AND BODILY STATES UPON THE IMAGINATION. 59 



alluding to her father, doubtless, since Hamlet was yet living; 

 hut in the next scene, the idea of her lover intrudes, and she is 

 introduced strewing the tomb of old age with tokens that are cast 

 only upon the grave of youth and beauty — 



" Larded all with sweet flowers 

 Which bewept to the grave did go 

 With true-love showers." 

 And again, 



** White the shroud as mountain snow," 



white being the peculiar mourning-colour for the young. This 

 feature of her diseased fancy — this wandering and mixture of ideas 

 of opposite characters — this investment of one circumstance with 

 attributes belonging to another, has never been more truly described 

 — never more beautifully illustrated — than in the character of 

 Ophelia. 



In all cases of mental alienation from disappointed affection, or 

 from any other cause in which love is the predominant feeling, pri- 

 or to the hallucination, the object of this passion mixes itself with 

 all the wanderings of the maniac, and all the vigour of a morbid 

 imagination is taxed to invest it with every ideal beauty. He is 

 the god of their dreams and the idol of their waking hours ; the 

 maniac chants songs of his virtues, weaves garlands for his brows, 

 decks the board for his return — at one moment arraying herself in 

 bridal garments for the wedding, and the next clad in weeds, and 

 following him in fancy to the grave. 



This fact, which is recognized by all conversant with the insane, 

 did not escape the observation of Shakspeare. The thoughts of 

 Ophelia, though distracted and wandering, constantly return to 

 one point — that of her passion for Hamlet. After mourning the 

 loss of her father, and gathering the appropriate emblems of sorrow 

 to strew his beir, her ideas suddenly revert to the master-thought of 

 her distraction, and she breaks forth into chants of affection for her 

 lover. Thus : — 



" I would give you some violets; but they withered all when my father 

 died. They say he made a good end. 



" For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy." 



The remark of Laertes might be a medical comment upon her 

 state : 



il Thought, and affliction, passion, hell itself, 

 She turns to favour and to prettiness." 



