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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY "■ 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
THE 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 JOHN CHARLES BUCKNILL, M.D.^ LOND. 
 
 LIOSNTIATE: of the ROTAL COLLEOS of FHTSICIANB. fellow of UNIVEBSITT COLLGQE, LONDON', 
 
 MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT OF THE DEVON CODNTT LUNATIC ASYLUM, EDITOR 
 
 OF " THE JOURNAL OF MENTAL SCIENCE," AND JOINT ACTHOR OP 
 
 THE "MANUAL OF FSTCHOLOOICAL MEDICINE." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS & ROBERTS. 
 
 MDCCCLIX. 
 
 D» 
 
TVnXlAH POLLARB. NORTH STREET, EXETER. 
 
%a l^ngushis Stfltofg, dspir^ 
 
 of 
 
 is ItMtsttJr as a Itarli ai ^imu ^Itprlr, 
 
 anlr in glemtmbrana 
 
 of mwu |«i's 0f kinWa |nta0tti"se, 
 
 Ir^ Ws iriciiltr m)i pigltai; 
 
 ilje ^ttt|0r. 
 
cow TENTS. 
 
 Macbeth 
 Hamlet 
 Ophelia 
 Kino Leak ... 
 TiMOjf OP Athens 
 Constance . . , 
 Jaques 
 
 Page 1 
 40 
 115 
 127 
 188 
 213 
 282 
 
 Malvolio. Christophbk Sly. (Jomicdy or lOiiuoiw 21'9 
 
rUEKAOR. V. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The fihoetuaker, who criticised the work of tlie great painter 
 of antiquity, was listened to with respect, so long as ho 
 confined his observations within the limits of his own prac- 
 tical knowledge. If in the following Essays the author has 
 ■ventured to submit the works of another great master of art 
 to the test of comparison with the special knowledge of a 
 workman, he trusts that his opinions may receive that con- 
 sideration to which a long and extensive experience of the 
 irregular phenomena of mind may appear fairly to entitle 
 them. As the shoemaker doubtless found it a more easy and 
 agreeable occupation to criticise painted sandals than to make 
 leather ones, so the author of these Essays has found the 
 study of his own science, as it is represented iu the works 
 of the immortal dramatist, a delightful recreation from the 
 labours of his practice. If he could by any charm transfer 
 to his readers but a small portion of the pleasure which he 
 has enjoyed in writing the following pages, he would need to 
 make no apology for their publication, nor entertain any fear 
 of their favourable reception. To have the mind diverted 
 from the routine of professional work, or of study, is both 
 wholesome and enjoyable, not for the reason that Lord Bacon 
 gives for physicians so frequently becoming antiquaries, poets, 
 humourists, &c., namely, because " They find that mediocrity 
 and excellence in their own art maketh no difierence in 
 profit or reputation ;" but because change iu the habitual 
 subject and mode of thought is a source of mental recreation 
 and delight. These pages have*, indeed, been written in the 
 leisure hours of a busy life, and although the constant 
 care of six hundred insane persons has afibrded ample 
 
VI. PREFACE. 
 
 opportunities of comparing the delineations of the psychological 
 artist, with the hard realities of existence, it has also 
 denied that leisure, which would have enabled the writer to 
 have expressed his opinions in a form and manner more 
 satisfactory to his judgment, and more worthy of the subject. 
 Under these circumstances they have necessarily been written 
 in some haste, and have been sent to the printer with the 
 ink yet wet : they have also been written in the country, so 
 that neither their matter or manner could be submitted to 
 fiiendly advice. The author tenders these explanations in 
 excuse for imperfections of literary execution, which, he 
 trusts, may in some measure be atoned for by other qualities 
 in the work, which comes fresh from the field of observation. 
 He claims, indeed, that indulgence which would readily be 
 accorded to a writer whom the active business of life had 
 led into some region of classic interest, and who, taking his ease 
 at his inn, should each evening compare the descriptions of an 
 ancient historian with the scenes he had just beheld during 
 the burden and heat of the day ; the fresh and immediate 
 nature of his knowledge would justify him in assuming a 
 certain kind of authority, without at each step establishing 
 the grounds of his judgment. The author, however, has 
 endeavoured to bear in mind, that he was writing, not upon 
 the subject of his own knowledge, but upon that of Shake- 
 speare's ; and although it would have been easy to have 
 supported and illustrated his opinions by the details of 
 observation, and the statement of cases, he has abstained 
 from doing so, preferring sometimes to be dogmatic rather 
 than tedious. 
 
 Although for many years the dramas of Shakespeare have 
 been familiar to the author, the extent and exactness of the 
 psychological knowledge displayed in them, which a more 
 diligent examination has made known, have surprised and 
 astonished him. He can only account for it on one suppo- 
 sition, namely, that abnormal conditions of mind had attracted 
 Shakespeare's diligent observation, and had been his favourite 
 study. There is no reason to suppose, that when Shake- 
 speare wrote, any other asylum for the insane existed in this 
 
PEEFACE. Vll. 
 
 country, than the then poor and small establishment of 
 Bethlem Hospital, the property of which had been taken 
 from the monks by Henry the Eighth, and presented to the 
 city of London for conversion into an asylum, only seventeen 
 years before the poet's birth. In his time the insane 
 members of society were not secluded from the world as 
 they are now. If their symptoms were prominent and 
 dangerous, they were, indeed, thrust out of sight very 
 harshly and effectually ; but if their liberty was in any 
 degree tolerable, it was tolerated, and they were permitted to 
 live in the family circle, or to wander the country. Thus 
 every one must have been brought into immediate contact 
 with examples of every variety of mental derangement ; and 
 any one who sought the knowledge of their peculiarities 
 would find it at every turn. Opportunities of crude obser- 
 vation would, therefore, be ample, it only required the 
 alembic of a great mind to convert them into psychological 
 science. 
 
 Shakespeare's peculiar capacity for effecting such conversion 
 would consist in his intimate knowledge of the normal state 
 of the mental functions in every variety of character, with 
 which he would be able to compare and estimate every 
 direction and degree of aberration. His knowledge of the 
 mental physiology of human life would be brought to bear 
 upon all the obscurities and intricacies of its pathology. To 
 this power would be added that indefinable possession of geniss, 
 pall it spiritual tact or insight, or whatever other term may 
 suggest itself, by which the great lords of mind estimate all 
 phases of mind with little aid from reflected light. The peculi- 
 arities of a certain character being observed, the great mind 
 which contains all possibilities within itself, imagines the act 
 of mental transmigration, and combining the knowledge of others 
 with the knowledge of self, every variety of character possible 
 in nature would become possible in conception and delineation. 
 
 That abnormal states of mind were a favourite study of 
 Shakespeare would be evident from the mere number of cha- 
 racters to which he has attributed them, and the extent alone 
 to which he has written on the subject. On no other subject. 
 
VUl. PREFACE. 
 
 except love and ambition, the blood and chyle of dramatic 
 poetry, has he written so much. On no other has he written 
 with such mighty power. 
 
 Some explanation seems due of the title chosen for this 
 work. Since psychology strictly implies all that relates to 
 the soul or mind of man in contradistinction to his material 
 nature, the character of Othello might have been placed 
 under this title with as much propriety as that of Lear. The 
 derivation and original use of a term, however, not un- 
 frequently differ from its acquired and permanent use, and the 
 term psychology has, of late years, been used to denote all that 
 relates to the department of science which takes cognizance 
 of irregularities and aberrations and diseases of the mind. 
 It serves not to object that the derivation of the word is 
 opposed to such employment, for the same may be said of 
 half the words in the language. Mental pathology would be a 
 far more exact, but also a more cumbrous term ; and no further 
 apology need be made for the modern use of the shorter 
 term, than that no other suits the purpose to which it is applied, 
 with equal convenience. One chooses words, like servants, for 
 their usefulness and not for their pedigree. 
 
 The author had intended to append to the following pages 
 a chapter on Shakespeare's knowledge of medicine. When, 
 however, it was partly written, he found that the freedom of 
 expression, which the great dramatist had permitted himself on 
 medical subjects, was such as would either have prevented the 
 admission and consideration of important passages, or have 
 forbidden the present work to many readers, whom it is hoped 
 may otherwise honour it with a perusal. The inconvenience 
 therefore of a separate publication has been preferred. 
 
 It only remains to add that, three of the following essays 
 have already appeared in the pages of the " Quarterly Journal 
 of Mental Science," a publication edited by the author. 
 
 Exminster, May I2th, 1859. 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 MACBETH. 
 
 Macbeth, the most awful creation of the poetic mind, is a 
 study every way worthy of those to whom the storms of 
 passion present the frequent cause of mental disease. The 
 historian studies the temper of the mind ia its most ardent 
 heats, that he may gain a clue to the causation of human 
 events ; the statesman, that he may obtain foreknowledge of 
 tendencies to human action ; and the psychologist, for the 
 more beneficent purpose of acquiring that knowledge as the 
 means of alleviating the most terrible of calamities, and of 
 doing that which the terrified physician in this tragedy dared 
 not attempt, of " ministeriing to the mind diseased." The phi- 
 losopher studies the laws of storms, that he may teach the 
 mariner to avoid the destructive circle of their influence ; 
 and the physician, whose noble object of study is the human 
 mind, seizes every opportunity of making himself acquainted 
 with the direction and events of its hurricane movements, 
 that he may perchance lead some into a port of safety, or at 
 least that he may assist in the restoration of the torn and 
 shattered bark. But to stand on one side and calmly con- 
 template the phenomena of human passion, Hke the chorus 
 in the old Greek drama, is the lot of few. When the 
 elements of human passion are in fierce strife, there is no 
 near standing-place for the foot of science, like the deck of 
 B 
 
2 MACBETH. 
 
 the great steamer which allowed Seoreshy to measure the 
 force and speed of the wild Atlantic wave. The vortex of 
 passion tends to draw in all who float near ; and tranquil 
 observation of its turmoil can only be made from a 
 standing point more or less remote. On all possible oc- 
 casions, indeed, it behoves the man whose object of study 
 and of care is the human mind, to observe for himself its 
 phenomena, and to test its springs and sources of action ; 
 but it behoves him to accept the testimony of those who have 
 weathered the storm, and also gratefully to appreciate any 
 assistance he may obtain from others who contemplate the 
 same phenomena from different points of view to his own : 
 and there is no one from whom he will derive help of such 
 inestimable value, as from him whose high faculties enables 
 him to contemplate human nature, as it were, from within. 
 The Poet or maker, the same intrinsically with the Seer or 
 gifted observer, is the best guide and helpmate with whom 
 the psychologist can ally himself. He is hke the native of a 
 country to whom mountain and stream and every Hving 
 thing are known, acting as instructor and guide to the 
 naturalist, whose systems and classifications he may hold in 
 slight esteeixi, but with whom he has a common love and a 
 more personal knowledge for all their objects. Compared with 
 the assistance which the psychologist derives from the true 
 poet, that which he obtains from the metaphysician is as 
 sketchy and indistinct as the theoretical description of a new 
 country might be, given by one who had never been therein, 
 as the description of Australia might be, drawn from the 
 parallel of its climate and latitude with South America or 
 China. 
 
 Above aU seers with whom a beneficent Providence has 
 blessed mankind, to delight and instruct them with that 
 knowledge which is so wondrous that it is falsely called 
 inttiitive, is that heaven-born genius, who is the pride and 
 
MACBETH. 3 
 
 glory of this country, the greatest poet of all ages, and pre- 
 eminently the most truthful analyst of human action. 
 Shakespeare not only possesses more psychological insight 
 than all other poets, but than aH other writers, the sacred 
 writings alone excepted. He has been aptly called, "a 
 nature humanized." He has above all men the faculty of 
 unravelling the motives of human action. Compared with 
 his profound knowledge of the surface and depths of the 
 human soul, the information of other great minds, even of 
 such wondrously vigorous intelligences as those of Plato 
 and Bacon, were obscure and fragmentary. Had he not 
 been a poet, what might he not have been as a philosopher ? 
 What essays might he not have written? What Socratic 
 dialogues, sparkhng with wit, seething with humour, saturated 
 with truth, might he not have written upon politics and phi- 
 losophy? Some American writer has lately started the 
 idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by Bacon ! 
 Verily, were it not for the want of power of imagination 
 and verbal euphony which is displayed in Bacon's Essays^ 
 one might rather think that they were some of Shakes- 
 peare's own rough memoranda on men and motives, which 
 had strayed from his desk. 
 
 Although Macbeth is less pervaded with the idea of mental 
 disease than its great rival tragedies of Hamlet and Lear, and 
 contains but one short scene ia which a phase of insanity is 
 actually represented, it is not only replete with passages of 
 deep, psychological iaterest, but in the mental development of 
 the bloody-handed hero and of his terrible mate, it affords a 
 study scarcely less instructive than the wild and passionate 
 madness of Lear, or the metaphysical motive- weighing melan- 
 choly of the Prince of Denmark. 
 
