ERRATA. 8" read "page 120." Note.-In the table of "Contents," page xv, at Appendix M, the words "omitted in the Cambridge Edition" do not mean "omitted only in that edition;" the scene referred to, as is well known, being omitted in all the Quartos and Folios, except A STUDY OF HAMLET. PART I. "HAMLET" is perhaps the most popular of all Shakespeare's plays. Nearly all people have either read it, or seen it upon the stage, more than once. I will not say that it is the one most often quoted, yet perhaps the quotations taken from it are the best known of any of those lines of Shakespeare which have become household words. I do not think it is difficult to understand the universal popularity of this play; if we do not all agree in considering it Shakespeare's greatest work, it certainly is his most human; though less pathetic than "Othello," less sublime than "Macbeth," less touching than "Lear," it is certainly of all his tragedies the one which appeals most widely to human sympathy; because the character of Hamlet has more in common with all mankind than any other hero. His very weakness, which has been so severely censured by some critics, is greatly the cause of this; for most tragic heroes are endowed with such gigantic intellect, and monstrous passions, as to place them beyond both the understanding and the sympathy of ordinary mortals. Deeply as we are moved by the agonising jealousy of Othello, freely as we weep with Lear over the body of the loving Cordelia, instinctively as we shudder with Macbeth at the unearthly apparitions which so mysteriously control his fate, few of us ever feel that Othello, or Lear, or Macbeth, might be our very own self; but when Hamlet speaks, it seems as if thoughts and feelings, long pent up in us, had found their most natural utterance: the least philosophical comprehends his philosophy; the least melancholy muses sadly with him over the mysteries of life; the least humorous of us smiles B with him as odd fancies and playful satire break forth from him in the midst of the most tragic surroundings. No doubt the question of suicide might be debated more learnedly, certainly more sensationally, than in the celebrated soliloquy of Hamlet: but if philosophers and novelists were to try their very utmost, they never could express more clearly, more vividly, certainly not more beautifully, than Shakespeare has in those few lines, the struggles of a mind weighed down by the sense that the burden imposed upon it was too heavy to bear. The popularity of "Hamlet" is the more remarkable when we consider how subordinate in it is what we commonly call the "love interest." Few plays except Shakespeare's have retained their hold upon the popular mind either on the stage or in the study, the principal motive of which has not been, in some form or other, the love of man for woman, or of woman for man. In Hamlet the chief motive is filial affection; one which I hope will always inspire the deepest and most general sympathy; but which, it would be idle to deny, exercises a less powerful charm over the vulgar mind than that more selfish, and intrinsically less noble affection which sometimes threatens to monopolise the name of Love. If for no other reason, I should be deeply grieved to see the character of Hamlet losing any of its hold upon the minds of my contemporaries, and especially of the young; for if there is any one of the natural affections which the rapidly advancing steam-engine of improvement seems likely to improve off the face of the earth; it is that most holy, unselfish, and noble affection-an affection rooted in humility and in a single-minded sense of duty; incompatible alike with intellectual pride, or with enervating self-indulgence-the affection of a son for his father. No one can ever hope to appreciate Hamlet who does not cherish unsullied within his soul, in youth, in maturity, and in old age, that reverential love of parents which is the foundation-stone of all social virtue. The intense love and worship which Hamlet feels for the memory of his father, mark him out, on his very first entrance, as alone in the crowd of courtiers around him; alone, too, even in the presence of those who should have loved and revered that memory as highly, if not more highly, than Hamlet himself. The noble excess of his love tends, hardly less than the inherent weakness of his character, to paralyse his capacity for action when it is most needed; of this I shall have to speak more fully, and I will now pass on to notice briefly those other points in the character of Hamlet which ensure him the sympathy of mankind. As I have said before, the very weakness of Hamlet makes us love him the more, because it brings him nearer to our own level. Who has not known what it is to feel life, with its glorious opportunities, slipping away from us day by day, without bringing us any nearer the fulfilment of some great duty, or the execution of some noble purpose, to which either the example, or the exhortation, of others, or the voice of our own conscience has called us? It may be by the death-bed of some very dear one; it may be in the wearying discipline of some long illness; it may be in the close and earnest contemplation of the evils around us, that we hear the first sound of the voice that calls us to sacrifice our ease, and our pleasures, for the sake of righting some wrong, or destroying some abuse, to the full heinousness of which our minds have been roused. Perhaps, like Hamlet, we sit down and contemplate the horrid features of the monster, till the very acuteness of the pain and disgust, which such a contemplation inspires, obtaining complete mastery over our feelings, and occupying our thoughts to the exclusion of almost any other subject, gradually wears away our energies, without their finding vent in that prompt and decided action which alone, as we know, can accomplish the great end we have set before us. In this state of mind, the desire to act is never lost; it is only the power to do so which is swallowed up in excess of feeling. Another state is when we simply content ourselves with exclaiming against the injustice and wickedness of the world in general, or of some persons in particular, but weakly decline to act, from despair at the magnitude of the labour involved in any attempt to remedy the evils to which we cannot blind ourselves. In such a state of mind we might slightly alter the words of Hamlet — "The world is out of joint, oh cursed spite ! To this canker of cowardice, which blights the lives of so many in whom great sensibility is coupled with indolence, and in whom the reflective part of the mind is morbidly developed at the expense of the executive part-it is to this that Hamlet alludes in the words That craven scruple A thought which quartered hath but one part wisdom, This weakness may be developed into a worse form, till it assumes the most repulsive of all shapes, that impotent snarling cynicism, which yaps like a cur at the heels of every wrong-doer, but never attempts to help the wronged. One feature in the character of Hamlet, which most attracts us, is his keen sympathy with all that is good, his contempt for what is mean and evil; this he shows without regard of place or person; and it is more admirable in a prince, whose temptations to acquiesce in things as they are, and to accept the world's standard of right and wrong, are greater than those of one in a lower station of life. The fidelity which Hamlet shows to his friends, few indeed, but chosen for their merit alone; as well as the dignified courtesy, with which he treats all but those whom he knows to be practising some treachery towards him, add to the affection with which we regard him. I will here allude to one other circumstance of his condition, which appeals to the sympathy of many readers of this tragedy-I mean the uncongeniality from which it is manifest, the moment he enters on the stage, that Hamlet suffers. I do so merely to warn the younger amongst you against allowing a natural sympathy for one, whose surroundings are most distasteful and antagonistic to his own feelings, to develope itself into that most mischievous of all morbid fancies-a belief that we are superior to all around us; that we are crushed by want of sympathy in our associates; that we are wasting our energies and talents on work which is far too dull and insignificant for us; that, in order to prove our superiority to the persons and circumstances among which our lot is cast, we ought to assume a gloomy dignity of manner; to shun this uncongenial society, though it be the only society within our reach; and vent our pent-up feelings in dismal and foolish verses, or in unwholesome and tedious exposition of our own misery; till we succeed in exalting our wretched selves into as corrupt and mischievous idols as it is in the power of man to create. No doubt it would be very pleasant if we all could live with persons whose tastes were similar to our own; who never differed with us in opinion; who never, morally, trod on our corns; among circumstances which never jarred upon our feelings, and duties, which were no less delightful than obligatory to perform. But the world was not made according to every one's fancy; and we must accept it as it is, with its sorrows, and its uncongenialities, and its duties, however unpleasant they may be. I do not know any phase of character, short of that of the merest sensualist, into which I would more warn the |