266 . An ESSAT on the 



cannot be affirmed. It is poflible, that, finding the charadler 

 of Hamlet to grow upon him, he varied in the progrefs from 

 what he had intended in the outfetting of the play, and giving 

 to Hamlet, on this account, a fuller fcope, (but without de- 

 parting from the charader) he eventually threw more interefl 

 into the perfon than into the plot. Whatever may have been 

 the caufe, we fee the efFedl, — Hamlet, in his fole perfon, 

 predominating over, and almoft ecllpfing the whole acftion 

 of the drama. It is he that draws the admiration ; it is he 

 that engroffes the concern ; all eyes are turned more and more 

 to him ; Hamlet is wiflied for in every fcene ; king and queen, 

 inceft and murder, as objeds of tragic attention, vanilli almoft 

 away ; the moment Hamlet's own fate arrives, the play is 

 ended. The intereft which the hearts of men take in the prin- 

 cipal charadler of this tragedy, ftands thus in competition 

 with the laws of the drama ; and it becomes a problem, which 

 of the two, the means or the end, Ihould preponderate. 



On account of the intereft being transferred from the adion 

 to the agent, the moral, taking the fame courfe, is to be drawn 

 rather from the particular condudl of Hamlet than from the 

 general bufinefs of the play. But what that particular moral 

 is, may be difficult to afcertain. We may fay, perhaps, that 

 from the condudl of Hamlet, it appears, how unfit for the 

 work of revenge are the qualities of a foldier and hero, when 

 conjoined with thofe of a fcholar and philofopher ; yet we can- 

 not prefume to affirm, that it was Shakespeare's objei5t merely 

 to exemplify this, or even to conceive, that he limited himfelf 

 to any fingle obje<5l or moral. Thofe things which feem to have 

 been uppermoft in his mind, and which he has made to ffiine 

 with moft light, are the charms in the perfonal charader of 

 Hamlet. Enamoured with thefe himfelf, it feems to have been 

 his chief purpofe to raife the fame paffion in his audiences. 

 That he has intimated this, by his interpreter Horatio, only 



in 