 It is not within the scope of our iutention to comment upon 
 the artistic perfection of this work. This has already been 
 done, and done well, by professed writers of dramatic criti- 
 
4 MACBETH. 
 
 cism — by Schlegel especially, and by Hazlitt. Tlie wonderful 
 rapidity of action which obtaias in this tragedy, the exquisite 
 adaptation of aU its parts to form a perfect and consistent 
 whole, and the inimitable use of violent contrasts which it 
 presents, have been dilated upon by the German with a ripe and 
 critical intelligence — '^ our countryman with the eloquence 
 of vehement admiration. Coleridge also has a long essay 
 upon this draraa, to which the authority of his name has 
 attached importance. Some of his criticisms, however, ap- 
 pear more subtle than sensible. He discovers that Lady Mac- 
 beth' s " is the mock fortitude of a miad deluded by ambition. 
 She shames her husband by a superhuman audacity of fancy 
 which she cannot support, but siuks in the season of remorse, 
 and dies in suicidal agony." He discovers that the scene 
 opens " with superstition ;" as if Macbeth had dreamt he had 
 seen the Witches. Surely there is a difference between the 
 supernatural and the superstitious ! The difference between 
 mere apprehension and reahty, between imagination and 
 , existence. The truth of supernatural events may be doubted 
 or denied, but if admitted, to see it as it is, is not super- 
 stition. Degrading Lady Macbeth iato a fanciful would-be 
 heroine, Coleridge makes her lord a pre-determined scoun- 
 drel, " rendered temptable (by the Witches,) by previous 
 dalliance of the fancy with ambitious thoughts." " His 
 soliloquy shewed the early birth-date of his guilt." Accord- 
 ing to this view, the temptation of the weird Sisters, and 
 the " concatinating tendency of the imagination," was quite 
 needless. A villain ab initio, " who, wishing a temporal end 
 for itself, does in truth wDl the means," can find no palliation 
 in the direct tempting of supernatural beings, nor in being 
 subject to the masterdom of another human wiLL Then Mac- 
 beth makes the most grievous metaphysical mistakes. Before 
 the deed, " the inward pangs and warnings of conscience are 
 interpreted into prudential reasonings ;" and afterwards, he is 
 
MACBETH. 5 
 
 " ever and ever mistaking the anguish of conscience for fears 
 of selfishness." The idea conveyed is, that conscience is 
 independent of reason ; that the inward monitor intuitively 
 decides upon the right and wrong without the aid of the 
 judgment ; that the still small voice is an uninstructed senti- 
 ment. 
 
 We cannot give our adhesion to the theory that Macbeth 
 was originally a treacherous and bad man, prone to deeds of 
 midnight murder. His bold and fierce wife is hkely to have 
 known him far better than his metaphysical critic ; and she 
 reading his letter, which describes the prophecies of the weird 
 Sisters, says : 
 
 " Glamis thou art, and Cawdor ; and shalt be 
 What thou art promised : — Yet do I fear thy nature ; 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness 
 To catch the nearest way ; Thou would' st be great ; 
 Art not without ambition ; but without 
 The illness should attend it. What thou would' st highlj'', 
 That would' st thou holily ; would' st not play false, 
 And yet would' st surely win." 
 
 Macbeth is introduced as a right brave man. " Valour's 
 minion," he is called by the bleeding captain, and " Bellona's 
 bridegroom " by Rosse. " Oh, vahant cousin ! worthy gentle- 
 man ! " exclaims the King, on hearing the relation of his first 
 victory. Twice in one day he is represented to have saved thfe 
 kingdom, and the gracious Duncan regrets his inadequate 
 power of reward : 
 
 -" More is thy due than more than all can pay." 
 He is " full of the milk of human kindness," but withal so 
 personally brave that his deeds against the Irish gaUowglasseS 
 and the Norwegians are the theme of general enthusiasm, 
 and win for him " golden opinions from aU sorts of people." 
 Evidently he is a man of sanguine nervous temperament, 
 of large capacity and ready susceptibility. The high energy 
 and courage which guides his sword in the battles of his 
 
■6 MACBETH. 
 
 country are qualities of nerve force which future circum- 
 stances will direct to good or evil purposes. Circumstances 
 arise soUciting to evil ; " supernatural soliciting," the force of 
 which, in these anti-spuituaSst days, it requires an almost 
 unattainable flight of imagination to get a gHmpse of. It 
 must be remembered that the drama brings Macbeth face to 
 face with the supernatural, with that devil's brood the weird 
 Sisters, so unlike the inhabitants of earth, who, after 
 a prophecy immediately fulfilled, " made themselves air into 
 which they vanished." What would be the effect upon a 
 man of nervous sensibility, of such appearances 1 Surely most 
 profound. Well may Hazhtt say, that " he can conceive no 
 common actor to look like a man who had encountered the 
 weird Sisters." When they had " melted as breath into the 
 wind," even the firm tempered and judicious Banquo ex- 
 claims : 
 
 " Were such things here as we do speak about ? 
 Or have we eaten of the insane root 
 That takes the reason prisoner f 
 
 We may disbeheve in any manifestations of the super- 
 natural ; but we cannot but beheve that were their occurrence 
 possible, it would profoundly affect the mind. Humboldt says, 
 that the effect of the first earthquake shock is most bewil- 
 dering, unsettling one of the strongest articles of material 
 faith, namely, the fixedness of the earth. Any supernatural 
 appearance must have this effect of shaking the foun- 
 dations of the mind in an infinitely greater degree. Indeed, 
 we so fully feel that any gHmpse into the spirit- world would 
 effect in ourselves a profound mental revulsion, that we 
 intuitively extend to Macbeth a more indulgent opinion of 
 his great criraes, than we should have been able to do had he 
 been led on to their commission by the temptations of earthly 
 incident alone. 
 
 Macbeth is no villain in-grain, like Richard the Third or 
 
MACBETH. 7 
 
 lago, revelling in the devil's work because he likes it ; but a 
 
 once noble human nature, struggUng but yielding in a net of 
 
 temptation, whose meshes are wound around him by the 
 
 visible hand of the Spirit of Evil. Slave as he is to that 
 
 soldier's passion, the love of fame and power, he is not 
 
 without anaiable qualities. He was once loved even by his 
 
 arch-enemy Macduff to whom Malcolm says : 
 
 " This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues. 
 Was once thought honest ; you have lov'd him weU." 
 
 And we may even accept the testimony of the Queen of Hell, 
 "the close contriver of all harms," in his favour. She up- 
 braids her foul menials, the Sisters, that they had been 
 serving one who had no pleasure in evil for its own sake, but 
 who had spitefully and wrathfuUy accepted it only as the 
 means to an end : 
 
 " And, which is worse, all you have done 
 Hath been but for a wayward son. 
 Spiteful and wrathful ; who, as others do. 
 Loves for his own ends, not for you." 
 
 Let it not be thought that we attempt to palliate the guilt of 
 Macbeth. In a moral point of view this is impossible. If his 
 soHcitings to crime are supernatural, combiaed with fate and 
 metaphysic aid, he is not blinded by them. With conscience 
 fully awake, with eyes open to the foul nature of his double 
 treachery, although resisting, he yields to temptation. He 
 even feels that he is not called upon to act to fulfil the decrees 
 of destiny. 
 " If Chance will have me king, why Chance may crown me 
 Without my stir." 
 Had he with more determination resisted the temptations of 
 the woman, he might have falsified the prophecies of the fiend, 
 and put aside from his lips the poisoned chalice of remorse, 
 maintained from rancours the vessel of his peace, and above 
 all have rescued the eternal jewel of his soul. 
 
 Though here and elsewhere Shakespeare has admitted the 
 
8 MACBETH. 
 
 doctrine of destiny, no one more pitilessly tore aside this veil 
 from the features for wickedness. Edgar in. Lear, says : " This 
 is the excellent foppery of the world ! That when we are sick 
 in fortune [often the surfeit of our own behaviour] we make 
 guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars : as if 
 we were villains on necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion ; 
 knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance ; 
 drunkards, Uars, and adulterers, by a forced obedience of pla- 
 netary influence ; and aU that we are evil in by a divine 
 thrusting on : an admirable evasion " 
 
 To the Christian moralist, Macbeth' s guilt is so dark that 
 its degree cannot be estimated, as there are no shades in black. 
 But to the mental physiologist, to whom nerve rather than 
 conscience is an object of study, the functions of the brain 
 rather than the powers of the will, it is impossible to omit 
 from calculation the influences of the supernatural event, 
 which is not only the starting point of the action, but the 
 remote cause of the mental phenomena. 
 
 The professed moralist is slow to accept the teaching of the 
 drama ; but where shall we find a more impressive lesson of 
 the manner in which the infraction of the moral law works 
 out its own punishment, than in the delineation of the ago- 
 nizing soul torture of Macbeth ? In this, as in all other 
 instances, the true psychological is not opposed to the true 
 moral doctrine of human Ufe. In the attempt to trace conduct 
 to its earhest source or motive, and to deduce the laws of 
 emotional progression, the psychological, or to use the stricter 
 and better term, the physiological moralist teaches the impor- 
 tance of establishing an early habit of emotional action, which 
 may- tend to virtuous conduct, and form a prepared defence 
 against temptation ; by shewing how invariably in the moral 
 world evil leads on to evil, he teaches in the best manner the 
 wisdom of opposing the beginnings of evil, and he developes 
 the ethical principle laid down by our Great Teacher, that an 
 
MACBETH. 9 
 
 evil emotion is in the heart the representation of the bad 
 action. 
 
 The great interest of this drama is most skilfully made to 
 depend upon the conflicting emotions of sympathy with a 
 man struggling imder fearful temptation ; horror excited by 
 treachery and foul murder ; awful amazement at the visible 
 grasp of the Spirit of Evil upon the human soul ; and of 
 satisfied justice at the hell of remorse into which he is 
 plunged. , In this respect there is an obvious paraUeHsm 
 between Macbeth and Faust ; since in both the hero-cri- 
 minal of the piece is not responsible as a free agent, so far 
 as he is but the mortal instrument of the fiend in deeds of 
 evil. The conduct of Faust, however, is not comparable to 
 that of the fierce and bloody Scotch tyrant, and he is saved 
 from our utter disgust and hatred by the more immediate inter- 
 vention of the fiend in the execution of the murders, both of 
 Margaret's mother and her brother. Had the action not been 
 thus arranged, had Faust himself poisoned the mother and 
 slain the brother, all sympathy with him as a human soul in 
 the hands of fate would have been destroyed in the irrepres- 
 sible feelings which attach to a base and dastardly criminals 
 
 In Macbeth the fiercer temptation, fanned not only by the 
 evil soHcitings of the devil, but by the agency of his dark and 
 terrible hiunan tempter and colleague, renders it possible to 
 commit the perpetration of crimes to his own hand, without 
 destroying those traces of sympathy, without which any deep 
 interest in his fate would have been impossible. 
 
 The temptation of the weird Sisters has an immediate effect 
 on Macbeth. In the presence of others, he soliloquises, and 
 calls upon himself the remark : 
 
 " Look how our partner's wrapt." 
 The immediate fulfilment of two parts of the prophecy come 
 as "happy prologues to the swelling act," and murder is 
 
10 MACBETH. 
 
 thought of as an " horrible imagining," and an indication that 
 the supernatural sohciting was evil in its nature. 
 
 " This supernatural sohciting 
 Cannot be ill ; cannot be good : — If ill, 
 Why hath it given me earnest of success, 
 Commencing in a truth 1 I am thane of Cawdor. 
 If good, why do I yield to that suggestion 
 Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair. 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, 
 Against the use of nature ? Present fears 
 Are less than horrible imaginings : 
 My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical. 
 Shakes so my single state of man, that function 
 Is smother' d in surmise ; and nothing is. 
 But what is not." 
 
 Let not this early and important testimony be overlooked, 
 which Macbeth gives to the extreme excitability of his imagi- 
 nation. The supernatural soliciting of the weird Sisters 
 suggests to him an image, not a thought merely, but an 
 image so horrible that its contemplation 
 
 " does unfix my hair, 
 And make my seated heart knock at my ribs. 
 Against the use of nature." 
 
 This passage was scarcely intended to describe an actual hal- 
 lucination, but rather that excessive predominance of the 
 imaginative faculty which enables some men to call at wUl 
 before the mind's eye, the very appearance of the object of 
 thought ; that faculty which enabled a great painter to place 
 at will in the empty chair of his studio the mental delineation 
 of any person who had given him one sitting. It is a faculty 
 bordering on a morbid state, and apt to pass the hmit, when 
 judgment swallowed in surmise yields her function, and the 
 imaginary becomes to the mind as real as the true, " and 
 nothing is, but what is not" This early indication of Mac- 
 beth's tendency to hallucination is most important in the 
 psychological development of his character. 
 
 We cannot believe that Macbeth had entertained any idea 
 
MACBETH. 11 
 
 of his great crime, before the suggestion of it arising from the 
 devil's interview on Fores heath. That he yields to it is only 
 too evident from the passage beginning "Stars hide your 
 fires." That his wife should form the same guilty pur- 
 pose, upon the mere recital in his letter of the supernatural 
 information he had obtained of that which was in the " coming 
 on of time," proves not that he had suggested it to her, but 
 that she is prone to entertain it on slighter grounds, and 
 that there is between them that unity of thought and desire 
 which is common between man and wife who are much wrapt 
 up in each other. 
 
 The struggle with which Macbeth yields to the suggestion is 
 so fierce that horror and pain are forthwith stamped upon his 
 features. His wife exclaims, when he meets her : 
 
 " Your face, my thane, is like a book, where men 
 May read strange matters." 
 
 For herself, she hath no faltering ; she hath no need of 
 supernatural appearances to "prick the sides of her intent." 
 Ambition and the desire " of sovereign sway and masterdom," 
 are to her undaunted metal the all-sufficient motives of the 
 terrible deed which she plotted and instigated, and would 
 have perpetrated, had not a touch of filial piety withheld her 
 hand. Strange inconsistency of humanity which leaves not 
 the darkest moments of the lost soul without stray gleams 
 of light. 
 
 " Had he not resembled 
 My father as he slept, I had done't." 
 It is one of the " compunctious visitings of nature," against 
 which she invokes the murdering ministers whose sightless 
 substances wait on natiire's mischief, in that expression of 
 sublimated wickedness in which she welcomes the fatal 
 entrance of Duncan under her battlements. 
 
 The wavering of Macbeth, expressed in his first soUloquy^ 
 appears to us very different from the "prudential reasonings" 
 
12 MACBETH. 
 
 which, according to Coleridge, he mistakes for conscience. 
 Surely it indicates a sensitive appreciation of right motive, 
 and the fear of punishment in the life to come ; the acknow- 
 ledgment also that crime, even in this world, receives its proper 
 reward from the operation of even-handed justice ; the acknow- 
 ledgment of the foul nature of treachery to a kinsman and 
 disloyalty to a king. Moreover, that expression of sincere pity 
 for the gracious Duncan, whose meek and holy character is 
 depicted in so fine a contrast to his own fierce and wayward 
 passions, is a sentiment far removed from " prudential reason- 
 ings." Thus he convinces himself against the deed, and 
 concludes : 
 
 " I have no spur 
 To prick the sides of my intent, but only 
 Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps its' sell. 
 And falls on the other." 
 
