THE IMPEDIMENT OF ADIPOSE. 65 



jointed world to rights by one whose blood and judgment were so 

 well commingled that every thought is not only wise and just but also 

 briefly precedent to action. 



Now, what has our Shakespeare done in this masterpiece of drama- 

 tic composition, but allied all these untoward events and tempestuous 

 emotions of a great, grieved soid to a body physically unadapted to 

 success f 



This is the " mystery of Hamlet," and the world has been long 

 making the discovery. 



Hamlet's " too too solid flesh " caused him to procrastinate. Had 

 it not been for that weight of adipose substance he " were simply the 

 most active fellow in Europe " ; but the inertia of fat was like gyves 

 upon his hands and feet, and could not be overcome except under 

 extraordinary provocation, and then, the sudden impulse subsided, 

 flagged again, mastered by the chronic habit of (let us give the right 

 word, though the heavens fall !) laziness ! the result of his "fatty 

 degeneration." 



We know that we have to encounter the settled prejudices of the 

 world against us in this view of the character of Hamlet. We cer- 

 tainly had our own preconceived notions to conquer before arriving at 

 this conviction ; but a close examination of the text undoubtedly bears 

 it out, and indeed we can see no other satisfactory solution of the 

 problem offered, by the contradictions of the clear reasonings and the 

 muddled deeds of the Prince of Denmark. 



That the above scientific but simple explanation has not been pre- 

 viously reached by some one of the many keen and learned critics of 

 the play, is only to be accounted for by the transcendent attraction of 

 the intellectual traits displayed therein. . The pivotal point in nearly 

 all these discussions being the question whether the dramatist really 

 intended to portray an assumed or real insanity and certainly, ignor- 

 ing the theory we now propound, that must ever remain a mooted 

 point ; but, admitting the dominant power of his " too solid flesh," 

 every apparent inconsistency is accounted for. 



In the very first scene of the first act we get an intimation, though 

 no description, of Hamlet's physical temperament. Why, we may 

 well ask, should the poet represent the Ghost as first appearing to cer- 

 tain officers of the guard, to whom it had no communication to make, 

 and to whom none was necessary, unless it was to show a certain lack 

 of sensitiveness to spiritual influences in the Prince, an absence of 

 that refinement of nerve which originates, by atti*action, spiritual in- 

 fluences ? This preliminary stalking suggests a certain grossness of 

 material texture in the Prince not present, for instance, in Horatio. 

 The son of the royal Dane needed, it seems, a better attuned medium 

 to put him en rapport with his own father's spirit. Here we have the 

 first intimation, a sort of prelude as it were, amply borne out by the 

 succeeding events, that in everything which was to be really accom- 



TOL. XVII. 5 



