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nought but the crums that fall from the tranflatorʼs trencher. That could fcarcely latinize their neck verse if they fhould have neede; yet English Seneca read by candlelight yeelds many good fentences-he will afford you whole Hamletts, I should say, handfuls of tragicall fpeeches."I cannot determine exactly when this Epiftle was first published; but, I fancy, it will carry the original Hamlet fomewhat further back than we have hitherto done: and it may be obferved, that the oldest copy now extant, is faid to be "enlarged to almoft as much again as it was." Gabriel Harvey printed at the end of the year 1592, "Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets, efpecially touching Robert Greene:" in one of which his Arcadia is mentioned. Now Na's Epiftle muft have been previous to thefe, as Gabriel is quoted in it with applaufe; and the Foure Letters were the beginning of a quarrel. Nab replied, in "Strange news of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Convoy of Verfes, as they were going privilie to victual the Low Countries, 1593." Harvey rejoined the fame year in "Pierce's Supererogation, or a new praife of the old Affe." And Nah again, in "Have with you to Saffron-Walden, or Gabriell Harvey's Hunt is up; containing a full anfwer to the eldest fonne of the halter-maker, 1596.”—Nash died before 1606, as appears from an old comedy called "The Return from Parnaffus." STEEVENS.

THAT piece of Shakespear's, which appears to have moft affected English hearts, and has, perhaps, been oftenest acted of any that have come upon our stage, is almost one continued moral; a feries of deep reflections drawn from one mouth, upon the subject of one fingle accident and calamity, naturally fitted to move horror and compaffion.

It may be faid of this Play, if I mistake not, that it has properly but one character, or principal part. It contains no adoration or flattery of the fex; no ranting at the gods; no bluftering heroifin; nor any thing of

that

hat curious mixture of the fierce and tender, which makes the hinge of modern tragedy, and nicely varies it between the points of love and honour." SHAFTSBURY.

IF the dramas of Shakespear were to be characterised, each by the particular excellence which diftinguishes it from the reft, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety. The incidents are fo numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long tale. The fcenes are interchangeably diverfified with merriment and folemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive obfervations; and folemnity, not ftrained by poetical violence above the natural fentiments of man. New characters appear from time to time in continual fucceffion, exhibiting various forms of life and particular modes of converfation. The pretended madnefs of Hamlet caufes much mirth, the mournful distraction of Ophelia fills the heart with ten-dernefs, and every perfonage produces the effect intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the blood with horror, to the fop in the last, that expofes affectation to just contempt.

The conduct is perhaps not wholly fecure against ob-· jections. The action is indeed for the most part in continual progreffion, but there are fome fcenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate caufe, for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of fanity. He plays the madman moft, when he treats Ophelia with fo much rudenefs, which feems to be ufelefs and wanton cruelty.

Hamlet is, through the whole piece, rather an inftrument than an agent. After he has, by the ftratagem of the play, convicted the King, he makes no attempt to punifh him; and his death is at laft 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 necefly,

than

than a ftroke of art. A fcheme might eafily be formed to kill Hamlet with the dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The poet is accused of having fhewn little regard to poetical juftice, and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability. The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpofe; the revenge which he de mands is not obtained, but by the death of him that was required to take it; and the gratification, which would arife from the deftruction of an ufurper and a a murderer, is abated by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the harmlets, and the pious. JOHNSON.

The rugged Pyrrhus, be, &c.] The two greatest poets of this and the laft age, Mr. Dryden, in the preface to Troilus and Creffida, and Mr. Pope, in his note on this place, have concurred in thinking that Shakespear produced this long paffage with defign to ridicule and expofe the bombaft of the play from whence it was taken ; and that Hamlet's commendation of it is purely ironical. This is become the general opinion. I think juft otherwife; and that it was given with commendation to upbraid the false taste of the audience of that time, which would not fuffer them to do juftice to the fimplicity and fublime of this production. And I reafon, firit, from the character Hamlet gives of the play, from whence the paffage is taken. Secondly, from the paffage itself. And thirdly, from the effect it had on the audience.

