"It was upon this second quarto that all future editions of the play were based. It is conjectured that Shakespeare worked upon the basis of an old play, an edition of which is known to have appeared in 1602; that the quarto of 1603 represents his remodelling of this old play; and that the edition of 1604 was a complete and final recast.

"2. The story seems to have been drawn from the Historia Danica of Saxo Grammaticus, a native of Elsinore, who wrote about the end of the twelfth century; though the earliest existing edition of his history has the date of 1514. A French writer, Francis de Belleforest, embodied the story of Amleth, Hamlet, or Hamblet in his Histoires Tragiques; and an unknown English writer translated this story and published it separately under the title of The Hystorie of Hamblet a black-letter quarto copy of which, bearing the date of 1608, exists in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge.

"3. The play of Hamlet is the longest of Shakespeare's plays; and it is one of the greatest. It is also the most varied in incident; and the argument of the play would make a very long story. Though full of incident, the main interest of the play is centered in thought and character—in the moods of mind through which Hamlet passes, until he meets death in the fulfillment of the purpose towards which he has not marched or hastened, but simply drifted. There has also been more written about Hamlet than about any

other play in the world. The books, pamphlets, and papers that have appeared on this play would constitute a respectable library. The play belongs to what has been called Shakespeare's period of 'Middle Tragedy'; and its companion in this category is Julius Cæsar. Both are tragedies of thought; and both were written when Shakespeare was about thirty-seven or thirty-eight.

"4. The young reader may with advantage study fully and carefully the character of Hamlet, as it stands out from and over against the circumstances which surround him, and as it may be interpreted by the aid of contrast — by the characters of the other personages of the play. He is a student at the University of Wittenberg; he hears of the sudden and mysterious death of his father; he hastens home to find his mother married to his uncle- an event which shocks his soul and begins to poison his feelings towards his mother; he hears of the appearance of his father's ghost; he has an interview with it and a stern task laid upon him; the whole of the habits of his previous life are broken up; he is tortured by grief, doubt, love, and difficulty; and only in dying does he attain to clearness of mind and strength of soul. After having studied the relation of Hamlet to the circumstances and characters that surround him, the reader may take the other personages of the play and study them in pairs. Thus Horatio may be compared with Laertes; and both again with Hamlet. Horatio

the son of his father; and

says little, and is little affected by external events. Laertes is a worldly man with no inner life at all. He is as thoughtless as Hamlet is thoughtful—as rash and eager for action as Hamlet is filled to excess with considerations, reflections, and balancings of judgment. Claudius, again, stands in direct contrast with the late King (see III. iv. 56-66). Polonius, full of wise maxims which he has lost the power of applying to present exigencies, may be contrasted with Horatio, who says nothing, but is always ready to help, whatever may happen. Osric, in the end of the play, is an admirable set-off to the quiet soldierliness of Marcellus and Bernardo, in the beginning. Ophelia, with her deep, unspeaking nature -one of those persons who live only in their own hearts, and upon their own hearts'— forms a noble contrast to the shallow external nature of the Queen, whose conscience and heart do not begin to speak until they are appealed to in the directest and strongest way by Hamlet himself and by tragical events."-Meiklejohn.

CRITICAL OPINIONS

"The universality of Shakespeare's genius is in some sort reflected in Hamlet. He has a mind wise and witty, abstract and practical; the utmost reach of philosophical contemplation is mingled with the most penetrating sagacity in the affairs of life; playful jest,

biting satire, sparkling repartee, with the darkest and deepest thoughts that can agitate man. He exercises all his various faculties with surprising readiness. He passes without an effort 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe,' from his everyday character to personated lunacy. He divines, with the rapidity of lightning, the nature and motives of those who are brought into contact with him; fits in a moment his bearing and retorts to their individual peculiarities; is equally at home whether he is mocking Polonius with hidden raillery, or dissipating Ophelia's dream of love, or crushing the sponges with sarcasm and invective, or talking euphuism with Osric, and satirizing while he talks it; whether he is uttering wise maxims, or welcoming the players with facetious graciousness, — probing the inmost souls of others, or sounding the mysteries of his own. His philosophy stands out conspicuous among the brilliant faculties which contend for the mastery. It is the quality which gives weight and dignity to the rest. It intermingles with all his actions. He traces the most trifling incidents up to their general laws. His natural disposition is to lose himself in contemplation. He goes thinking out of the world. The commonest ideas that pass through his mind are invested with a wonderful freshness and originality. His meditations in the churchyard are on the trite notion that all ambition leads but to the grave. But what condensation, what variety, what picturesqueness, what intense, unmitigated gloom!

It is the finest sermon that was ever preached against the vanities of life.

"So far, we imagine, all are agreed. But the motives which induce Hamlet to defer his revenge are still, and perhaps will ever remain, debatable ground. The favorite doctrine of late is that the thinking part of Hamlet predominated over the active, — that he was as weak and vacillating in performance as he was great in speculation. If this theory were borne out by his general conduct, it would no doubt amply account for his procrastination; but there is nothing to countenance, and much to refute, the idea. Shakespeare has endowed him with a vast energy of will. There could be no sterner resolve than to abandon every purpose of existence, that he might devote himself, unfettered, to his revenge; nor was ever resolution better observed. He breaks through his passion for Ophelia, and keeps it down, under the most trying circumstances, with such inflexible firmness, that an eloquent critic has seriously questioned whether his attachment was real. The determination of his character appears again at the death of Polonius. An indecisive mind would have been shocked, if not terrified, at the deed. Hamlet dismisses him with a few contemptuous words, as a man would brush away a fly. He talks with even greater indifference of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom he sends 'to sudden death, not shriving-time allowed.' He has on these, and, indeed, on all occasions, a short and absolute way which only belongs to