genius; our imaginations give him energies additional to those he exhibits; and it is agreeable to our opinion of his endowments, and confonant to our present temper, to believe him more eminent than he really is. We are apt to judge in the fame manner of the qualities of the heart. To the man who amazes us by fome feat of perfonal bravery, we afcribe every heroic virtue, though he may have never displayed them: And we pronounce liberal, generous, and difinterefted, the man who furprizes us by fome unexpected beneficence. On the fame principles, those who excite our indignation by their ungrateful or inhuman conduct are fuppofed to have trampled on every moral obligation; and we load them not only with the infamy of the crime they have committed, but with that of the crimes of which we believe them capable. The fize and colour, fo to express myself, of the imaginary qualities in this manner attributed

to

to any object, will correfpond exactly to the violence of the prefent emotion, or the obftinacy of our opinion. If our sense of virtue is exceedingly delicate, our indignation and abhorrence of vice will be of proportioned vehemence; and, according to their vehemence, will be the atrocity of the indefinite imaginary qualities afcribed to the object of our abhorrence. If those whofe conduct we cenfure or lament were formerly esteemed by us, furprize and forrow for our disappointment, and indignation at a change fo unexpected will augment the violence of our emotion, and fo magnify their offences. Hence friendship, changed by neglect or ingratitude into indifference, grows into a hatred, of all others the most virulent and full of rancour. It is not wonderful, therefore, nor inconfiftent with amiable and kind affections, that Hamlet, moved by an exquisite sense of virtue and propriety, fhocked and astonished at the ingratitude

titude and guilt of Gertrude, whom he had revered and believed incapable of any blemish, should become apprehenfive of the total degeneracy of her nature, and harbour fufpicions concerning his father's death. To these fufpicions, the suddennefs of the event, the extraordinary and myfterious circumftances attending it, together with the character of the present king, give abundant colour. Hence, with a heart full of agony, prepared for the evidence, and willing to receive it, he exclaims,

All is not well!

I doubt fome foul play.

Had Hamlet been more indifferent in his regard to propriety and moral obligation, he would have entertained lefs efteem for his father, lefs averfion at Claudius, and lefs difpleasure at the hafty nuptials of Gertrude: He would have entertained no fufpicion, nor have given way to refentment: Wholely void of anxiety,

and

and vexed by no uneafy reflection, he would have enjoyed the happiness of his exalted station. The obfervation is painful: It infers, that the union between virtue and happiness, so highly vaunted of by many moralifts, is not fo independent of external incidents as their theories would represent.

Shakespeare was abundantly capable of exhibiting the progress of suspicion in the mind of Hamlet till it was ripened into belief. Yet ye proceeds in a different manner, and confirms his apprehenfions by a teftimony, that, according to the prejudices of the times, could not easily be refuted. In this he acted judicioufly: The difficulty was worthy of the interpofition. Befides it was an interpofition perfectly agreeable to the religious opinions of an unenlightened people: and afforded an opportunity of enriching the drama with a very awful and pathetic incident. The ghoft of Hamlet, even in nations where H philo

philosophy flourishes, and in periods the leaft addicted to fuperftition, will forever terrify and appall.

I am thy father's fpirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And, for the day, confin'd to faft in fires,

Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the fecrets of my prifon-house,

I could a tale unfold, whofe lightest word

Would harrow up thy foul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:

But this eternal blazon muft not be

To ears of flesh and blood.-Lift, lift, oh lift!
If thou didft ever thy dear father love, &c.

The awful horror excited by the foregoing paffage, is accomplished by fimplicity of expreffion, and by the uncertainty of the thing defcribed. The defcription is indirect; and, by exhibiting a picture of the effects, an actual view of the

Burke on the fublime and beautiful.

real