against me!" in which Hamlet indulges after meeting the Captain of Fortinbras's army. A sluggard or a coward would not have taken the point as Hamlet takes it. The slow walker always protests that he is going as fast as can be expected of him; it is the man of rapid strides who accuses himself for not making better speed. Just as John Bunyan, while a sinner, is scarcely conscious of his sins, but accuses himself of them with violent exaggeration after he has given them up, so Hamlet's conscience charges him with "letting all sleep," amid the very rush of the action by which he is preparing the execution of his vengeance.

Hamlet's conduct at sea, as related first in his letter to Horatio and afterwards in the conversation with him, cannot be accused of indolence or inefficiency even by the most thorough-going follower of Coleridge. Accordingly, it has been made an instance of the opposite vice- the headstrong, precipitate rashness which is assumed to alternate with his long spells of moody inactivity. Because Hamlet himself uses the terms "rashness" and "indiscretion" in describing the burglary of his school fellows' cabin (determined on by him before he sailed, as we have already seen), critics determined to impale him either on the one horn or the other, take these expressions at their face value. They forget that one must allow for modesty and self-depreciation in a man's own versions of his deeds. The simple fact is that Hamlet, at terrible risk, purloined the commission in which Claudius desired the English to assassinate him. If "rashness" can explain this, it can scarcely account for the calm efficiency with which he sits down and forges a substitute document, sealing it with his father's signet; and all this, be it ob

Incidents at sea: The

commission

and the

pirates.

"Meditations among the tombs."

served, on the first day of the voyage. Next day comes the fight with the pirates, in which Hamlet is the only man to board the hostile vessel. Is not this another curious commentary on his irresolution? Being made prisoner by the corsairs, he is diplomatic enough to induce them to return and set him on the coast of Denmark. The entire transaction is evidence of that unusual degree of mental activity which enables the man with a genius for action to transform every obstacle into an instrument for the furtherance of his cause.

Some critics have sneered at Hamlet for being, upon his return from sea, "much more ready to meditate among the tombs than to carry out the purpose he still proclaims to Horatio of killing Claudius."6 Now the conversation of the two GraveDiggers is an exceptionally bold and striking instance of Shakespeare's frequent practice of alternating comedy with tragedy for the relief of the spectators' feelings. There is not a more daring use of this device anywhere in his plays, with the possible exception of the Porter's soliloquy in Macbeth. We have just witnessed the heartrending scene of Ophelia's madness; and then, after the conspiracy between Laertes and Claudius, we have heard from the Queen the woeful news that Ophelia is drowned. By these episodes our sympathies have been sorely lacerated. It is one of Shakespeare's sovereign defiances of the classic tradition to introduce comic relief at such a point, and to do it not by a departure from the theme, but by setting the two clowns to discuss the tragedy which has just been reported. The gibe about Hamlet "meditating among the tombs" would have some point were it not that he and Horatio obviously wan• The anonymous writer cited above, p. 129.

der upon this scene by accident. As to Hamlet's reflections over the skulls, they are platitudinous enough, and make little point either for the thesis that he is a philosopher or against the thesis that he is a man of action. Any man is capable of detecting the ironical contrast between the swaggering self-sufficiency of men in life and the insignificance of their mortal fragments in death; though, to be sure, not every man can express it as Hamlet does. Later in the scene, we are amazed to find Hamlet informing Horatio that "that is Laertes, a very noble youth." Again we have no alternative but to accuse Shakespeare of preposterous inconsistency. How could Horatio have failed to know Laertes? Had he not been constantly at the Court with him, from the time of the late King's funeral to that of Laertes' departure for France? This is as inexplicable as Hamlet's own doubt about the identity of Horatio at their first meeting, and his asking him, "What is your affair in Elsinore?" after he has been there two months.

As to the unseemly rhodomontade in which Hamlet indulges over the grave of Ophelia, three motives on his part can be assigned: first, his love for Ophelia, which blazes into anger at the insulting language used about himself by Laertes; secondly, his disgust at the braggadocio of Laertes, which he expresses by out-ranting and satirizing him; thirdly, the instantaneous decision, when he finds himself in the presence of the King and courtiers, to resume the mask of mental derangement which he had worn prior to his departure.

Episodes at

Ophelia's

grave.

Little remains, in outlining the character of Ham- Causation let, save to rebut the criticism that the final catastrophe is brought about not by any determinate act

of the final catastrophe.

V ii 58 ff.

of his, but by a chapter of accidents. Hamlet, after his return from sea, is in a position to take his vengeance whenever the hour favours, since he now has the objective proof that he has so long sought. He is in possession of Claudius's commission to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which is a clear proof that the King had treacherously sought to bring about the assassination of his nephew and step-son. Whenever Hamlet may kill him, he will only need to produce this document, and it will be a justification which in that age no man would dream of questioning. The two tools of the usurper's conspiracy he has sent to a doom which costs him no remorse:

Their defeat

Does by their own insinuation grow:

'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

Nothing now remains but for him to "take his fair
hour" to get rid of Claudius. The only "accident"
there is in the matter is the disclosure and failure of
the still deeper-dyed treachery by which Claudius has
planned to ensure Hamlet's death in case the springe
of Laertes should fail to ensnare him.

Thus, by a simple enumeration of the things that Hamlet does, and by an examination of his words in the light of everyday experience of the way men accuse and excuse themselves, I have sought to show that Shakespeare's notion of the stupendous character he creates is radically different from the construction commonly placed upon the text.

In Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology, the hypocritical prelate chaffs his young interlocutor with having found "two points in Hamlet's soul

unseized by the Germans yet-which view you'll print." But it would seem to be too late in the day for such discoveries. German scholarship, German thoroughness and German pedantry have done their admirable best and their villainous worst in the endless commentaries they have piled up on this play. While the great mass of their critics have followed Goethe and Schlegel as slavishly as the English followed Coleridge, some few of them have taken independent ground, and reached a conclusion identical in principle with that set forth in the preceding pages, -namely, that the two chief points in Hamlet's soul are his inflexible resolution and his alert efficiency. The most elaborate discussion in this sense is that of Karl Werder, who, in his Vorlesungen über Shakespeare's Hamlet (1875), readily seizes upon the essential point:

As things stand, truth and justice can be known only from one mouth, the mouth of the crowned criminal, or at least from the King's party [sic], else they remain hidden and buried till the last day. The encoffined secrecy of the unprovable crime: this is the subterranean spring, whence flows its [the tragedy's] power to awaken fear and sympathy.

Werder is an incorrigible idolater, but he follows this clue out consistently, though with insufficient fulness of detail. The only vital point he misses is the untrustworthiness of the Ghost's testimony. Before Werder's day, the hint for the true interpretation had been given by Klein (1846), but not worked

out.

I remarked at the outset that Hamlet is not the greatest of Shakespeare's plays. The evidences of haste, and the palpable inconsistencies, to some only See above, pp. 112-13, note.