 When Lady Macbeth joins him, he expresses his virtuous 
 resolve, and for the first time adds " prudential reasonings :" 
 
 " We will proceed no further in this business : 
 He hath honour'd me of late ; and I have bought 
 Golden opinions from all sorts of people. 
 Which would be worn now in their newest gloss. 
 Not cast aside so soon." 
 
 Then mark the temptation to which the terrible woman sub- 
 jects him ; the taunts of cowardice and weakness ; taunts to 
 which a soldier gifted with sensitive personal bravery would 
 be keenly alive, especially coming from the Ups of a beautiful 
 woman whom he loved ; 
 
 " Was the hope drunk, 
 Wherein you dress' d yourself ? hath it slept since ? 
 And wakes it now, to look so green and pale 
 At what it did so freely ? From this time. 
 Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard 
 To be the same in thine own act and valour. 
 As thou art in desire ?" 
 She further urges the temptation by comparing his vacillating 
 desire with her own fell purpose, in that terrible passage : 
 
MACBETH. 13 
 
 " I have given suck, and know 
 How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks m« : 
 I would, while it was smihag ia my face. 
 Have pluck'd the nipple from his boneless gums, 
 And dash't the braius out, had I but so sworn 
 As you have done to this." 
 
 Fearing that his better nature would relent, she had sworn him 
 
 to the treacherous and bloody deed. She concludes by shewing 
 
 clearly the opportunity. She will ply the two chamberlains 
 
 with wine and wassel, until 
 
 " Memory, the warder of the brain. 
 Shall be a fiune, and the receipt of reason 
 A limbeck only : When in swinish sleep 
 Their drenched natmres He, as in a death " 
 
 WeU may Macbeth exclaim in astonishment : 
 
 " Bring forth men-children only 1 
 For thy undaunted mettle should compose 
 Nothing but males." 
 
 He reels under the fierce battery of temptation and when 
 she has thus poured her spirits into his ear, and chas- 
 tised his compunctions with the valour of her tongue, he 
 falls ; without time for further thought, rushing into the 
 commission of his first great crime. 
 
 " I am settled, and bent up 
 Each corporal agent to this terrible feat. 
 ' Away, and mock the time with fairest show : 
 
 False face must hide what the false heart doth know." 
 
 As in earliest time, the temptation was urged by the woman. 
 Woman, infinitely the most virtuous, distances her partner 
 when she has once entered the career of crime. 
 " Denn, geht es zu des Bosen Haus, 
 Das Weib hat tausend Shr^tt vorsjajsJ' 
 
 The dagger scene is an illustration of Shakespeare's finest 
 psychological insight. An hallucination of sight resulting 
 from the high-wroiight nervous tension of the regicide, and 
 " the present horror of the time," and typifying in form, the 
 dread purpose of his mind ; impressed upon his senses, but re- 
 
M MACBETH. 
 
 jected by his judgment ; recognised as a morbid product of 
 mental Excitement, and finally its existence altogether repu- 
 diated, and the bloody business of the mind made answerable 
 for the foolery of the senses. 
 
 " Is this a dagger, •which I see before me. 
 The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch 
 
 thee : 
 
 I have thee not, and yet I see thee stiQ. 
 
 Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 
 
 To feeling, as to sight ? or art thou but 
 
 A dagger of the mind ; a false creation, 
 
 Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain ? 
 
 I see thee yet, in form as palpable 
 
 As this wluch now I draw. 
 
 Thou marshal' st me the way that I was going ; 
 
 And such an instrument I was to use. 
 
 Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses. 
 
 Or else worth all the rest : I see thee still ; 
 
 And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood, 
 
 Which was not so before. There 's no such thing. 
 
 It is the bloody busiaess, which informs 
 
 Thus to mine eyes." 
 
 The deed is done ! and the terrible punishment of guilt com- 
 mences from the very moment. Remorse dogs the murderer's 
 heels even from the chamber of death. 
 
 " Macb. One cried Ood bless us ! and, Amen, the other ; 
 As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. 
 Listening their fear, I could not say, amen. 
 When they did say, God bless us. 
 
 Lady M. Consider it not so deeply. 
 
 Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen I 
 I had most need of blessing, and amen 
 Stuck in my throat. 
 
 Lady M. These deeds must not be thought 
 
 After these ways ; so, it will nnake us Triad." 
 
 Guilt hath instantly changed the brave man into a coward. 
 
 " I am afraid to think what I have done ; 
 
 Look on't again, I dare not." 
 
 " How is't with me, when every noise appals me ?" 
 
MACBETH. 15 
 
 The sting of remorse extorts from him the direct expression 
 
 of regret : 
 
 " To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself." 
 "Wake Duncan with thy knocking: Would thou 
 could'st!" 
 
 Compare this with the woman's firmer nerve, rebuking him : 
 
 " You do unbend your noble strength, to think 
 So hrainsichly of things." 
 
 " Infirm of purpose ! 
 Give me the daggers : The sleeping, and the dead. 
 Are but as pictures ; 'tis the eye of childhood 
 That fears a painted devil." 
 
 She enters the murder chamber, to do that which her mate 
 dare not do ; and shewiag her hands, gilded Hke the faces of 
 the grooms with Duncan's blood, says : 
 
 " My hands are of your colour ; but I shame 
 To wear a heart so white." 
 
 And this is the lady whom Mr. Coleridge describes as coura- 
 geous in fancy only ! 
 
 The passage, " Methought I heard a voice," &c., is scarcely 
 to be accepted as another instance of hallucination ; an hallu- 
 cination of hearing parallel to that of sight in the appearance 
 of the dagger. It is rather an instance of merely excited 
 imagination without sensual representation, like the " sugges- 
 tion whose horrid image " is spoken of on Fores heath. The 
 word " methought " is sufficient to distinguish this voice of 
 the fancy from an hallucination of sense. The lengthened 
 reasoning of the fancied speech is also unlike an hallucination 
 of hearing ; real hallucinations of hearing being almost always 
 restricted to two or three words, or at furthest, to brief sen- 
 tences. How exquisite is this description of sleep ! How 
 correct, psychologically, is the threat that remorse wiU murder 
 sleep ! How true the prediction to the course of the drama, 
 in which we find that hereafter the murderer did " lack the 
 season of aU natures, sleep !" 
 
16 MACBETH. 
 
 "Macb. Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep tw more ! 
 Macbeth doth inurder sleep ; the innocent sleep ; 
 Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
 The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath. 
 Balm of hurt minds, great natures second course, 
 Chief nourisher m life's feast. 
 
 Lady M. ~ What do you mean ? 
 
 Mad). StiH it cried, Sleep no more ! to all the house : 
 Olnmis hath murder'd sleep ; and therefore Cawdor 
 Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more I " 
 
 When the first agony of remorseful excitement has passed, its 
 more settled phase is expressed in the Hfe-weary, Hamlet-like 
 melancholy of the passage : 
 
 " Had I but died an hour before this chance, 
 I had Hv'd a blessed time ; for, from this instant, 
 There's nothiag serious ia mortality ; 
 AU is but toys ; renown, and grace, is dead ; 
 The -wine of hfe is drawn, and the mere lees 
 Is left this vault to brag of." 
 
 The description of the night of murder is conceived to 
 add to the supernatural. By lamentiags in the air, earthquake, 
 eclipse, prodigies in animal hfe, things " unnatural, even like 
 the deed that's done," the mental effect of awe is skilfully 
 produced, and the feeling of Macbeth's balance between fate 
 and free-will is maiataiued just at that point which enables us 
 both to sympathize and condemn. 
 
 Macbeth at last hath obtained the " All hail hereafter ;" but 
 the furies of conscience rack his soul with cowardly and anxious 
 thoughts. He is cowed by the presence of a brave and honest 
 man, his old friend and colleague, whose royalty of nature, 
 dauntless temper, and the prudence with which he acts, 
 make him an object of fear, and his presence a rebuke. 
 Jealousy, moreover, of the greatness which the weird Sisters 
 had promised to the issue of Banquo, rankles in. his mind, 
 now debased by guilt and the fertile seed ground of aU evil 
 passion. 
 
MACBETH. 17 
 
 " For Banquo's issue have I fil'd my mind ; 
 For them the gracious Duncan have I murder'd ; 
 Put rancours in the vessel of my peace 
 Only for them ; and mine eternal jewel 
 Given to the common enemy of man, 
 To make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings ! 
 Rather than so, come, Faie, into the list, 
 And champion me to the utterance 1" 
 
 Strange iaconsistency ! He yields to Fate when its decrees 
 jump with his own desires ; but when the tide turns he 
 resolves to breast its irresistible wave. One is incHned, how- 
 ever, to the belief, that the first reason assigned for Banquo's 
 death was the most potent, that " there is none but he whose 
 being I do fear." Macbeth had no children, and the descent of 
 the crown could not touch his feelings or interests. Whai he 
 learns that Fleance has escaped, he feels "bound in to saucy 
 doubts and fears ;" but, on the whole, he treats the escape as 
 a light matter, and as the cause of future danger to himself, 
 rather than of amriety respecting the succession. 
 
 How awful is the retribution which the Nemesis of con- 
 science works upon the guilty pair ; and that before they have 
 cause to dread any earthly retribution. Duncan's sons are 
 fugitives in -foreign lands. The peers gather freely roimd 
 the court of the new king. Suspicions have indeed arisen in 
 the mind of Banquo, but he breathes them only to himself, 
 and commends his indissoluble duties to the king. All 
 without seems fair ; but within ? Listen to the deep sound 
 of melancholy surging from the heart of the lady : 
 
 " Nought's had, all's spent. 
 Where our desire is got without content : 
 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy. 
 Than, by destruction, dweU in doubtful joy." 
 
 From these sad lonely thoughts she rouses herself to chide 
 her lord for permitting similar thoughts to be expressed 
 legibly on his more sensitive organization. 
 
 c 
 
18 MACBETH. 
 
 " Lady M: How now, my lord 1 why do you keep alone ? 
 Of sorriest fancies your companions making ? 
 Using those thoughts, which should indeed have died 
 With them they think on 1 Things without remedy 
 Should be without regard : what's done, is done._ 
 
 Mchch. We have scotch'd the snake, not Mll'd it ; 
 She'll close, and be herself ; whilst our poor malice 
 Remains in danger of her former tooth. 
 But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer. 
 Ere we wiU eat our meal in fear, and sleep 
 In the affliction of these terrible dreams 
 That shake us nightly : Better be with the dead. 
 Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace. 
 Than on the torture of the mind to lie 
 In restless ecstacy." 
 
 Well might she feel it needful to urge upon him the pohcy of 
 sleeking o'er his rugged looks, and of being bright and jovial 
 among his guests ; but how deep the agony of the reply : 
 
 " 0, fall of scorpions is my mind, dear wife ! " 
 The banquet scene following the murder of Banquo is 
 unrivalled in dramatic force and psychological truth. The 
 kingly host hath put on a forced cheerfulness. He will play the 
 humble host, and sit in the midst. He commands his guests 
 to be large in mirth. He has something like a grim jest for 
 the murderer who appears at the side door, to whom he 
 makes the only play on words in the tragedy, the porter's 
 ribaldry excepted. 
 
 " Mach. There's blood upon thy face. 
 
 Mur. 'Tis Banquo' s, then. 
 
 Mach. 'Tis better thee without, than him within." 
 " Thou art the best o' the cut throats ; yet he's good 
 That did the like for Fleance ; if thou didst it, 
 Thou art the nonpareil." 
 
 The short-lived effort to be gay subsides into the usual ab- 
 stracted mood, and Lady Macbeth needs to chide him : " You 
 do not give the cheer," &g. He makes an effort, gives that 
 fine physiological grace before meat : 
 
MACBETH. 1 9 
 
 " Now good digestion wait on appetite, 
 And health on both ! " 
 
 playfully challenges the absence of Banquo as an act of 
 
 unkindness, thus by a voluntary mental act calling before his 
 
 naind's eye the image of the murdered man. When invited 
 
 to sit, " The table's fuH" — " Here's a place reserv'd, sir." — 
 
 " Where ? which of you have done this ?'' NTone see the 
 
 shadowy form except Macbeth himself, and his first impression 
 
 is that it is a sorry jest ; but how quickly does lie behove in 
 
 the supernatural nature of his visitor? " Thou canst not say, 
 
 I did it ; never shake thy gory locks at me." He looks " on 
 
 that which might appal the devil," but which no eyes but his 
 
 own can see. Although "quite unmann'd in foUy," fear 
 
 turns to daring, and he threatens the ghost : 
 
 " Pr'5rthee, see there ! behold ! look ! lo ! how say you ? 
 Why, what care I ? If thou canst nod, speak too. — 
 If chamel houses, and our graves, miist send 
 Those that we bury, back, ovu monuments 
 Shall be the maws of kites." 
 
 The hallucination fades, and his natural high courage allows 
 
 him on the moment to philosophize upon the appearance : 
 
 " Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, 
 Ere htiman statute purg'd the gentle weal ; 
 Ay, and since too, murders have been perform' d. 
 Too terrible for the ear : the times have been 
 That, when the brains were out, the man would die. 
 And there an end : but now they rise again. 
 With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, 
 And push us from our stools : This is more strange 
 Than such a murder is." 
 
 Again roused from reverie by his wife, he excuses his be- 
 haviour by the same reference to a customary infirmity, which 
 is twice alluded to for the same purpose by his wife : 
 
 " I do forget : — 
 
 Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends ; 
 
 I have a strange infirmily, which is nothing 
 
 To those who know me." 
 
20 MACBETH. 
 
 He proposes a bumper health to the general joy of the whole 
 table, and that in particular of " our dear friend Banquo," this 
 second reference shewing how his mind is fascinated with the 
 idea of the dead man ; and having the immediate effect of 
 re-establishing the hallucination. Then comes that burst of 
 despairing defiance, when the extremity of fear changes to 
 audacity: 
 
 " Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee ! 
 
 Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold : 
 
 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes 
 
 Which thou dost glare with." 
 " What man dare, I dare : 
 
 Approach thou like the rugged Kussian bear. 
 
 The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger. 
 
 Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves 
 
 Shall never tremble : Or, be aUve agaiu. 
 
 And dare me to the desert with thy sword ; 
 
 If trembling I exhibit then, protest me 
 
 The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow ! 
 
 Unreal mockery, hence ! — ^Why so ; — ^beiug gone, 
 
 I am a man again. — Pray you, sit stilL" 
 
 He is astonished that the others present are not moved by 
 
 the object of his dread. Unlike the air-dravra. dagger, which 
 
 he recognized as an hallucination, he believes this appearance 
 
 to have been most real He does this notwithstanding his 
 
 wife's assurance that — ■ 
 
 " This is the very painting of yoiir fear ; 
 This is the air-drawn dagger, which, you said, 
 Led you to Dimcan." 
 
 She gives no credence to matters which 
 
 " Would weU become 
 A woman's story, told by a winter's fire, 
 Authorized by her grandam." 
 
 She taunts him, and assures him : 
 
 " Why do you make such faces ? When aU's done. 
 You look but on a stooL" 
 
 It is markworthy that the ghost of Banquo is seen to no 
 
MACBETH. 21 
 
 one but Macbeth, differing in this respect from that of 
 Hamlet's Father. Moreover, Banquo's ghost is silent : 
 Hamlet's ghost is a conversational being, subject to disap- 
 appearance at cock-crow, and other ghost laws ; points 
 indicating the poet' s idea of the ghost of Banquo as an hal- 
 lucination, not as an apparition ; a creation of the heat- 
 oppressed brain, not a shadowy messenger from spirit-land. It 
 is the pathological Nemesis of guilt, not a phantom returned 
 to the confines of the day actively to assist in the discovery of 
 guilt. The progress of the morbid action is depicted with 
 exquisite skiU. First, there is the horrible picture of the 
 imagination not transferred to the sense, then there is the 
 sensual hallucination whose reality is questioned and rejected, 
 and now there is the sensual hallucination whose reality is 
 fuUy accepted. 
 
 Are we to accept the repeated assurance, both from Macbeth 
 and from his lady, that he is subject to sudden fits of some 
 kind 1 or was it a ready lie, coined on the spur of the moment, 
 as an excuse for his strange behaviour ? 
 
 " Sit, worthy frisnds, my lord is often thus. 
 And hath been from Ms youth : 'pray you, keep seat. 
 The fit is momentary ; upon a thought 
 He win again be well ; if much you note him. 
 You shall offend him, and extend his passion." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Think of this, good peers, 
 But as a thing of custom : 'tis no other. 
 Only it spoils the pleasure of the time." 
 
 Doubtless it was a ready He ; otherwise the lady would have 
 used the argument to her husband, instead of scoffing at his 
 credulity. Macbeth, however, is at this juncture in a 
 state of mind closely bordering upon disease, if he have not 
 actually passed the limit. He is hallucinated, and, in 
 respect to the appearance of Banquo, he believes in the laai- 
 lucination, and refers it to the supernatural agencies which 
 
22 MACBETH. 
 
 discover the " secret' at man of blood." The reality of the 
 air-draA\Ti dagger he did not believe in, but referred its pheno- 
 mena to their proper source, -with as much truth, though not "with 
 as much phlegm, as Nicolai or any other sane subject of hal- 
 lucination could have done. Unlike the haUuciaations of 
 Nicolai and Ben Johnson, it caused terror although its un- 
 realiiy was fuUy recognised, because it suited with "the 
 horror of the time " of which it was a reflex. But between 
 this time and the appearance of Banquo, the stability of Mac- 
 beth' s reason had undergone a fearful ordeal. He lacked " the 
 season of all natures — sleep ;" or, when he did sleep, it was 
 
 " In the affliction of those terrible dreams 
 That shake us nightly." 
 
 Waking, he made his companions of the " sorriest fancies ;" 
 
 and, " on the torture of the mind," he lay " in restless 
 
 ecstacy." Truly, the caution given by his wife was likely 
 
 to become a prophecy : 
 
 " These deeds must not be thought on 
 After these ways ; so, it will make us mad." 
 
 In the point of view of psychological criticism, this fact 
 appears on the eve of being fulfilled by the man, when 
 to sleepless nights and days of brooding melancholy are 
 added that undeniable indication of insanity, a credited hal- 
 lucination. The fear was in reality fulfilled in the instance of 
 the woman, although, at the point we have reached, when she 
 with clear intellect and well-balanced powers is supporting 
 her horror-struck and hallucinated husband, she offers a charac- 
 ter Httle hkely, on her next appearance, to be the subject of 
 profound and fatal insanity. The man, on the other hand, 
 appears to be almost within the limits of mental disease. 
 Macbeth, however, saved himself from actual insanity by 
 rushing from the maddening horrors of meditation into a 
 course of decisive resolute action. From henceforth he gave 
 himself no time to reflect ; he made the firstlings of his heart 
 
MACBETH. 23 
 
 the firstUngs of his hand ; he became a fearful tyrant to his 
 country ; but he escaped madness. This change in him, how- 
 ever, effected a change in his relation to his wife, which in her 
 had the opposite result. Up to this time, her action had 
 been that of sustaining him ; but when he waded forward ui 
 the sea of blood, without desire of the tedious return, when 
 his thoughts were acted ere they were scanned, then his queen 
 found her occupation gone. Her attention, heretofore directed 
 to her husband and to outward occurrences, was forced in- 
 wards upon that wreck of aU-content which her meditation 
 supplied. The sanitary mental influence of action is thus 
 impressively shewn. Even the stings of conscience, if not 
 blunted, can for a time be averted, by that busy march of 
 affairs, which attracts all the attention outwardly, and throws 
 the faculty of reflection into disuse. 
 
 The rapid deterioration of Macbeth' s moral nature de- 
 serves notice. The murder of the king, to which he had 
 the greatest temptation, was effected ia the midst of a storm 
 of conscientious rebuke. The murder of Banquo was attended 
 with no expression of remorse, although it highly stimulated 
 the imagination ; for this also, he had temptation. But 
 shortly afterwards we find Viim committing a wholesale and 
 motiveless deed of blood, in the assassination of the kindred 
 of Macduff — ^far more atrocious and horrible, if there can be 
 degrees in the guilt of such deeds, than all he has done before. 
 At first we find him " infirm of purpose '' in guilt. Eeferring 
 either to his want of sleep or to his hallucination, he says : 
 
 " My strange and self-abuse 
 Is the initiate fear, that wants hard use :-^ 
 We are yet but young in deeds." 
 
 Afterwards he becomes indeed " bloody, bold, and resolute ;" 
 and he orders the massacre of Macduff's kindred without hesi- 
 tation or compunction. 
 
24) MACBETH. 
 
 " From tMs moment. 
 The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
 The firstlmgs of my hand. And even now, 
 To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done : 
 The castle of Macduff I wiU. surprise ; 
 Seize upon Fife ; give to the edge o' the sword 
 His wife, his babes, and aU unfortunate souls 
 That trace his Hne. No boasting like a fool : 
 This deed I'U do, before this purpose cooL" 
 
 Subsequently to this foul deed, the tyrant supported his power 
 with many acts of sudden and bloody violence : for, notwith- 
 standing the great rapidity of action in the drama, an interval 
 in reahty of some years must be supposed between the first 
 and last acts, during which time, 
 
 " Each new mom, 
 New widows howl ; new orphans ciy ; new sorrows 
 Strike heaven on the face." 
 
 See also j;he fine description of the country under the tyrant's 
 
 sway given by Rpsae : 
 
 " The dead man's tneH 
 Is there scarce ask'd, for who ; and good men's lives 
 Expire before the flowers ia their caps, 
 Dying, or ere they sicken." 
 
 The change in Macbeth's nervous system, from its early sensi- 
 bility, when he was young in deeds of guilt, to the obtuseness 
 brought on by hard use, is later in the piece described by 
 himself: 
 
 " Sey. It is the ciy of women, my good lord. 
 
 Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears : 
 The time has been, my senses would have quail'd 
 To hear a night-shriek ; and my fell of hair 
 Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir 
 As Hfe were in't. I have supp'd fuU with horrors ; 
 Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts. 
 Cannot once start me. — Wherefore was that cry ? 
 
 Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead." 
 
 To the last, the shadow of madness is most skilfully indicated 
 as hovering around Macbeth, without the reality actually 
 
MACBETH. 25 
 
 falling upon Mm. WHen at last brought to bay in his strong- 
 hold, the opinion of his madness is positively expressed : 
 
 " Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies : ' 
 Some say, he's mad ; others, that lesser hate him. 
 Do call it valiant fury : but, for certain. 
 He cannot buckle his distemper'd comrse 
 Within the belt of rule." 
 
 The cause of his reputed madness is conscience. 
 
 " Who then shall blame 
 His pester'd senses to recoil, and start. 
 When all that is -within hiTin does condemn 
 Itself for being there ?" 
 
 The defiant fierceness of his resistance is not Tvithin the belt 
 
 of rule. He'll fight till fi:om his bones the flesh is hacked ; 
 
 put on his armour before 'tis needed ; 
 
 " Send out more horses, skir the countiy roimd ; 
 Hang those that talt of fear." 
 
 But ■with all this valiant fury, he is sick at heart, oppressed 
 
 ■with profound ■weariness of life : " I 'gin to be a--weary of the 
 
 sun." What exquisite pathos ia the melancholy passages : 
 
 " My May of life 
 Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf ; 
 An d that ■which should accompany old age. 
 As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
 I must not look to have ; but, in their stead, 
 Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath. 
 Which the poor heart ■would fain deny, but dare not." 
 
 And ia this, so Hamlet like : 
 
 " She should have died hereafter, 
 There would have been a time for such a ■word. — 
 To-morro^w, and to-morrow, and to-morro-w. 
 Creeps in this petty pace firom day to day. 
 To the last syllable of recorded time ; 
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
 The ■way to dusty dealii. Out, out, brief candle ! 
 Life's but a ■walking shadow ; a poor player. 
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. 
 And then is heard no more : it is a tale 
 
26 MACBETH. 
 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing." 
 
 When all hope has fled, his superabundant activity rejects the 
 very idea of self-destruction. He wiU. not play the Roman 
 fool, and die on his own sword. Gashes look best on others. 
 In the last scene, in which the lying juggle of the fiend is 
 unmasked, and he falls by the sword of Macduff, some re- 
 maining touches of conscience and of nature are shewn. At 
 first he refuses to fight : 
 
 " My soul is too much charg'd 
 With blood of thine already." 
 
 When even fate deserts him, and his better part of man is 
 cowed, he fights bravely to the last, and falls in a manner 
 which the poet takes care to mark, in the scene which imme- 
 diately follows, as the honourable end of a soldier's life. He 
 descends from the light a fearful example of a noble mind, 
 depraved by yieldiag to the tempter ; a terrible evidence of 
 the fires of hell lighted in the breast of a hving man by his 
 own act. 
 
 The character of Lady Macbeth is less interesting to the 
 psychological student than that of her husband. It is far 
 less complex ; drawn with a classic simplicity of outline, it 
 presents us with none of those balancing and contending 
 eniotions which make the character of Macbeth so wide and 
 and varied a field of study. It does not come within the scope 
 of this criticism to enquire at length iato the relative degree 
 of wickedness and depravity exhibited by the two great crimi- 
 nals. Much ingenious speculation has been expended on this 
 subject, one upon which writers are never Hkely entirely to 
 agree so long as different people have antipathies and pre- 
 ferences for different forms of character. The first idea of 
 the crime undoubtedly comes into the mind of Macbeth before 
 he sees his wife ; the suggestion of it fills his mind imme- 
 diately after his interview with the weird Sisters, and he 
 
MACBETH. 27 
 
 indicates the strong hold which the horrible imagination takes 
 on him. 
 
 " Stars hide your fires ; 
 Let not Ught see my black and deep desires ; 
 The eye wiak at the hand, yet let that be, 
 Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see." 
 
 But in Macbeth's letter to his wife there is not a word by 
 which the enterprise can be said to be broken to her, and 
 she expresses her own fell purpose before their meeting. At 
 the first moment of their meeting, she replies to his asser- 
 tion, that Duncan goes hence to-morrow : 
 
 " 0, never 
 Shall sun that morrow see !" 
 
 The idea of the crime arises in the minds of both man and 
 wife, without suggestion from either to the other ; though in 
 Macbeth the idea is a " horrible imagining," while ia Lady 
 Macbeth it is a " fell purpose." 
 
 Lady Macbeth's subsequent taunt, — 
 
 " What beast was't then 
 That made you break this enterprise to me ?',' 
 
 " Nor time nor place did then cohere, 
 And yet you would make both," — 
 
 appears to ,us, though we dare hardly say it, a flaw in the 
 plot. It is certainly iuconsistent with Lady Macbeth's lan- 
 guage at her first meeting with her lord. The truthfulness of 
 these expressions can only be saved by supposing them to 
 have referred to confidences between husband and wife on 
 Duncan's murder, before Macbeth went to the wars ; a sup- 
 position inconsistent with the development of the wicked 
 thought as it is pourtrayed after the meeting with the weird 
 Sisters. 
 
 The terrible remorseless impersonation of passionate ambi- 
 tion delineated in the character of Lady Macbeth, is not 
 gradually developed, but is placed at once in all its fierce 
 power before us iu that awful invocation to the spirits of evil. 
 
28 MACBETH. 
 
 " Come, come, you spirits 
 That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here ; 
 ■And £01 me, from the crown to the toe, top-full 
 Of direst cruelty ! make thick my blood, 
 Stop up the access and passage to remorse ; 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell pmrpose, nor keep peace between 
 The effect, and it ! Come to my woman's breasts. 
 And take my Tnilk for gall, you murd'ring ministers, 
 Wherever in your sightless substances 
 You wait on nature's mischief ! Come, thick night, 
 And paU thee in the dunnest smoke of heU ! 
 That my keen knife see not the wound it makes ; 
 Nor heaven peep through the blankness of the dark. 
 To cry, Hold, Hold ! 
 
