his pleasure in finding further excuses for it, and the weakness and the melancholy, and the actual malady that has invaded his mind. By such incidental revelations of thought are often betrayed, in actual life, the inward sufferings of partially disordered minds, when the sufferers would fain make a show of utter insensibility.

ACT THIRD.

THERE is not any part of the play of "Hamlet" that has appeared to be more enigmatical than the first scene in the third act, comprising Hamlet's accidental interview with Ophelia, whom he has only once before seen since he beheld his father's ghost. She had not been allowed to see him, although, on one occasion, she had indeed been alarmed by his unexpected appearance, and when he had not uttered a word. The first scene of the third act is in a room in the castle, and there are assembled the king and queen, Polonius and Ophelia, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The anxious king and queen question Rosencrantz and Guildenstern concerning their recent conversation with Hamlet.

KING. And can you, by no drift of circumstance,
Get from him, why he puts on this confusion;

Grating so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

Ros. He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUIL. Nor do we find him forward to be sounded;
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,

When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

Rosencrantz adds, that when the arrival of the players was mentioned to Hamlet, "there did seem in him a kind of joy to hear of it," but that he had in nothing else manifested a disposition to be cheered or amused. The king, however, hears of this slight indication with some content, and entreats them to drive Hamlet's purpose on to those delights; which they promise to do. When they quit the presence, the king begs the queen to leave him also, telling her that he has sent for Hamlet, in order that he may meet Ophelia, as if by accident, so that himself and Polonius, listening unseen to the conversation between them, may judge whether or no Hamlet is really but suffering from the agitations of love. Polonius has directed Ophelia to remain, and to read a book which he has put into her hand. The queen goes away; and Polonius,

hearing Hamlet approaching, also withdraws with the king.

In this part of the scene, when performed, the actors, who assume the feigning of Hamlet throughout, are accustomed to take great liberties, productive of general misconception in their audiences: they direct significant looks towards the side-scenes, and sometimes even draw up the arras for a moment to show who are listening, with other perfectly unlawful demonstrations of what is their own interpretation of Hamlet's position and meaning. The text justifies none of these liberties.

Hamlet has, apparently, seen none of those so hastily withdrawn ; he does not even, at first, observe Ophelia, who is left behind. Those who would account for his rough language to her by assuming that he knows every word he utters is overheard by concealed listeners,—an assumption to which even Coleridge lends his authority,-seem to forget that if Hamlet knew this, he must have known it before he addressed Ophelia; and, if so, must have deliberately and unaccountably uttered the reflections in

the intervening soliloquy he utters, before he addresses her, and which is marked by undisturbed and consecutive thought. This would be to consider the soliloquy as a mere rhapsody, meaningless and affected; and really to make any further attempt to understand Hamlet's character hopeless. The play tells us that the conversation carrying on by the king and the queen and Polonius is broken off, not by their seeing Hamlet coming, but by Polonius hearing his approaching step. Hamlet's senses and thoughts are preoccupied; he is pursuing a train of reflections arising out of a mind troubled with dreadful suggestions. Some calmness has now succeeded to the excitement and suffering disclosed to us by Ophelia's description of the last interview between them, when neither spoke. But he has been dwelling on the oft-recurring subject of self-destruction; he has considered it in every point of view,— its facility, its prompt relief from all the griefs and shocks that flesh is heir to, but also its possible consequences. The question is still revolving in his troubled mind as a mere question of living and of