis me flere, dolendum eft Primùm ipfi tibi, tunc tua me infortunia lædent, Telephe, vel Peleu. MALE SI MANDATA LOQUERIS, And it may be worth obferving, that Horace gives this precept particularly to fhew, that bombaft and unnatural fentiments are incapable of moving the tender paffions, which he is directing the poet how to raife. For, in the lines just before, he gives this rule, Telephus & Peleus, cùm pauper & exul uterque, Projicit Ampullas, & fefquipedalia verba. Not that I would deny, that very bad lines in bad tragedies have had this effect. But then it always proceeds from one or other of thefe caufes. 1. Either when the fubject is domeftic, and the scene lies at home the fpectators, in this cafe, become interested in the fortunes of the diftreffed; and their thoughts are so much taken up with the fubject, that they are not at liberty to attend to the poet; who, otherwife, by his faulty fentiments and diction, would have ftifled the emotions fpringing up from a fenfe of the diftrefs. But this is nothing to the cafe in hand. For, as Hamlet fays, What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba? 2. When bad lines raife this affection, they are bad in the other extreme; low, abject, and groveling, inflead of being highly figurative and fwelling; yet, when attended with a natural fimplicity, they have force enough to ftrike illiterate and fimple minds. The tragedies of Banks will justify both thefe obfervations. But if any one will fill fay, that Shakespeare intended to reprefent a player unnaturally and fantaftically affected, we muft |