 With what vehemence and unchanging resolution does she 
 carry out this feh purpose ; how she dominates the spirit of 
 her vacillating husband ; with what inflexible and pitiless de- 
 termination she pursues that one great crime which gives her 
 sovereign sway and masterdom ! It is, however, to be re- 
 marked, that she is not exhibited as participating in her 
 husband's crimes after the murder of Duncan. Having seized 
 upon " the golden round," her high moral courage and self- 
 contained nature, save her from those eternal suspicions and 
 that restlessness of imagination which lead her husband 
 onward from crime to crime. Her want of imagination, her 
 very want of sympathy, would save her from that perver- 
 sion of sympathy, which, in her husband, resulted in useless 
 deeds of blood. There are some characters capable of com- 
 mitting one great crime, and of resting upon it ; there are 
 others in whom the first crime is certainly and necessarily fol- 
 lowed by a series of crimes. A bad, cold, selfish, and unfeeHng 
 heart may preserve a person from that fever of wickedness which 
 a more sympathizing nature is prone to run into when the 
 sympathies are perverted, and the mobile organization lends 
 itself to effect their destructive suggestions. We have above 
 indicated the turning point of Lady Macbeth's madness to 
 
MACBETH. 29 
 
 have been the state of inactivity into which she fell when her 
 husband broke away from her support into that bloody, bold, 
 and resolute career which followed the murder of Banquo. 
 We can only speculate upon her course of conduct from this 
 time. She probably in some manner gave her countenance to 
 her husband's career, or she would scarcely have been called 
 his " fiend-Kke queen ;" for it must be remembered, that, 
 although the reader is well aware of her guilt, no suspicion of 
 her participation in Duncan's murder has been excited in the 
 other personages of the drama. We may suppose, then, that 
 without active participation in that career of tyranuy which 
 desolated Scotland, she looked on with frigid and cruel indif- 
 ference, while, her imagination having no power to throw itself 
 outwardly, it became the prey of one engrossing emotion — 
 that of remorse. Giving no outward expression of it in word 
 or deed, she verified the saying of Malcolm : 
 
 " The grief that does not speak, 
 Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break." 
 
 Cold, stedfast, and self-contained, she could no more escape 
 from the gnawing tooth of remorse, than Prometheus, chained 
 upon his rock, could escape from the vulture-talons for ever 
 tearing his vitals. In Macbeth's more demonstrative and flexible 
 nature, passion was explosive ; in her's it was consuming. In 
 him the inward fires found a volcanic vent ; in her their 
 pent-up force shook in earthquake the deep foundations of the 
 sold. 
 
 Lady Macbeth's end is psychologically even more instructive 
 than that of her husband. The manner in which even-handed 
 justice deals with her, " his fiend-Uke wife," is an exquisite 
 masterpiece of dramatic skill. The undaunted metal which 
 would have compelled her to resist to the last, if brought face 
 to face with any resistible adversaries, gradually gives way to 
 the feeling of remorse and deep melancholy, when left to feed 
 upon itself The moral object of the drama required that the 
 
30 ' MACBETH. 
 
 fierce gnawing of remorse at the heart of the lady should be 
 made manifest ; and, as her firm self-contained nature imposes 
 upon her a reticence in her waking moments in strong con- 
 trast to the soliloquising loquacity of her demonstrative hus- 
 band, the great dramatist has skilfully availed himself of the 
 sleep-talking state in which she uncovers the corroding ulcers 
 of her conscience. "Whether the deep melancholy of remorse 
 tends to exhibit itself in somnambulism, is a fact which 
 may on scientific grounds be doubted. Shakespeare makes 
 the Doctor himself express the doubt : " This disease is beyond 
 my practice ; yet I have known those which have walked in 
 their sleep, who have died holily in their beds." The pheno- 
 mena of sleep-walking are painted with great truthfulness. 
 In this slumbrous agitation, " the benefit of sleep " cannot be 
 received, as the Doctor thinks. It neither exerts its soothing 
 effects on the mind, nor is it " chief nourisher in life's feast " 
 to the body. — ^Light is left by her continually. Was this to 
 avert the presence of those " sightless substances " once so 
 impiously invoked? — She "seems washing her hands," and 
 " continues in this a quarter of an hour." "What a comment 
 on her former boast, " A little water clears us of this deed." 
 — ^The panorama of her crime. passes before her, searing the 
 eye-balls of the fancy ; a fancy usually so cold and impassive, 
 but now in agonising erethism. A wise and virtuous man 
 can "thank God for his happy dreams," in which " the slum- 
 ber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul ;" 
 dreams of which he says " it is the ligation of sense, but the 
 liberty of reason, and our waking conceptions do not match 
 the fancies of our sleep." " There is surely a nearer appre- 
 hension of anything that delights us in our dreams than in 
 our waked senses." " "Were my memory as faithftd as my 
 reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams ; 
 and this time also would I chuse for my devotions." (Meligio 
 Medici.) But the converse ? Who can teU the torture of bad 
 
MACBETH. 31 
 
 dreams ! Surely, 'tis better in the mind to lie in restless 
 ecstacy, than thus to have the naked fancy stretched upon the 
 rack ; aU its defences gone, aU power of voluntary attention 
 and abstraction, all guidance of the thoughts, aU judgment 
 abrogated. What more lurid picture of heU can be formed 
 than that it is one long bad dream ! 
 
 " Gent. SiQce his majesty went into the field, I have seen 
 her rise from the bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock 
 her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, 
 afterwards seal it, and again return to bed ; yet all this while 
 in a most fast sleep. 
 
 Doct. A great perturbation in nature ! to receive at once 
 the benefit of sleep, and do the efiects of watching. In this 
 slumbry agitation, besides her walking and other actual per- 
 formance, what, at any time, have you heard her say 1" 
 * * * * 
 
 ^' Gent. Lo you, here she comes ! This is her very 
 
 guise ; and, upon my Ufe, fast asleep. Observe her : stand 
 close. 
 
 Doct. How came she by that light ? 
 
 Gent. Why, it stood by her : she has light by her con- 
 tinually ; 'tis her coDomand. 
 
 Doct. You see, her eyes are open. 
 
 Geni. Ay, but their sense is shut. 
 
 Doct. What is it she does now ? Look how she rubs her 
 hands. 
 
 Geifd. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus 
 washing her hands : I have known her continue in this a 
 quarter of an hour. 
 
 LocIa/ M. Yet here's a spot. 
 
 Doct. Hark, she speaks ; I will set down what comes from 
 her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. 
 
 Lady M. Out, damned spot ! out, I say ! — One ; Two : 
 
 Why, then 'tis time to do't : HeU is murky ! — Fye, my 
 
 lordy, fye ! a soldier, and afeard ? What need we fear who 
 knows it, when none can call our power into account ? — ^Yet 
 who would have thought the old man to have had so much 
 blood in him ? 
 
 Doct. Do you mark that ? 
 
 Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife : Where is she 
 now ? ^What, wiU these hands ne'er be clean ? — No more 
 
3^ MACBETH. 
 
 o' that, my lord, no more o' that : you mar all with this 
 starting. 
 
 Doct. Go to, go to ; you have known what you should not. 
 
 Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of 
 that : Heaven knows what she has known. 
 
 Lady M. Here's the smeU of the blood stiU : aU the per- 
 fumes of Arabia wiQ not sweeten this Httle hand. Oh ! oh ! oh ! 
 
 Doct. What a sigh is there ! The heart is sorely charged. 
 
 Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the 
 dignity of the whole body." 
 
 The diagnosis arrived at by the judicious and pohtic Doctor 
 
 appears to have been, that she was scarcely insane, but so 
 
 sorely troubled in conscience as to be prone to quit the anguish 
 
 of this life by means of suicide. 
 
 " Unnatural deeds 
 Do breed uimatural troubles ; infected minds 
 To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 
 More needs she the divine than the physician. — 
 God, God, forgive us all ! Look after her ; 
 Remove from her the means of all annoyance. 
 And still keep eyes upon her." 
 
 A passage at the very end of the drama indicates, though it 
 does not assert that the fear of the Doctor was realized — 
 
 " his fiend-like queen, 
 Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands 
 Took off her life." 
 
 This diagnosis of the Doctor, that actual disease was not 
 present, is again expressed in his interview with Macbeth : 
 
 " Mach. How does your patient, doctor ? 
 
 Doct. Not so sick, my lord. 
 
 As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies. 
 That keep her from her rest. ' 
 
 Mach. Cure her of that : 
 
 Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd ; 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ; 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain ; 
 And, with some sweet obhvious antidote, 
 Oeanse the stufl'd bosom of that perilous grief. 
 Which weighs upon the heart ? 
 
MACBETH. 33 
 
 Doct. Therein the patient 
 
 Must minister to himself. 
 Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it." 
 
 This contempt of physic was not ill-founded upon the want of 
 reliance which the Doctor expressed on the resources of his 
 art. In those early times, the leech and the mediciner had 
 not learnt to combine the moral influences which are the true 
 means of mioistering to a mind diseased after the manner of 
 Lady Macbeth' s, with those sleep-producing oblivious antidotes 
 which at present form the remedies of melancholia. Such a 
 patient would not now be given over, either to the divine, or 
 to the unresisted ravages of conscience. What indeed could 
 the divine effect without the aid of the physician ? or, rather, 
 until the physician had done his work 1 In such a state of 
 nervous system as that of this wretched lady, no judicious 
 divine would attempt to excite religious emotion ; indeed, all 
 thoughts of the world to come would act as fuel to the fire of a 
 conscience so remorseful. The treatment of such a case as that 
 of Lady Macbeth would be, to remove her from all scenes sug- 
 gesting unhappy thoughts, to fix by constant endeavours her 
 attention upon new objects of interest, and to find, if possible, 
 some stimulus to healthy emotion. If she had been thrown 
 from her high estate, and compelled to labour for her daily 
 bread, the tangible evils of such a condition would have been, 
 most likely, to have rooted out those of the imagination and of 
 memory. The judicious physician, moreover, would not in 
 such a case have neglected the medicinal remedies at his com- 
 mand, especially those which Macbeth himseK seems to 
 indicate, under the title of some sweet oblivious antidote. 
 He would have given the juice of poppy, or some " drowsy 
 syrup," to prevent thick-coming fancies depriving her of 
 rest. He would thus have replaced the unrefreshing, nay, 
 exhausting sleep of somnambuhsm, for that condition so beau- 
 tifully described, earlier in the play, as that which 
 D 
 
34 MACBETH. 
 
 " knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, 
 The death of each day's hfe, sore labour's bath, 
 Bahn of hurt minds, great nature's second course, 
 Chief nourisher in life's feast." 
 
 When these remedies had produced their effect, and the 
 patient's remorse was no longer of that " braiasickly. " kind 
 accompanying disorders of the organization, then, and only 
 then, might the divine step in ■with those consolations of reli- 
 gious faith which assure us, that " Though your sins be as 
 scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red 
 like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
 
 What was Lady Macbeth' s form and temperament ? • In 
 Maclise's great painting of the banquet scene, she is repre- 
 sented as a woman of large and coarse development ; a 
 Scandinavian amazon, the muscles of whose brawny arms 
 could only have been developed to their great size by hard and 
 frequent use ; a woman of whose fists her husband might weU 
 be afraid ; but scarcely one who would present that Satanic 
 spiritualization of character which we find in this awful im- 
 personation of dauntless and ruthless ambition ; an instniment, 
 ia fact, to do coarse things coarsely ; a butcher's cleaver per- 
 haps, but by no means the keen scimitar whose rapid blow 
 destroys ere it is seen. "We do not so figure Lady Macbeth to 
 the mind's eye — no, not even as the large and majestic figure 
 of Siddons, whose impersonation of the character so moved our 
 fathers. Shakespeare was not in the habit of painting big 
 and brawny women. There is a certain femininity in aU his 
 female characters, which is distinguishable even in those 
 whom he has filled with the coarser passions. But that Lady 
 Macbeth, whose soul is absorbed, and whose devilish deeds are 
 instigated by ambition, the highest of all earthly passions, 
 " the last infirmity of noble minds," which, like Aaron's rod, 
 consumes and destroys the meaner desires, — ^that this woman 
 should have had the physical conformation of a cook, is a 
 
MACBETH. 35 
 
 monstrous libel upon the sex. Regan and Goneril, whom we 
 not only hate, but who excite disgust in our minds, might 
 have been such women, coarse and low natures as they were ; 
 and indeed they are represented as using their fists with a 
 freedom proving the reliance they placed in the efficiency of 
 that safety-valve to passion; and Lear threatens the wolfish visage 
 of one with the nails of the other. But was Lady Macbeth 
 such a being 1 Did the fierce fire of her soul animate the 
 epicene bulk of a. virago ? Never ! Lady Macbeth was a lady 
 beautiful and delicate, whose one vivid passion proves that 
 her organization was instinct with nerve-force, unoppressed by 
 weight of flesh. Probably she was small ; for it is the 
 smaller sort of women whose emotional fire is the most fierce, 
 and she herself bears unconscious testimony to the fact that 
 her hand was little. The drama contains many indications 
 that, to outward appearance, she was gentle and feminine. 
 Duncan greets her by the name of " most kind hostess ;" and, 
 after the murder, Macduff says : 
 
 " Gentle lady, 
 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak ; 
 The repetition in a woman's ear 
 Would murder as it fell." 
 