Let us confider the character Hamlet gives of it, The play, I remember, pleafed not the million, 'twas Caviare to the general; but it was (as I received it, and others, whofe judgment in fuch matters cried in the top of mine) an excellent play, well digefted in the fcenes, fet dorin with as much modefty as cunning. I remember, one faid, there was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury ; nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection; but called it an honeft method. They who fuppafe the paffage given to be ridiculed, muft needs

fuppofe

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fuppofe this character to be purely ironical. But if fo, it is the strongest irony that ever was written. It pleafed not the multitude. This we must conclude to be true, however ironical the rest be. Now the reafon given of the defigned ridicule is the supposed bombaft. But those were the very plays, which at that time we know took with the multitude. And Fletcher wrote a kind of Rehearfal purpofely to expofe them. But fay it is bombaft, and that therefore it took not with the multitude. Hamlet prefently tells us what it was that difpleafed them. There was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury; nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection; but called it an honeft mer thod. Now whether a perfon fpeaks ironically or no, when he quotes others, yet common fenfe requires he fhould quote what they fay. Now it could not be, if this play difpleafed becaufe of the bombaft, that those whom it difpleafed should give this reason for their diflike. The fame inconfiftencies and abfurdities abound in every other part of Hamlet's fpeech, fuppofing it to be ironical but take him as fpeaking his fentiments, the whole is of a piece, and to this purpofe. The play, I remember, pleased not the multitude, and the reafon was, its being wrote on the rules of the ancient drama; to which they were entire ftrangers. But, in my opinion, and in the opinion of thofe for whofe judgment I have the highest esteem, it was an excellent play, well digefted in the fcenes, i. e. where the three unities were well preferved. Set down with as much modefty as cunning, i. e. where not only the art of compofition, but the fimplicity of nature, was carefully attended to. The characters were a faithful picture of life and manners, in which nothing was overcharged into farce. But thefe qualities, which gained my efteem, loft the public's, For I remember one faid, There was no falt in the lines to make the matter favoury, i. e. there was not, according to the mode of that time, a fool or clown to joke, quibble, and talk freely. Nor no matter in the phrafe that might indite the author of affection, i. e. nor none of

thofe

thofe paffionate, pathetic love fcenes, fo effential to modern tragedy. But be called it an honeft method, i. e. he owned, however tafielefs this method of writing, on the ancient plan,, was to our times, yet it was chaste and pure; the diftinguishing character of the Greek drama. I need only make one obfervation on all this; that, thus interpreted, it is the jufteft picture of a good tragedy, wrote on the ancient rules. And that I have rightly interpreted it, appears farther from what we find in the old quarto, An honeft method, as wholefome as fweet, and by very much more HANDSOME than FINE, i. e. it had a natural beauty, but none of the fucus of falfe art,

2. A fecond proof that this fpeech was given to be admired, is from the intrinfic merit of the fpeech itself; which contains the defcription of a circumftance very happily imagined, namely, lium and Priam's falling together, with the effect it had on the destroyer.

The hellish Pyrrhus, &c.'

To, Repugnant to command.

The unnerved father falls, &c.
To,So after Pyrrhus' paufe.

Now this circumftance, illuftrated with the fine fimili-tude of the ftorm, is fo highly worked up, as to have well deferved a place in Virgil's fecond book of the Encid, even though the work had been carried on to that perfection which the Roman poet had conceived.

3. The third proof is, from the effects which followed on the recital. Hamlet, his best character, approves it; the player is deeply affected in repeating it; and only the foolish Polonius tired with it. We have faid enough before of Hamlet's fentiments. As for the player, he changes colour, and the tears start from his eyes. But our author was too good a judge of nature. to make bombaft and unnatural fentimént produce fuch an effect. Nature and Horace both inftructed him,

Si

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