CHARACTER of HAMLET. 259 



His love had been only the deeper embofomed ; It had become 

 too facred to be feen ; and like fire, when pent up, it had ac- 

 quired greater force. 



There feems alfo to be a miftake in the attempt which 

 fom-e * have made, in juftification of Shakespeare, to re- 

 concile the melancholy to the jocularity of Hamlet. For his 

 jocularity, I (liould rather conceive, fprung more from the 

 elevated than from the melancholy parts of his nature. He was 

 not, ftridlly fpeaking, a melancholy man ; although it be true 

 that, at times, he was plunged into a ftate of genuine and 

 deep dejedion. In fuch a ftate, and in certain kinds of it, we 

 have heard of the joy of grief and can underftand it — fome- 

 thing fweetly grave and penfive ; but the gaiety and pkafantry 

 of grief are things which probably never exifted. It is, on the 

 other hand, the exclufive adl of a great mind, to make truce 

 with forrow ; to difmifs the deepefb anguifli ; to put mirth in its 

 ftead ; and Hamlet, in fuch fcenes, was only for a little re- 

 fuming his ftrength. Even the melancholy which is afcribed 

 to him, and which indeed he afcribes to himfelf, was often not 

 melancholy, but wild contemplation and reverie. 



There are many fimilar inftances of the connexion between 

 elevation and pleafantry, both in the charadler of nations and 

 of individuals. The Spaniards, for example, are defcribed to 

 be of a grave and lofty fpirit \ yet among no people is there 

 more humour. Individuals of this caft are not unfrequently 

 to be met with in every country. Moliere may be inftanced, 

 who was one of the moft ferious and refpedlable men that ever 

 lived ; and yet no writer has had fuch a propenfity to farce and 

 buffoonery ; his plays being in general juft the counter-parts of 

 himfelf. It is upon fuch principles, I would venture to explain 

 the pleafantries of Hamlet ; in which he rofe up, at times, 



K k 2 from 



* Mirror. 



