And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!!
Why does the drum come hither?

[March within.

Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and others. Fort. Where is this sight?

Hor. What is it, you would see?

If aught of woe, or wonder, cease your search.

Fort. This quarry cries on havock !2-O proud death! What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,

That thou so many princes, at a shot,

So bloodily hast struck?

1 Amb. The sight is dismal;

And our affairs from England come too late :
The ears are senseless, that should give us hearing,
To tell him, his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead :
Where should we have our thanks?

Hor. Not from his mouth,

Had it the ability of life to thank you;

He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arriv'd; give order, that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things come about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fort. Let us haste to hear it,

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune;
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Hor. Of that I shall have also cause to speak,

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more: But let this same be presently perform'd,

Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance, On plots, and errors, happen.

[1] See Illustrations.

[2] To cry on was to exclaim against. I suppose, when unfair sportsmen destroyed more quarry or game than was reasonable, the censure was to cry, Havock, JOHNSON.

Fort. Let four captains

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,

To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage, The soldiers' music, and the rites of war,

Speak loudly for him.—

Take up the bodies :-Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

[A dead march.

[Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which, a peal of ordnance is shot off.

OBSERVATIONS:

THE beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance on her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakspeare's skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said of him as he says of himself, that he is a man not easily jealous, yet we cannot but pity him, when at last we find him perplexed in the extreme.

There is always danger, lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation; but the character of Iago is so conducted, that he is, from the first scene to the last, hated and despised.

Even the inferior characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo's suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind, betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend; and the virtue of Emilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villainies.

The scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.

Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incident been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity. JOHNSON.