 Although she manifests no feeling towards Macbeth, beyond 
 the regard which: ambition makes her yield, it is clear that he 
 entertains for her the personal love which a beautiful woman 
 would excite. Returning from the wars, he greets her with 
 " Dearest love ! " " Dearest partner of my greatness ! " After- 
 wards he lavishes upon her the terms of endearment, " Love ! " 
 "Dear wife!" " Dearest chuck ! " " Sweet remembrancer ! " 
 Above all, she makes use of his love t« taunt him with his 
 change of purpose, when it looked green and pale at the con- 
 templated murder of Duncan^ " From this time," she says, 
 " such I account thy love." She relies upon this threat of dis- 
 belief in his love as a goad to urge him to his first great crime ; 
 
36 MACBETH. 
 
 and she applies this motive with tlie confident assurance that 
 the love was there to give it force. Moreover, the effect of 
 remorse upon her own health proves the preponderance 
 of nerve in her organization. Could the Lady Macbeth of 
 Mr. Machse, and of others who have painted this lady, have 
 shewn the fire and metal of her fierce character in the com- 
 mission of her crimes, the remembrance of them would 
 scarcely have disturbed the quiet of her after years. We 
 figure Lady Macbeth to have been a blonde Rachel, with more 
 beauty, with grey and cruel eyes, but with the same slight dry 
 configuration and constitution, instinct with determined nerve- 
 power.* 
 
 The scene with the doctor at the EngHsh court has several 
 points of interest, besides that of antiquarian medicine. It 
 fixes the date of Macbeth's history as that of Edward the 
 Confessor's time. It was doubtless introduced as a compli- 
 ment to James the First, who assumed the power of curing 
 scrofula, the king's evil, by means of the king's touch. Another 
 passage indicates that it was written in this reign, and thus 
 that it was one of the later productions of the poet. James 
 was descended from Banquo, and in the last witch scene Mac- 
 beth thus refers to the lineage of his rival : 
 
 " And some I see 
 " That two-fold balls and treble sceptres carry." 
 
 The cure of the king's evil is thus described : 
 
 " Doct. There are a crew of wretched souls, 
 
 That stay his cure : their malady convinces 
 The great assay of art ; but, at his touch. 
 Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand. 
 They presently amend. 
 
 Macd. What's the disease he means ? 
 
 * Since the above was written, we have been inforpned that Mrs. Siddons 
 herself entertained an opinion of Lady Macbeth's physique similar to our 
 own; and that in Mrs. Jamieson's critique on this character, which we have 
 not had the opportunity of consulting, the same opinion is expressed. 
 
MACBETH. 37 
 
 Mai. 'Tis call'd the evil : 
 
 A most miraculous work in this good king .: 
 WMch often, since my here remain in England, 
 I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven 
 Himself best knows : but strangely-visited people, 
 AU swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye. 
 The mere despair of stu^gery, he cures ; 
 Hanging a golden stamp about their necks. 
 Put on with holy prayers : and 'tis spoken, 
 To the succeeding royalty he leaves 
 The healing ^benediction." 
 
 Old Fuller, in the plenitude of faith, gives a curious disqui- 
 sition of this same medical hocus pocus of royalty, the best 
 part of which we subjoin : 
 
 "And now the full time was come, wherein good King 
 Edward exchanged this life for a better one. Who, as he was 
 famous for many personal miracles, so he is reported to have 
 entailed (by Heaven's consort,) an hereditary virtue in his 
 successors, the kings of England, (only with this condition, 
 that they continue constant in Christianity,) to cure the 
 King'sEvil. This disease, known to the Greeks by the name of 
 Xoi|oa8£C, termed by the Latines Struma, and scrophulse, 
 hath its cause from phlegm, its chief and common outward 
 residence in or near the neck or throat ; where it expresseth 
 itself in knobs or kemeUs, pregnant oftentimes with corrupted 
 bloud and other putrified matter, which, on the breaking forth 
 of those bunches, floweth forth, equally offensive to sight, smell, 
 and toutch. And yet this noisome disease is happily healed 
 by the hands of the kings of England, streaking the soar : 
 and if any doubt of the truth thereof, they may be remitted 
 to their own eyes for confirmation. But there is a sort of 
 men who, to avoid the censure of over-easy credulity, and 
 purchase the repute of prudent austerity, justly incurre the 
 censure of affected frowardnesse. It being neither manners 
 nor discretion in them, in matters notoriously known, to give 
 daily exprience the lye, by the backwardnesse of their beUef. 
 
 " But whence this cure proceeds is much controverted by the 
 learned. Some recount it in the number of those avanoSEiKra 
 whose reason cannot be demonstrated. For as in vicious 
 commonwealths bastards are frequent, who, being reputed 
 Filii populi, have no particular father ; so man's ignorance 
 increaseth the number of occult qualities, (which I might call 
 
38 MACBETH. 
 
 cliances iu nature,) where the effect is beheld, but cannot 
 immediately be referred to any immediate and proper cause 
 thereof. Others impute it the power of fancie, and an exalted 
 imagination. For when the poor patient (who perchance 
 seldom heard of, and never saw a king before,) shall behold 
 his royall hand dabling in a puddle of putrefaction, and with a 
 charitable confidence rubbing, smoothing, chafing those loath- 
 some kernels, (which I may call clouds of corruption, dissolved 
 oft-times into a feculent shower) : I say, when the sick man 
 shall see a hand so humble of one borne so high, such con- 
 descension in a king to stroak that soar, at which meaner 
 persons would stop their nostrUls, shut their eyes, or turn 
 their faces ; this raiseth, erecteth, enthroneth, the patient's 
 fancie, summoning his spirits to assist nature with their ut- 
 most might to encounter the disease with greater advantage. 
 And who wiU look into the legend of the miracles of the 
 imagination, shaU find many strange and almost incredible 
 things thereby really effected. Other learned men, and par- 
 ticularly Gaspar Peucerus, though acquitting this cure from 
 diabolical conjuration, yet tax it as guilty of superstition. 
 With him all such do side as quarreU at the ceremonies and 
 circumstances used at the healing of this maladie. Either 
 displeased at the CoUect read, (consisting of the first nine 
 verses of the Gospel of St. John,) as wholly improper, and 
 nothing relating to the question ; or unresolved of the efficacy 
 of the gold pendent about the patient's neck, (whether partly 
 compleating or a bare complement of the cure) ; or secretly 
 unsatisfied, what manner or measure or beUef is required, 
 (according to the modell whereof health is observed to come 
 sooner or later) ; or openly offended with the Sign of the 
 Oroase which was used to be made on the place affected. All 
 which exceptions fall to the ground, when it shall be avowed, 
 that notwithstanding the omission of such ceremonies, (as re- 
 quisite rather to the solemnity than substance of the cure,) 
 the hands of our kings (without the gloves, as I may term it, 
 of the aforesaid circumstances,) have effected the healing of 
 this disease. 
 
 " Hereupon some make it a clear miracle, and immediately 
 own God's finger in the king's hand." 
 
 Fuller proceeds to describe how a " etiffe Koman Catholic," 
 having the king's evU in a high degree, and having been cured 
 by Queen Elizabeth, did perceive that the excommunication 
 
MACBETH. 39 
 
 wliich Pope Pius had "let fly at her Majestic" was "in very deed 
 of no effect, seeing God hath blessed her with so great and 
 miraculous a vertue." He proceeds : 
 
 " This mention of Queen Elizabeth (there is a magnetic 
 vertue in stories for one to attract another,) minds me of a 
 passage in the beginning of her reign. Making her progresse 
 into Gloucestershire, people affected with this disease did in 
 such uncivil crowds press in upon her ; insomuch that her 
 Majestic, between anger, grief, and compassion, did let fall 
 words to this effect : Alasse, poor people, I camaot — I canTwt 
 cure you ; it is Ood alone that can doe it. Which some 
 people interpreted (contrary to her intent and practice, con- 
 tinuing such cures to the day of her death,) an utter re- 
 nouncing and disclaiming of any instrumentall efficacy in 
 herself Whereas she only removed her subjects eyes from 
 gazing on her to look up to Heaven. For men's minds 
 naturally are so dull and heavy, that instead of traveling with 
 their thanks to God, the cause of all cures, they lazily take up 
 their lodging more than half-way this side, mistaking the 
 dealer for the Giver of their recovery." 
 
 An explanation more ingenious than ingenuous ; for FuUer 
 must have noticed that the Queen disclaimed even the power 
 of dealing the c\ire. 
 
40 HAMLET. 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 All critical study of Hamlet must be psychological ; 
 and as there are few subjects which have been more closely 
 studied, and more copiously written upon, than this magnificent 
 drama, criticism upon it may seem to be exhausted. But human 
 nature itself is still more trite ; yet, study it profoundly as we 
 can, criticise and speculise upon it as we may, much will ever 
 be left outside the largest grasp of those minds who undertake 
 to elucidate so much of it as they can comprehend. Hamlet 
 is human nature, or at least a wide range of it, and no amount 
 of criticism can exhaust the wealth of this magnificent store- 
 house. It invites and evades criticism. Its mysterious pro- 
 fundity fascinates the attention ; its infinite variety and its 
 hidden meanings deny exhaustive analysis. Some leavings 
 of treasure wiU always be discoverable to those who seek for it 
 in - an earnest and reverent spirit. Probably no two minds 
 can ever contemplate Hamlet from exactly the same point 
 of view, as no two men can ever regard human life under 
 exactly the same aspect. Hence all truthful criticism of 
 this great drama is not only various as mind itself, but is 
 apt to become reflective of the critic. The strong sense of 
 Johnson, the subtle insight of Coleridge, the fervid eloquence 
 of HazHtt, the discriminatiag tact of Schlegel, are nowhere 
 more evident than in their treatment of this mighty monu- 
 ment of human intellect. Every man who has learned to 
 
HAMLET. 41 
 
 think, and has dared to question the inward monitor, has seen 
 some part of the character of Hamlet reflected in his own 
 bosom. 
 
 It will form no part of the subject of this essay to criticise 
 the dramatic construction of Hamlet. We may, however, 
 confess ourselves to be among those who cannot see in its 
 construction that perfect art which has been so abundantly 
 shewn by Shakespeare in many other pieces. Of the petty 
 anacronisms which send Hamlet to Wittemberg, which allow 
 Ophelia to call for a coach, and the King's palace to resound 
 with salvos of artillery, we make small account ; like spots 
 on the sun's surface, they only impress themselves upon 
 those who look upon the great work through some medium 
 capable of obscuring its glories. The great length appears 
 by no means an imperfection of this drama as a composition, 
 whatever it may be as an acting play. The analysis of 
 the motives of human action, which is the great object^ of 
 this work, could not have been effected if the action were 
 rapid. Rapidity of action is inconsistent with philosophic 
 self-analysing motives and modes of thought ; while the 
 slow and halting progress of the action in this drama, not 
 only affords to the character space and verge enough to unfold 
 its inmost peculiarities of thought and feeling, but develops 
 in the mind of the reader a state of metaphysical receptivity 
 scarcely less essential to its fuU appreciation. 
 
 Once for aU, let us say, in pointing out what appear to us 
 difficulties to a logical apprehension of this piece from that point 
 of view which contemplates the development of character and 
 the laws of mind, we do not urge these difficulties as objec- 
 tions to this great drama, which we love and prize more than 
 any other human piece of composition. We venture to find 
 no fault with Hamlet ; we revere even its irregularities, as we 
 prefer the various uniform beauties of forest landscape to the 
 straight walks and trim parterres of a well-kept garden. 
 
42 HAMLET. 
 
 There are more irregularities and unexpected turns of action 
 in Hamlet than in any other of Shakespeare's' plays. Our 
 belief is, that the poet became charmed with the creature of 
 his own imagiaation, as it developed itself from his fertile 
 brain ; that as he gave loose rein to poetic fancy and philo- 
 sophic reverie, he more than ever spurned the narrow limits 
 of dramatic art. The works of Shakespeare's imagination, 
 contrasted with those of the Greek dramatists, have been said 
 to resemble a vast cathedral, combining in one beautiful 
 structure various forms of architecture, various towers and 
 pinnacles, — ^the whole irregular, vast, and beautiful. The 
 drama of the Greeks, on the other hand, has been said to 
 resemble their temples, finished in one style, perfect and 
 regular. The simile is true and iustructive, and in no case 
 more so than in its application to Hamlet. If in our admira- 
 tion of its whole effect, — if ia our reverent examination of its 
 parts, its pinnacles of beauty, its shrines of passion, its 
 gorgeous oriels of many-coloured thought, — we venture to 
 express the difficulties we experience in understandiag how 
 one part grew out of another, and the many parts grew to 
 form the wondrous whole, let our criticism be accepted as that 
 of one who examines only to learn and to enjoy. 
 
 It is known that Shakespeare devoted more time to it than to 
 any other of his works, and that in its construction he altered and 
 re-altered much. The work bears evident traces of this elabo- 
 ration, both in its lengthy and slow action, iu its great diver- 
 sity of incident and character, and in the great perfection of 
 its parts contrasted with some loss of uniformity as a whole. 
 Some of his plays (as the Merry Wives of Windsor), Shakes- 
 peare is said to have thrown off mth incredible rapidity and fa- 
 cility ; but this certainly is not one in which he " warbled his 
 native wood-notes wUd." Itwas the laboured and elaborate result 
 of years of toil, of metaphysical introspection and observation. 
 It was the darling child of its great author, and ran some risk 
 
HAMLET. 43 
 
 of being a little spoiled. A singular trace of this remodeling, 
 which the commentators appear to have overlooked, is left in 
 the different ages which are assigned to Hamlet in the earlier 
 part and at the end of the drama. The Prince is introduced 
 as a mere youth, whose intent, 
 
 " In going back to school in Wittenburg," 
 the King opposes. His love is described as 
 
 " A violet in the youth of primy nature ;" 
 and he is so " young " that he may walk with a large tether 
 in such matters. He has not even attained his fuU stature, for 
 
 " Nature, crescent, does hot grow alone 
 In thews and bulk ; but, as this temple waxes, 
 The inward service of the mind and soul 
 Grows wide withal." 
 
