THE IMPEDIMENT OF ADIPOSE. 69 



pose to revenge his father's death. Like all persons of a lymphatic 

 temperament, Hamlet could be suddenly aroused to a high pitch of 

 daring, but was utterly incapable of persistent effort. He follows the 

 Ghost to the edge of the cliff in defiance of the warnings of his com- 

 panions, threatening to " make a ghost of him that lets me " he could 

 make a sudden stab in the hangings of his mother's apartment could 

 leap into the grave with Laertes, and outrave the latter's frenzied dem- 

 onstration, with the self -asserted passion of "forty thousand brothers," 

 but it was soon over. The immediate cause of excitement being re- 

 moved, he returns to his natural inactivity. 



The episode of the voyage to England at the instance of the King, 

 submitted to without protest, is a terrible descent from the sublime 

 grandeur of his philosophizing and thunderous threats. A tame pas- 

 sivity rules him ; but, discovering the imminence of his danger on the 

 voyage, there is revealed a cunning cruelty in his nature that the 

 brave, active man would have scorned. But persons who are noted 

 for their general inertia, when they do move, are very liable to aston- 

 ish by the intensity and unexpected turn of their action. 



Once again, toward the close of the play, we get another insight 

 into the torpid constitution of the Prince. In the preliminary discussion 

 with Horatio as to his fitness for the duel with Laertes, his friend says : 



" You will lose the wager, my lord." 



And Hamlet replies : " No, I shall win at the odds ; but thou wouldst 

 not think how ill alVs here about my heart ; but it's no matter." Just 

 such an answer as a person might make who was suffering from " fatty 

 degeneration." Evidently, in the opinion of the writer, the considera- 

 tion of the unpleasant possibilities of the duel had brought the action 

 of the heart almost to a standstill the result of a chronic, sluggish 

 circulatory system. Had his blood been accelerated, as would natu- 

 rally have occurred in a nervous temperament, other expressions would 

 have been more fitting ; but the phrase above quoted better indicates 

 partial stagnation than anything else. His philosophy, indeed, " de- 

 fies augury," but his physical organization can not choose but respond 

 to the near presence of a fatal venture. With the one not surprising 

 exception of the first sight of the Ghost, Hamlet is throughout like the 

 obese class generally which he represents, sufficiently careful of his 

 personal safety. He puts himself to no bodily risk. In leaping into 

 the open grave after Laertes, it must be remembered that he is on his 

 native heath, as it were, surrounded by friends, while the unfortunate 

 brother is the alien and unwelcome guest ; and the apparent calmness 

 but real tremor with which he accepts the invitation to a passage at 

 arms is painfully betrayed by the abnormal action of the heart above 

 referred to : besides, in that age it required more courage to decline a 

 duel than to accept one. 



The medley of the last scene, including the death of the King, 



