252 



SOxME REMARKS ON THK PHILOSOPHY AND 

 OBSERVANCES OF SHAKSPEARE. 



vr.—HAMLET. 



Of all Shakspeare's plays, Hamlet has been the most studied and 

 the least understood. As a subject of criticism, it has attracted the 

 attention of our most celebrated authors, who have all made more 

 or less approach to its elucidation, in proportion to the metaphysical 

 or poetical tendency of their minds : nevertheless, the character of 

 Hamlet is still an uninterpreted mystery. 



In reading this play, one thing is obvious — that our impressions 

 become so various and our opinions so contradictory, that we leave 

 it with but a vague and painful idea of the whole. The presump- 

 tive inconsistencies in Hamlet's character destroy in our minds its 

 unity and completion : in this rests the difficulty of the task to ab- 

 stract our ideas from particulars, rejecting every opinion of the parts 

 until, by a careful comparison of them all, we come to a better un- 

 derstanding of the beautiful and homogeneous creation of Hamlet. 

 No study is, perhaps, more difficult than to follow such a subject 

 with an analytical criticism from part to part : for it is the essential 

 excellency of Shakspeare, that he is always suggestive — a moral 

 telescope, which opens to our view new and brilliant imaginations, 

 filling the mind at every glance with beautiful and profound reflec- 

 tions. It is no easy task, then, to carry on these successive impres- 

 sions, as it were mapping them together into one complete structure. 

 Hamlet is the masterpiece of human genius ; it combines all that is 

 sublime in thought acting on one of the most perfect of human 

 beings : his apparent inconsistencies belong to his greatness ; a 

 common mind so circumstanced would have exhibited none of his 

 conduct, but have gone at once, beast-like, to his revenge. 



Hamlet forejudged every act, and reasoned to the utmost limit of 

 fallibility; it is no wonder, therefore, that his biography is seldom 

 read and never understood. The character of Hamlet is a triplet, 

 compounded of three causes — the physical, the spiritual, and the 

 educational : this triad, acting in concert under most peculiar cir- 

 cumstances, produced an eflect or developed a character which, as a 

 whole, is contrary to its parts. 



To examine the character of Hamlet, we will take these causes 

 separately, and by examining each individually we may, perhaps, 

 better understand the profound mystery of his character, and be able 