 To his mistress he appears in the "unmatched form and 
 feature of blown youth." In fact, he is a young gentleman 
 of eighteen or thereabouts. The inconsistency of attributing 
 such profound powers of reflection, and such a blasd state of 
 emotion, to a youth who could scarcely have had beard enough 
 to be plucked, appears so forcibly to have struck Shakespeare, 
 that he condescended to that which with him is a matter of 
 the rarest occurrence, an explanation or contradiction of the 
 error. With curious care, he makes the Sexton lay down the 
 age of the Prince at thirty years. He came to his ofi&ce " the 
 very day that young Hamlet was bom ;" and he had been 
 " sexton here, man and boy, thirty years." As if this were 
 not enough, he confirms it with the antiquarianism of Yorick's 
 skull, which " has been in the earth three and twenty years." 
 Yorick, whose qualities were well remembered by Hamlet, 
 " a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy ; he hath 
 borne me on his back a thousand times ;" a kind of memory 
 not hkely to have stamped itself before the age of seven ; 
 and thus we have Hamlet presented to us not as an unformed 
 
44! HAMLET. 
 
 youth, but a man of age competent to his power of thought, 
 and of the age most liable to his state of feeling. 
 
 The first scene, where the Ghost appears to the sentinels on 
 watch, is constructed with exquisite dramatic verisimilitiide, 
 and is admirably adapted to prepare the mind for that contest 
 between the materialism of sensation and that idealism of pas- 
 sion, that doubting effort to discriminate between the things 
 which are and the things which seem, which is the mark 
 thread in the philosophy of the piece. 
 
 The Ghost appears at cold and silent midnight. " 'Tis 
 bitter cold, and I am sick at heart." " Not a mouse stirring," 
 says Francisco. On this Coleridge remarks, that " in all the 
 best attested stories of ghosts and visions, the ghost-seers 
 were in a state of cold or chilling damp from without, and of 
 anxiety inwardly." As far as visions are concerned, this ob- 
 servation might have psychological importance, as tending to 
 indicate the conditions of the nervous system favourable to 
 the production of hallucination ; but with regard to ghosts 
 seen by many persons at the same time, if such things have 
 been, it could only indicate that, escaped for a while from 
 "sulphurous and tormenting flames," these airy existences 
 preferred to walk on cold nights. 
 
 We cannot consent to reduce the Ghost of Hamlet to 
 physiological laws. 
 
 " We do it wrong, being so majestical, 
 To offer it the shew of science." 
 
 The Ghost in Hamlet can in no wise be included within 
 the category of illusions or hallucinations ; it is anti- 
 physiological, and must be simply accepted as a dramatic 
 circumstance calculated to produce a certaia state of mind ia 
 the hero of the piece. Hazlitt well says, that actors playing 
 Macbeth have always appeared to him to have seen the weird 
 sisters on the stage only. He never had seen a Macbeth look 
 and act as if he had been face to face with the supernatural. 
 
HAMLET. 45 
 
 We have experienced the same feeling in seeing the most 
 approved representations of Hamlet ; and doubtless Goethe 
 had felt the same, since he produces upon the stage that which 
 the tyro player WiLheini Meister takes for a real ghost. No 
 person to act the part had been provided, and something mar- 
 vellous had been mysteriously promised ; but he had forgotten 
 it, probably intending to dispense with the ajppearcmce. When 
 it came, " the noble figure, the low inaudible breath, the Hght 
 movements in heavy armour, made such an impression on 
 him that he stood as if transformed to stone, and could only 
 utter in a half- voice, ' Angels and ministers of grace defend 
 us.' He glared at the form, drew a deep breathing once or 
 twice, and pronounced his address to the Ghost in a manner 
 so confused, so broken, so constrained, that the highest art 
 could not have hit the mark so weU." Besides the part it 
 takes in the development of the plot, the r6le of the Ghost is 
 to account for, if not to produce, a high-wi'ought state of nerve 
 in the hero ; and in the acting play to produce the same effect 
 in lesser degree on the audience. Fielding has described this, 
 when Tom Jones takes Partridge to see Garrick in the cha- 
 racter of Hamlet. The life-Hke acting of the English Roscius, 
 combined with the superstition of the schoolmaster, produces 
 so thorough a conviction of the actual presence of the Ghost, 
 that the result is one of the drollest scenes ever painted by 
 that inimitable romancist. 
 
 Hamlet is from the first moment represented in that mood 
 of melancholy which vents itself in bitter sarcasm : " A little 
 more than kin, and less than kind." He is " too much i'the 
 sun." Sorry quips truly, but yet good enough for the hypo- 
 critical King, who wishes to rejoice and to lament at the 
 same moment : 
 
 " With one auspicious and one drooping eye. 
 With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage, 
 In equal scale weighing dehght and dole." 
 
4,6 HAMLET. 
 
 To the King's unfeeling arguments that the son ought not to 
 grieve for the death of his father, because it is a common theme, 
 and an unavailing woe, Hamlet vouchsafes no reply. But to 
 his mother's rebuke, that the common grief " seems " parti- 
 cular to him, he answers with a vehemence which shews that 
 the clouds which hang on him are surcharged with electric 
 fire : 
 
 " Seems, madam ; nay, it is ! I know not seems. 
 'Tis not alone my inky cloak," &c. 
 
 He has that within which passes show ; and, when left alone, 
 he tells us what it is in that outburst of grief : 
 
 " Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt. 
 Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ! 
 Or that the Everlasting had not fixed 
 His canon 'gainst self-slaughter ! Oh God ! Oh God ! 
 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, 
 Seem to me all the uses of this world : 
 Fye on't, oh fye ! 'tis an unweeded garden 
 That grows to seed ; things rank and gross in nature 
 Possess it merely ! That it should come to this, 
 But two months dead ! " &c. 
 
 It is the conflict of religious belief with suicidal desire. In 
 his pure and sensitive mind, the conduct of his mother has 
 produced shame and keen distress. His generalising tendency 
 leads him to extend his mother's faihngs to her whole sex — 
 " Frailty, thy name is woman ;" and from thence the sense of 
 disgust shrouds as with foul mist the beauty of the world, 
 and all its uses seem " weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable." 
 To general dissatisfaction with men and the world, suc- 
 ceeds the longing desire to quit the scene of shame and woe. 
 In the subsequent arguments which the Prince holds with 
 himself on suicide, he acknowledges the constraining power 
 to be the fear of future pimishment ; but in this passage 
 the higher motive of religious obedience without fear is 
 acknowledged ; a higher and a holier motive to the duty of 
 
HAMLET. 47 
 
 bearing the evils which God permits, and refusing to break 
 His law to escape from them, whatever their pressure may be. 
 A bold man may "jump the hfe to come," in the very spirit 
 of courage ; but a true servant and soldier of God will feel 
 that there is unfaithfulness and cowardice in throwing off, 
 by voluntary death, whatever burden of sorrows may freight 
 the frail vessel of his life. 
 
 The concluding hne equally marks profound sorrow, and 
 the position of dependence and constraint in which Hamlet 
 feels himself: 
 
 " But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue." 
 
 And yet what rapid recovery to the quick-witted complaisance 
 
 of social intercourse, when his friends break in upon these 
 
 gloomy thoughts ; and, again, mark the natural contiguity, in 
 
 a mind equally sensitive and melanchoUc, of bantering sarcasm 
 
 and profound emotion. 
 
 " Thrift ! thrift ! Horatio. The funeral-baked meats 
 Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables. 
 Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven. 
 Or ever I had seen that day." 
 
 This early passage seems to give the key-note of Hamlet's 
 temper, namely, soiil-crushing grief in close alliance with an 
 ironical, often a broad humour, which can mock at despair. 
 Profound life-weariness and suicidal desire indicate that from 
 the first his emotions were morbid, and that the accusation of 
 the King that he had 
 
 " A heart unfortified, a mind impatient. 
 An understanding simple and unschooled," 
 
 was as true of the heart as it was false of the intellect. Yet his 
 rapid recovery from brooding thoughts, and his entire self- 
 possession when circumstances call upon him for action trivial 
 or important, prove that his mind was not permanently off its 
 poise. Profoundly reflective, capable of calling up thoughts and 
 ideas of sense at wiU, of seeing his father " in his mind's eye," 
 
48 HAMLET. 
 
 he is equally capable of dismissing them, and throwing himself 
 into the present. How thoroughly self-possessed is he in his 
 interview with his friend and fellow-student and the soldiers, 
 and the reception he gives to their account of the apparition, by 
 which they were " distilled almost to jelly by the act of fear ;" 
 how unhesitating his decision to see and speak to it, " though 
 hell itself should gape ! " and in the seventh scene, when 
 actually waiting for the Ghost, what cool reflection in his 
 comments on the wassail of the country. Yet he heard not 
 the clock strike midnight, which the less pre-occupied sense 
 of MarceUus had caught. His address to the Ghost, 
 
 " Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! 
 Be thou a spirit of health or gobUn damned ?" &c. 
 
 is marked by a bold and cool reason, at a time when the 
 
 awful evidences of the future make 
 
 " us fools in nature, 
 So horribly to shake our disposition, 
 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." 
 
 The courage of the Prince is of the noblest temper, and is 
 made the more obvious from its contrast with the dread of his 
 companions, who suggest that it, the neutral thing, as it has 
 before been called, may tempt him to the summit of the cUff, 
 
 " And there assume some other horrible form. 
 Which might deprave your sov'reignty of reason, 
 And draw you into madness. Think of it ; 
 The very place puts toys of desperation. 
 Without more motive, into every brain, 
 That looks so many fathoms to the sea, 
 And hears it roar beneath." * 
 
 But Hamlet is beyond all touch of fear. 
 
 ' This danger again is remarked in Lear: 
 
 " I'll look no more, 
 Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight 
 Topple down headlong." 
 
HAMLET. 49 
 
 " My fate cries out, 
 And makes each petty axtery in this body 
 As hardy as the Nemean Hon's nerve." 
 
 Horatio says, " He waxes desperate with imagination ;" but 
 his state really appears to be that of high-wrought yet 
 reasonable courage. After following the Ghost to some dis- 
 tance, he'U "go no farther ;" but if this is said with any touch 
 of fear, it soon becomes pity : "Alas, poor Ghost !" And this, 
 again, changes to revengeful resolution. He demands quickly 
 to know the author of his father's mxirder, that he 
 
 " May sweep to his revenge." 
 But when the Ghost has told his terrible tale, and has disap- 
 peared, with the solemn farewell, " Adieu, adieu, adieu ! 
 remember me," the reaction comes. Then it is that Hamlet 
 feels his- sinews faU their function, and invokes them to bear 
 him stiffly up ; then he recognises a feeling of distraction in 
 the globe of his brain ; then he vows forgetfulness of all 
 things but the motive of revenge. He becomes wild at the 
 thoughts of the " smiling damned viQain," who had wrought 
 all this woe ; and then, passing from the terrible to the 
 trivial, he sets down in his tables a moral platitude. 
 
 " My tables ; meet it is, I set it down, 
 That one may smile, and smUe, and be a villain ; 
 At least, I am sure, it may be so in Denmark." 
 
 We regard this climax of the terrible in the trivial, this 
 transition of mighty emotion into lowliness of action, as one 
 of the finest psychological touches anywhere to be found in 
 the poet. There is something Hke it in Tennyson's noble 
 poem, Maud. When the hero has shot the brother of his 
 mistress in a dnel, he passes from intense passion to trivial 
 observation : 
 
 " Strange that the mind, when fraught 
 
 With a passion so intense. 
 
 One would think that it well 
 
 Might drown aU life in the eye, — 
 
 E 
 
60 HAMLET. 
 
 That it should, by being so overwrought, 
 
 Suddenly strike on a sharper sense 
 
 For a shell, or a flower, Httle things 
 
 Which else would have been past by ! 
 
 And now I remember, I, 
 
 When he lay dying there, 
 
 I noticed one of his many rings, 
 
 (For he had many, poor worm,) and thought 
 
 It is his mother's hair." 
 
 When the mind is wrought to au excessive pitch of emotion, 
 the instinct of self-preservation iadicates some lower mode of 
 mental activity as the one thing needful. When Lear's passions 
 are wrought to the utmost, he says, "I'll do ! I'll do ! I'll do .'" 
 But he does nothing. Had he been able, like Hamlet, to 
 have taken out his note-book, it would have been good for his 
 mental health. Mark the effect of the restraint which 
 Hamlet is thus able to put upon the tornado of his emotion. 
 When the friends rejoin him, he is self-possessed enough 
 swiftly to turn their curiosity aside. Horatio, indeed, remarks 
 on his manner of doing so, and on his expression of the inten- 
 tion, for his own poor part, to go pray : 
 
 " These are but wild and whirling words, my lord." 
 
 Doubtless the excitement of manner would make them appear 
 to be more deserving of this comment than they do in 
 reading. Yet Hamlet knows thoroughly well what he is 
 about, and proceeds to swear his friends to secrecy on his 
 sword. The flippant comments on the awful underground 
 voice of the Ghost " the feUow in the cellarage," " old mole," 
 " truepenny," are another meeting point of the sublime and 
 the ridiculous, or rather a voluntary refuge in the trivial from 
 the awful presence of the terrible. They are thoroughly true to 
 the laws of our mental being. How often have men gone out 
 of life upon the scaffold with a jest upon their Ups. Even 
 the just and cool-tempered Horatio, who takes fortune's 
 bufiets and rewards with equal thanks, is astounded and ter- 
 
HAMLET. 51 
 
 rifled at the underground voice, which provokes but mocking 
 retorts from the Prince. Horatio exclaims : 
 
 " Oh, day and night, but this is wondrous strange ! " 
 That Hamlet's mockery was the unreal opposite to this true 
 feeling, like the hysteric laughter of acute grief, is evident 
 from his last earnest adjuration : 
 
 " Rest, rest, perturbed spirit I" 
 
 How it is that the resolution of Hamlet to put on the guise 
 of madness follows so quick upon the appearance of the 
 Ghost to him, (indeed, while the spirit is yet present, 
 though unseen, for the resolution is expressed before the final 
 unearthly adjuration to swear,) we are unable to explain. His 
 resolutions are not usually taken with such quick speed ; and 
 indeed the wings of his meditation, which he refers to as 
 swift, commonly beat the air with long and slow strokes, the 
 very reverse of Macbeth's vehement action, framed upon the 
 principle, " that the flighty purpose never is o'ertook, except 
 the act goes with it." It may, however, be said that the word 
 " percha/nce " shews that Hamlet has not yet decided to act 
 the madman, when he swears his friends to secrecy. 
 
