CHARACTER of HAMLET, 263 



Haft ta'en with equal thanks : and bleft are thofe 

 Whofe blood and judgment are fo well co-mingled 

 That rhey are not a pipe for fortune's finger, 

 To found what flops lhe pleafe. Give me that man 

 That is not pafhon's flave, and I will wear him 

 In my heart's core. 



Men praife in others what they love and pofTefs in themfelves ;, 

 and Hamlet was here drawing fome of the outlines of his own 

 character. 



To the principles of morality and a confummate knowledge 

 of mankind, he joined the accomplifhments of learning and 

 the graces of life. His eloquence was fuch as great orators only 

 have poffeffed, rich, tropical, daring, ardent, vehement. The 

 directions he gives to the players, are models of tafle and laws 

 for the flage. His wit and fancy feem to have belonged only 

 to himfelf. Even in his character of foldier and hero, and 

 which I all along confider as his weaker part, an intrepidity 

 breaks forth at times beyond what is human ; as appears in the 

 ghoft-fcenes, where his courage grows with danger ; where he 

 is not only unterrified, but fports with what appals the reft of 

 mankind. 



The Hamlet of Shakespeare, taken all in all, feems 

 thus to be the moft fplendid character of dramatic poetry ; 

 pofTemng, not one or two great qualities, the ordinary compafs of 

 the heroes in tragedy, of a Lear, an Othello, a Rodrigue, 

 an Horace, but comprehending almoft the whole of what i& 

 beautiful and grand. 



The miftakes which critics feem to have fallen into, can be 

 all traced perhaps to partial and fide-views which they have 

 taken of Hamlet; but which can neither explain his whole 

 character, nor fufficiently account for the intereft which is ex- 

 cited. 



Sensibility, 



