But I do prophecy the election lights And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! Enter FORTINBRAS, the English Ambassadors, and FORT. Where is this sight? What is it, you would see? HOR. FORT. This quarry cries on havock!-O proud So 4tos. death! What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,(67) That thou so many princes, at a shot, So bloodily hast struck? 1 Амв. The sight is dismal; And our affairs from England come too late: That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead: Where should we have our thanks? HOR. Not from his mouth, Had it the ability of life to thank you; ▪ the occurrents, more or less, which have solicited] i. e. which have importunately and irresistibly urged on-he would have said, "this sad catastrophe." This quarry cries on havock] i. e. this heap of prey (see quarry, Macb. I. 2. Sold. & IV. 3. Rosse, and Coriol. I. 1. Marc.) exclaims, and as with an unceasing voice proclaims that, which is the signal of desolation in war, havoc. The phrase, cries on, is much in the same way applied to murder in Othel. ; с "Whose noise is this, that cries on murder?" V. 1. Iago. His. 1623, 32. He never gave commandment for their death. Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters; for no. Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd* cause; And, in this upshot, purposes mistook 4tos. Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I And call the noblest to the audience. + So 4tos. For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune; rites. 1623, I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me. 32. So 4tos. are. 1623, 32. HOR. Of that I shall have always cause to speak, And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more:* Not from his mouth, Had it the ability of life He never gave commandment for their death] i. e. " had it the means, that life affords, not from the mouth of the king; from whom they, as the creatures and spies of his villanies, would have received protection, and whose more atrocious aims, when disclosed to them, would appear to have been directed against the life of his nephew, Hamlet." This obscure intimation, this mystery thrown over the transaction, would heighten curiosity and the interest of the communications, presently expected from Horatio. b jump upon this bloody question] i. e. " close upon, and as if by a spring or bound reaching it." "Just or jump at this dead hour," are the different readings of the folios and quartos in I. 1. Marc. C put on by cunning] i. e. produced, prompted. See Macb. IV. 3. Mal. d rights of memory, &c.] i. e. borne in memory, not forgotten; and thence to have effect given them. • I shall have always cause—whose voice shall draw on more] i. e. " from Hamlet's, whose dying voice or suffrage will produce or draw in its train many more." For always, the quartos read also. The fo. of 1632 gives the line "Of that I shall alwayes cause to speak." But let this same be presently perform d, Even while men's minds are wild, lest more mis chance, On plots, and errors, happen." FORT. To have prov'd most royally: and, for his passage, Take up the body:* Such a sight as this с [A dead March. [Exeunt, bearing off the dead Bodies; after are wild] i. e. unsettled. On plots and errors happen] i. e. in consequence, the effect of. put on] i. e. put to the proof, tried. d for his passage] i. e. as to order taken for the ceremony of conveying him. * bodies. 4tos. EXAMINATION OF THE OPINIONS OF MESSRS. JOHNSON, MALONE AND STEEVENS RESPECTING THE CONDUCT OF SOME PARTS OF THIS Ddrama, or RATHER SUCH AS RESPECT THE CHARACTER AND CONDUCT OF HAMLET. "If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and solemnity: with merriment that includes judicious and instructive observations; and solemnity not strained by poetical violence above the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of Hamlet causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first Act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that exposes affectation to just contempt. "The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty. a It would be no very easy matter to reconcile with reason his drawing his sword in the midst of a grave discussion with his mother for the sole purpose of destroying a rat; an act, the consequences of which he excuses, as proceeding from madness; and he must have further meant, that the murder of his uncle, an act of premeditated revenge, should have been covered by this plea; and that, instead of being considered as such, or an act of treason, it was the hasty dictate of wild and guileless insanity. Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an instrument than an agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punish him; and his death is at last effected by an incident which Hamlet had no part in producing. "The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of A scheme might easily be formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl. art. "The poet is accused of having shown little regard to poetical justice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the revenge which he demands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification, which would arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmless, and the pious." JOHNSON. "To conform to the ground-work of his plot, Shakespeare makes the young prince feign himself mad. I cannot but think this to be injudicious; for so far from securing himself from any violence which he feared from the usurper, it seems to have been the most likely way of getting himself confined, and consequently debarred from an opportunity of revenging his father's death, which now seemed to be his only aim; and accordingly it was the occasion of his being sent away to England; which design, had it taken effect upon his life, he never could have revenged his father's murder. To speak truth, our poet by keeping too close to the ground-work of his plot, has fallen into an absurdity; for there appears no reason at all in nature, why the young prince did not put the usurper to death as soon as possible, especially as Hamlet is represented as a youth so brave, and so careless of his own life. "The case indeed is this. Had Hamlet gone naturally to work, as we could suppose such a prince to do in parallel circumstances, there would have been an end of our play. The poet, therefore, was obliged to delay his hero's revenge: but then he should have contrived some good reason for it." MALONE. Of this play, a modern writer, with just conception of the interest it raises, has said; "Such an infinite and subtle discrimination of character, such feeling, is displayed in it; it is rendered so exquisitely interesting, yet without the help of a regular plot, almost without a plan; so like is it in its simplicity to the progress of nature itself, that it appears to be an entire effusion of pure genius alone." Northcote's Life of Sir Josh. Reyn. 1813. p. 343. There are in the last editions some representations of the chaacter of Hamlet, which, though in our judgment unfounded, yet being to such an extent injurious to it as in some measure to throw reproach upon our author, we have thought fit, without going more at large into his character, to give our view of the subject, as applicable to these points. |