7 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



though the latter is finally slain by Hamlet, is all brought about by 

 the management of other heads and hands, and its conclusion evidently 

 unforeseen by the Prince. From first to last he accomplishes nothing 

 of set purpose. He moralizes by temperament and habit, but acts only 

 ichen inaction is the more difficult resource. The fine spirit, the clear 

 insight, the keen reader of other men's thoughts, is imprisoned in 

 walls of adipose, and the desire for action dies out with the utterance 

 of wise maxims, philosophic doubts, and morbid upbraidings of his 

 own inertness. Hamlet is like one of those persons (to be met with in 

 every community) who can relieve themselves by talking. This is a 

 kind of character well understood by Shakespeare. In the third Rich- 

 ard's conference with the murderers of Clarence, one replies to him : 



" Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to prate ; 

 Talkers are no great doers." 



Again, in describing a character the very opposite to that of Hamlet 

 one of few words, Cordelia the poet makes her say, " What I well 

 intend, I'll do't before I speak." Now, of all the characters drawn by 

 Shakespeare, Hamlet is preeminently the man of words ; not only his 

 famous soliloquies but his dialogues take up unwonted space ; he is the 

 most prolific moralizer of the dramatist's conception, and thus all prac- 

 tical manhood is allowed to ooze out in words. 



To judge the better whether Shakespeare intended in this play to 

 show how the body may clog the aspirations of the mind, we have only 

 to observe that whenever the physical appearance of any character is 

 described by him, we find that leanness is an element of the executive 

 man, and "bulk" or fatness of the dilatory and procrastinating, just 

 as we see it in every-day life. Says Prince Henry to Falstaff : 



" "What ! stand'st thou idle here ? Lend me thy sword ! " 



And the fat knight replies : 



" O Hal, I prithee give me leave to 'breathe awhile " 



the very expression used by both the King and Queen in regard to 

 Hamlet, and in which he also describes his own case. 



On another occasion Prince John addresses the pseudo-hero of 

 Salisbury Plain : 



" Now, Falstaff, where have you heen all this while? 

 When everything is ended, then you come." 



And the inimitable old rogue, knowing that he must be pardoned for 

 his fat, answers : 



" Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, a bullet ? " 



So also Csesar, recognizing the physiological improbability of a fat man 

 actually carrying out a treasonable conspiracy, says : 



" Let me have men about me that are fat." 



