Aug. 12. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



personages, the errors of a few are mistaken for 

 the demeanour of the many. In Shakspeare they 

 always carry with them your love and respect. 

 He made no imperfect abstractions: he took no 

 copies from the worst part of our nature ; and, 

 like the rest, his characters of priests are drawn 

 from the general body." 



Coleridge devoted one lecture to Richard II. and 

 Hamlet. The first was his favourite historical play; 

 and his admiration of the second is well known. 

 His peculiar views on the character and conduct 

 of the Danish prince were stated, perhaps, at more 

 length in 1818, but not with greater distinctness 

 and emphasis. " N. & Q." will, I trust, be able 

 to find room for the two subsequent paragraphs : 



" The first question we should ask ourselves is, 

 \yhat did Shakspeare mean when he drew the 

 character of Hamlet ? He never wrote anything 

 without design, and what was his design when he 

 sat down to produce this tragedy ? My belief is 

 that he always regarded his story before he began 

 to write, much in the same light that a painter 

 regards his canvas before he begins to paint — as 

 a mere vehicle for his thoughts, as the ground 

 upon which he was to work. What then was the 

 point to which Shakspeare directed himself in 

 Hamlet f He intended to pourtray a person in 

 ■whose view the external world, and all its inci- 

 dents and objects, were comparatively dim, and of 

 no interest in themselves; and which began to 

 interest, when they were reflected in the mirror 

 of his mind. Hamlet beheld external things, in 

 the same way that a man of vivid imagination, 

 who shuts his eyes, sees what has previously made 

 an impression on his organs. 



" The poet places him in the most stimulating 

 circumstances that a human being can be placed 

 in : he is the heir apparent of a throne ; his father 

 dies suspiciously ; his mother excludes her son 

 from his throne by marrying his uncle. This is 

 not enough ; but the ghost of his murdered father 

 is introduced, to assure the son that he was put to 

 death by his own brother. What is the effect 

 ■upon the son ? Instant action, and pursuit of 

 revenge ? No, endless reasoning and hesitating ; 

 constant urging and solicitation of the mind to 

 act, and as constant an escape from action. Cease- 

 less reproaches of himself for sloth and negligence, 

 while the whole energy of his resolution evapo- 

 rates in these reproaches. This, too, not from 

 cowardice — for Hamlet is drawn as one of the 

 bravest of his time ; not from want of forethought, 

 or from slowness of apprehension — for he sees 

 through the very souls of all who surround him ; 

 but merely from that aversion to action which 

 prevails among such as have a world in them- 

 selves." 



I will only add, that while Coleridge paid a just 

 tribute to the sagacity and penetration of German 



critics, he claimed for himself the merit of ori- 

 ginality in his opinions and observations upon 

 Shakspeare. He admitted that in the interval 

 between one lecture and another, a friend had 

 put a German work into his hand which in some 

 respects corresponded with his notions ; but he 

 distinctly denied that he had ever seen it before, 

 or that he had in any way been guided or in- 

 fluenced by it. It will be borne in mind, that all 

 I have written belongs to the end of the year 

 1812, and the beginning of the year 1813. 



J. Payne Collieb. 

 Riverside, Maidenhead. 



NOTES ON SOME VERSES BY THOMAS CAMPBELI-. 



Mr. Tonna, in Vol. x., p. 44., has certainly 

 given a curious illustration of the verbal nicety 

 (almost equal to Gray's !) of my late friend, the 

 illustrious Bard of Hope. But though he refers 

 to the copy of the verses in question, printed in 

 the New Monthly Magazine, some months after 

 the incident he describes, he does not appear to 

 have seen it, else he would have observed that 

 Campbell discarded his " second thoughts," and 

 reverted to the word " severed." Perhaps he 

 thought "parted" and "depart" looked some- 

 what like a conceit, to which he was always op- 

 posed. In this copy, and in one which now lies 

 before me, in the author's autograph, and which I 

 saw him write, after the death of the lovely, ac- 

 complished, and unfortunate subject of the verses, 

 there are two lines altered from Mr. T.'s version : 

 " Could I bring lost youth back again," 



is substituted for 



" Could I recall lost youth again ; " 



" Affection's tender glow " 

 becomes 



" Devoted rapture's glow," 

 which is more impassioned and poetical, I think. 



Mr. T. does not seem to have consulted Beattie'ft 

 Life of the poet, where (vol. iii. p. 70.) this littl& 

 poem is reprinted, with a note by the bio- 

 grapher. There also he would have found the- 

 striking sketch of the "Battle of the Baltic,"" 

 which I transcribed from an early letter of Camp- 

 bell to his brother bard, Sir Walter Scott, and- 

 from which the author's over-delicate taste re- 

 jected eight whole stanzas, two or three of them 

 almost as fine, even in this rough draft, as several 

 of those which have so much contributed to bia 

 immortality. 



It is remarkable that we do not find in this 

 sketch the expression " to anticipate the scene," 

 interpolated for the sake of the rhyme, and which 

 falls on the mind so " stale, flat, and unprofitable," 

 amid so many " words that burn " and stir one's 

 blood like the sound of a trumpet ! 



