the end of the play, Hamlet's conversation scarcely ever regains the composure and power of which it was previously capable. There is an appreciable change; often more brilliancy, but always less coherence; so that almost on all occasions his conversation is marred by flightiness, and by cynical disdain both of himself and others, until nearly at the conclusion, when the agitations of life are ended, and he is dying (Act v., Sc. 2). Then, indeed, in his brief and last conversation with Horatio, the consciousness of approaching death prevails over all temporal and minor influences, and his expressions are affectionate and noble. At present he is overburdened and borne down by a vague feeling of some course of action to be entered upon, some duty to be performed, which he has no strength to commence, no fortitude to fulfil.

HAM.

Let us go in together;

The time is out of joint ;-O cursed spite!

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let's go together.

[Exeunt.

ACT SECOND.

IT is a relief to quit the platform, and to exchange the dismal events of the past night for the ordinary occurrences of the cheerful day. The conversation of Polonius with Reynaldo, who is departing for Paris, where Laertes now is, diverts the thoughts for awhile, and makes us almost forgetful of the sadness of Hamlet. We are amused by the old man's mingled wisdom and cunning, and the self-approval with which he labours to draw a web of circumvention round his absent son. His very manner, his abundance of words and studied preciseness of phrase, his "mark you this, Reynaldo," and his slight obliviousness, and "what was I about to say?" and other words familiar, curiously hold up to us the mirror of garrulous but not unrespected age. He also considers all this as rather above the level of Reynaldo's unpractised comprehension.

See you now;

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth:

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,

With windlaces, and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out;

So, by my former lecture and advice,

Shall you my son: you have me, have you not?

Scarcely has Polonius completed his wary injunctions and dismissed Reynaldo when, suddenly, Ophelia rushes in, and in a state so expressive of alarm as to frighten him. The reason of her alarm is that she has just had offered to her the most painful spectacle that can be presented to any human eye; that of one dearly loved, seen for the first time after having become bereft of reason. In such a state Hamlet has just been seen by her; the individual form and features the same, but the governing mind changed or gone.

Alas for Hamlet! After that wretched night-watch, fresh griefs had awaited him. His letters to Ophelia have been repelled, his access to her has been denied. To write to her, and to hear her gentle voice, might have soothed him in his great distraction; and the solace has been forbidden. We cannot doubt that

after the disturbance of the ghost-scene, Hamlet had gathered some hope of comfort from reviving thoughts of Ophelia and of her true affection: that, at least, was left in his troubled heart. Of this hope he found himself rudely deprived, abruptly, and unexpectedly. Of the misery in which his days and nights have since been passed we now gather incidental information. We learn, not from actual detail of what may have had few witnesses, but of direct inference from what is described to us by an affrighted spectator of his present condition, how the interval has really been passed, and with what visible ravage of the mind and of the body also. Perhaps we gather that these later troubles, mingling with his former impressions of the frailty of woman, have taken an ascendancy over his deeper grief, and that vexation, and melancholy, and fastings, and unrest, have been combined and have done their work upon him. Ophelia's relation of what she has witnessed tells us all. She has rushed into the presence of her startled father :

Enter OPHELIA.

POL. How now, Ophelia ? what's the matter?

OPH. Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!
POL. With what, in the name of heaven?

OPH. My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet,—with his doublet all unbrac'd;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul'd,
Ungarter'd, and down-gyved to his ancle ;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport,

As if he had been loosed out of hell,

To speak of horrors, he comes before me.

Polonius hastily interrupts this singular narrative: he has drawn his conclusions already. Being ignorant of any other causes likely to transform Hamlet in such an extraordinary manner, he accounts for it in his own way :

POL. Mad for thy love?
ОРН.

But, truly, I do fear it.

POL.

My lord, I do not know;

What said he?

OPH. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard;

Then goes he to the length of all his arm;

And, with his other hand thus, o'er his brow,

He falls to such perusal of my face,

As he would draw it. Long stay'd he so ;

At last,

—a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,—

He raised a sigh so piteous and profound,

That it did seem to shatter all his bulk,