the funeral of Ophelia:" but the fact is other wise represented in the first scene of the fifth act: for when the funeral procession appears', (which he does not seek, but finds,) he exclaims,

"The Queen, the courtiers: who is this

they follow,

"And with such maimed rites?"

nor does he know it to be the funeral of Ophelia, till Laertes mentions that the dead body was that of his sister.

I do not perceive that he is accountable for the madness of Ophelia. He did not mean to kill her father when concealed behind the arras, but the King; and still less did he intend to deprive her of her reason and her life: her subsequent distrac tion therefore can no otherwise be laid to his charge, than as an unforeseen consequence from his too ardently pursuing the object recommended to him by his father.

He appears to have been induced to leap into Ophelia's grave, not with a design to insult LaerAes, but from his love to her, (which then he had no reason to conceal,) and from the bravery of sher brother's grief, which excited him (not to condemn that brother, as has been stated, but) to. wie with him in the expression of affection and

sorrow bus 26

3

"Why, I will fight with him upon this fod biak why's theme,

"Until my eyelids will no longer wag.Ilov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers Could not with all their quantity of love "Make up my sum."

When Hamlet says "the bravery of his grief did put me into a towering passion," I think,

he

he means, into a lofty expression (not of resentment, but) of sorrow.

I may also add, that he neither assaulted, nor insulted Laertes, till that nobleman had cursed him, and seized him by the throat. MALONE. P. 137, 1. 11. This quarry cries on havock!] Sir T. Hanmer reads,

cries out, havock!

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.

We have the same phraseology in Othello Act V. sc. i:

"Whose noise is this, that cries on

See the note there.
P. 137, 1. 11-15,
What feast is

murder?"

MALONE.

O proud death! toward in thine eternal cell, Shakspeare has allusion to the Choae, or feasts of the dead, which were anciently celebrated at Athens, and are mentioned by Plutarch in the life of Antonius. STEEVENS.

already employed this

P. 137, 1. 22. Not from his mouth,] i. e. the King's. STEEVĖNS.

P. 137, 1. 31. Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;] Carnal is a word used by Shakspeare as an adjective to carnage, RITSON.

Of sanguinary and unnatural acts, to which the perpetrator was instigated by concupiscence, or, to use our poet's own words, by "carnal stings." The speaker alludes to the murder of old Hamlet by his brother, previous to his incestuous union with Gertrude. A Remarker asks, “was. the re

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24

lationship between the usurper and the deceased King a secret confined to Horatio?" - No, but the murder of Hamlet by Claudius was a secret which the young Prince had imparted to Horatio, and had imparted to him alone; and to this it is he principally, though covertly, alludes. Carnal is the reading of the only authentick copies, the quarto 1604, and the folio 1623. The modern editors, following a quarto of no authority, for carnal, read cruel. MALONE.

The edition immediately preceding that of Mr. Malone, reads - carnal, and not cruel, as here asserted. REED.

P. 137, last but one 1. stigated, produced. MALONE. P. 138, 1. 6.

put on

-] ie, in

some rights of memory in this kingdom, ] Some

rights, which are remembered in this kingdom.

P. 138. 1. 9. 10.

MALONE.

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more :]

No is the reading of the old quartos, but certainly a mistaken one. We say, a man will no more' draw breath: but that a man's voice will draw no more, is, I believe, an expression without any authority. I choose to espouse the reading of the elder folio:

And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more. And this is the poet's meaning. Hamlet, just be fore his death, had said:

"But I do prophecy, the election lights
"Ou Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
"So tell him," &c.

Accordingly, Horatio here delivers that, message and very justly infers, that Hamlet's voice will

be seconded by others, and procure them in favour of Fortinbras's succession. THEOBALD.

If the dramas of Shakspeare were to be charac terised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious aud instructive observations and solemnity not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet caused much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia alls the heart with tenderness, and every person→ age produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt.

The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman inost, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.

Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he

makes no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last 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 necessity, than a stroke of art. A scheme might easily be formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The poet is accused of having shown little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; 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 arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious. JOHNSON.

The levity of behaviour which Hamlet assumes immediately after the disappearance of the ghost in the first ac, [sc. v.] has been objected to; but the writer of some sensible Remarks on this tragedy, published in 1736, justly observes, that the poet's object there was, that Marcellus "might not imagine that the ghost had revealed to Hamlet some matter of great consequence to him, and that he might not therefore be suspected of any deep de¬ sign."

"I have heard (adds the same writer,) many persons wonder, why the poet should bring in this ghost in complete armour. I think these reasons may be given for it. We are to consider, that he could introduce him in these dresses only; in his regal dress, in a habit of interment, in a common babit, or in some fantastick one of his own invention. Now let us examine, which was