 " Never, so help you mercy ! 
 How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself. 
 As I, percha/nce, hereafter shall think meet 
 To put an antic disposition on." 
 
 And yet the intention must have substance in it, even at 
 this time, or he would not swear his friends in so solemn 
 a manner to maintain inviolate the secret of his craft. The 
 purport of Hamlet's feigned madness is not very obvious. 
 It does not appear to have been needful to protect him, like 
 that of the elder Brutus. It may be that under this dis- 
 guise he hopes better to obtain proof of his uncle's guilt, 
 and to conceal his real state of suspicion and vengeful gloom. 
 Still more probable is it that Shakespeare adopted the feigned 
 
52 HAMLET. 
 
 madness as an essential part of the old story on whicH the 
 drama is founded. 
 
 The old history of Hamlet relates how he counterfeited the 
 madman to escape the tyranny of his uncle Fengon, and the 
 expedients resembling those in the drama, which were resorted 
 to by the King to ascertain whether his madness was counter- 
 feited or not. The feigned madness, therefore, of the Prince was 
 so leading a feature in the original history, that Shakespeare 
 could by no means have omitted it, even if by doing so he would 
 not have deprived himself of a magnificent canvass on which 
 to display his psychological knowledge. As it stands in the 
 drama, the counterfeit madness would seem to bring Hamlet 
 into more danger than security. What if the King had 
 accepted his madness from the first, and shut him up, as he 
 might have justified himself in doing, in some strong castle. 
 After the death of Polonious, the King says : 
 
 " His liberty is fuU of threats to aU ; 
 To you yourself, to us, to every one. 
 Alas ! how shaJl this bloody deed be answer'd ? 
 It will be laid to us, whose providence 
 Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt, 
 This mad young man." 
 
 And again — 
 
 " How dangerous is it that this man goes loose." 
 He puts not the strong law upon him indeed, as he says, 
 because " he's loved of the distracted multitude," and because 
 " the Queen Hves but in his eyes." These motives may ex- 
 plain the King's conduct, but they do not shew that, in 
 assuming the guise of madness, Hamlet was not incurring the 
 probable limitation of his own freedom. 
 
 The first demonstration of the antic disposition he actually 
 does put on, is made before his mistress, the fair OpheHa. 
 
 " Pol. How now, Ophelia ? what's the matter ! 
 
 Oph. 0, my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted ! 
 
HAMLET. 53 
 
 Pol. With what, in the name of heaven ?. 
 
 Oph. My lord, as I was sewing in my closet. 
 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. 
 
 Pol. Mad for thy love ? 
 
 Oph. My lord, I do not know ; 
 
 But, truly, I do fear it. 
 
 Pol. What said he ? 
 
 Oph. He took me by the wrist, and held me hard ; 
 Then goes he to the length of aU 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 rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound. 
 As it did seem to shatter aU his bulk. 
 And end his being : That done, he lets me go : 
 And, with his head over his shoulder turn'd. 
 He seem'd to find his way without his eyes ; 
 For out o' doors he went without their help. 
 And, to the last, bended their Hght on me. 
 
 Pol. Come, go with me ; I wiU go seek the king. 
 This is the very ecstasy of love ; 
 Whose violent property foredoes itself, 
 And leads the will to desperate undertakings, 
 As oft as any passion under heaven. 
 That does afflict our natures. I am sorry, — 
 What, have you given him any hard words of late 1 
 
 Oph. No, my good lord ; but, as you did command, 
 I did repel his letters, and denied 
 His access to me." 
 
 We are at a loss to explain this part of Hamlet's conduct 
 towards his sweet mistress, unless as the sad pantomime of 
 separation ; love's mute farewell. That his noble and sen- 
 sitive mind entertained a sincere love to the beautiful and 
 vu-tuous girl, there can be no doubt. Surely it must have 
 
5 1 HAMLET. 
 
 been this love which he refers to in that paroxysm of feeling 
 
 at the close of the ghost scene : 
 
 " Yea, from the table of my memory, 
 I'll wipe away all trivial fond records." 
 
 Indeed, love is an autocratic passion not disposed to share the 
 thi-one of the soul with other emotions of an absorbing 
 nature. Hamlet, however, might feel his resolution, to wipe 
 from his memory the trivial fond records of his love, 
 strengthened into action by the conduct of OpheUa herself, 
 who repelled his letters, and denied his access, thus taking 
 upon herself the pain and responsibihty of breaking off the 
 relationship in which she had stood to him, and in which 
 with so keen a zest of pleasure she had sucked in the honey- 
 music of his vows, and the reaction from which cost her so 
 dear. In his interview with Opheha, arranged by Polonius 
 and the King, he speaks to her of his love as a thing of the 
 past. That that love was ardent and sincere we learn from 
 his passionate grief at the grave of his dead mistress ; a grief 
 which, on his own acknowledgment to his friend, we know to 
 have been no acting ; but that he had forgot himself to 
 Laertes, the bravery of whose grief had put him "into a 
 towering passion." It is at this time, when he had forgot 
 himself, that he explains with passionate vehemence, 
 
 " I loved Opheha ; forty thousand brothers 
 Could not, with all their quantity of love, 
 Make up my sum." 
 
 That Hamlet's conduct to Ophelia was unfeehng, in thus 
 forcing upon her the painful evidence of the insanity he had 
 assumed, can scarcely be denied. Hamlet, however, was no 
 perfect character, and in the matter of his love there is no 
 doubt he partook of the selfishness which is the common 
 attribute of the passion wherever its glow is the warmest. 
 His love was not of that delicate sentimental kind which 
 would, above all things, fear to disturb the beatitude of its 
 
HAMLET. 55 
 
 object, and feel its highest pleasure ia acts of self-denial. 
 It was rather of that kind which women best appreciate — an 
 ardent passion, not a sentimental devotion ; and hence its tingfe 
 of selfishness. Yet, having put on his antic disposition with 
 the trappings and suits of madness, he might feel that the 
 kindest act he could perform towards OpheHa would be to 
 concur with her in breaking off their courtship. He might, 
 indeed, have allowed others to tell her that he had gone mad, 
 and have saved her a great fright and agitation of mind ; but, 
 under the circumstances, it cannot be considered unnatural 
 that he should selfishly enough have rushed into her presence 
 to take leave of her in the mad pantomime which she describes. 
 His conduct to OpheHa is a mixture of feigned madness, of 
 the selfishness of passion blasted by the cursed blight of fate, 
 of harshness which he assumes to protect himself from an 
 affection which he feels hostile to the present purpose of his 
 Hfe, and of that degree of real unsoundness, his unfeigned 
 " weakness and melancholy," which is the subsoil of his mind. 
 In the following scene the King explains to Rosencrantz 
 and GuUdenstem the condition of the Prince in a manner 
 which impHes that at that time he entertained no doubt of the 
 reality of his madness. 
 
 ',' Something have you heard 
 Of Hamlet's transformation ; so I call it. 
 Since not the exterior nor the inward man 
 Resembles that it was. What it should be. 
 More than his father's death, that thus hath put him 
 So much from the understanding of himself, 
 I cannot dream of" 
 
 The King's anxiety to ascertain " if ought to us unknown 
 afflicts him thus," indicates the unrest of his conscience, 
 and the fear that some knowledge of his own great crime 
 may lie at the bottom of his nephew's inward and outward 
 transformation. The same fearful anxiety shews itself im- 
 mediately afterwards, when the vain half-doting Polonius 
 
56 HAMLET. 
 
 at the same time assuring him that the Ambassadors from 
 Norway are joyfully returned; and that he has found "the 
 very cause of Hamlet's lunacy," the King exclaims, " Oh ! 
 speak of that, tliat I do long to hear ;" thus bringing upon 
 himself the retort courteous of the old man, that the news 
 respecting Hamlet should be kept to follow the pressing busi- 
 ness of the moment, as dessert fruit follows a feast. 
 
 From Polonius's exposition of Hamlet's madness, which in a 
 manner so contrary to his own axiom, " that brevity is the 
 soul of wit," he dilates with such tediousness and empty 
 flourishes of speech as to draw upon himself the rebuke of 
 the Queen, "more matter with less art," one would almost 
 think that Shakespeare had heard some lawyer full of 
 his quiddets, quillets, and cases, endeavouring by the so- 
 phistry of abstract definitions, to damage the evidence of 
 some medical man to whose experience the actual concrete 
 facts of insanity were matters of familiar observation, but 
 whose verbal expression had more pedantry than power. 
 
 " I will be brief : Your noble son is mad : 
 Mad call I it ; for, to define true madness, 
 What is't, but to be nothing else but mad ?" 
 
 In the following lines, the old man recognises madness to 
 be a phenomenon, for which, hke every other phenomenon, 
 some cause or other must exist ; and, moreover, that madness 
 is not in itself a distinct entity, something apart from the 
 mind, but a defect in the mind. 
 
 " Mad let us grant him then ; and now remains 
 That we find out the cause of this effect ; 
 Or, rather say, the cause of this defect ; 
 For this effect, defective, comes by cause." 
 
 Hamlet's letter to Ophelia is a silly-enough rhapsody ; of 
 which, indeed, the writer appears conscious. It reads like 
 au old letter antecedent to the events of the drama. 
 The spirit it breathes is scarcely consistent with the intense 
 
HAMLET. 57 
 
 life-weariness under which its author is first introduced to 
 notice. The signature, however, is odd. " Thine evermore, 
 most dear lady, whilst this inachine is to him," and agrees 
 with the spirit of Hamlet's materialist philosophy, which is 
 so strongly expressed in various parts of the play, and which 
 forms so strange a contrast with the revelations from the 
 spirit-world, of which he is made the i-ecipient. The de- 
 scription which Polonius gives of the course of Hamlet's 
 madness, after his daughter has locked herself from his resort, 
 refused his messages and tokens, is vain and pedantic in its 
 expression, but pregnant in meaning : 
 
 " And he, repulsed, (a short tale to make,) 
 FeU into a sadness ; then into a fast ; 
 Thence to a watch ; thence into a weakness ; 
 Thence to a lightness ; and, by this declension. 
 Into the madness wherein now he raves." 
 
 Translated into the dullness of medical prose, the psychological 
 opinion of the old courtier may be thus expressed. Disap- 
 pointed and rejected in his ardent addresses to Opheha, Hamlet 
 became melancholy, and neglected to take food ; the result of 
 fasting was the loss of sleep ; loss of sleep and loss of food 
 were followed by general weakness ; this produced a lightness 
 or instability of the mental functions, which passed into in- 
 sanity. The suggestion made by Polonius to test the sound- 
 ness of his view, that the Prince loved his daughter, and had 
 fallen from his reason thereon, was sound and practical, 
 namely, to arrange and to watch in ambuscade interviews 
 between biTn and the persons most likely to excite his emotion. 
 Moreover, Shakespeare was in some sort bound to introduce 
 these interviews, inasmuch as they formed an important part 
 of the old history. 
 
 The Queen did not partake of the King's anxiety to ascer- 
 tain the cause of her son's madness. AVhen he tells her that 
 Polonius 
 
58 HAMLET. 
 
 " Hath found 
 The head and source of all your son's distemper," 
 
 she replies — 
 
 " 1 douht it is no other but the main ; 
 His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage," 
 
 Hamlet now for the first time appears in his feigned character. 
 The feint is so close to nature, and there is -underlying it withal 
 so undeniable a substratum of morbid feeling, that in spite of 
 ourselves, in opposition to our full knowledge, that in his 
 antic disposition Hamlet is putting on a part, we cannot from 
 the first dispossess ourselves of the idea, that a mind fallen, 
 if not from the sovereignty of reason, at least from the 
 balance of its faculties, is presented to us ; so much is 
 undirection of mind blended with pregnant sense and apprehen- 
 sion, both however perverted from the obvious Hne of sane 
 thought ; so much is the universal and caustic irony tinged 
 with melancholic self-depreciation, and that longing for death 
 which in itself alone constitutes a form of mental disease. In 
 the various forms of partial insanity, it is a question of intri- 
 cate science to distinguish between the portions of a man's 
 conduct which result from the sound operations of mind, and 
 those which result from disease. Hamlet's own assertion, " I 
 am but mad noi-th-north-west : when the wind is southerly I 
 know a hawk from a hand-saw," is pregnant with a psycho- 
 logical truth which has often engaged the most skUful and 
 laborious investigation, both of medical men and of lawyers. 
 It has often been a question of life or death, of wealth or 
 poverty, whether a criminal act was done, or a civil one per- 
 formed, by a half-madman, when the mental wind was in the 
 north-west of disease, or blowing from the sanatory south. 
 
 That in his actual unfeigned mental condition, Hamlet is 
 far from being in a healthy state of mind, he is himself 
 keenly conscious, and acknowledges it to himself in his 
 soliloquy upon the players ; 
 
HAMLET. 59 
 
 " The spirit that I have seea 
 May be a devil ; and the devil hath power 
 To assume a pleasing shape ; yea, and perhaps, 
 Out of 'my weakness, and my mektncholy, 
 (As he is very potent with such spirits,) 
 Abuses me to damn me." 
 
 Upon this actual weakness of mind, and suicidal melancholy, 
 combined with native humour and the biting irony into 
 which his view of the world has sharpened it, is added the 
 feigned form of insanity, the antic disposition wilfully put 
 on, the dishevelled habiUments of person and conversation. 
 The characteristics of this feigned form are those of mania, 
 not indeed violent, acute, and demonstrative, but mischievous, 
 reckless, and wayward, and so miagled with flashes of native 
 wit, and disguised by the ground colour of real melancholy, 
 shewing through the transparency of the feigned state, that 
 Hamlet's character becomes one of the most iaterestiag and 
 compUcated subjects of psychological study anywhere to be 
 met with. 
 
 He is first introduced to us in his feigning condition with a 
 fine touch to excite pity. 
 
 " Queen. But look where sadly the poor vsretch comes 
 reading. 
 
 Pol. Do you know me, my lord ? 
 
 Ha/mlet. Excellent well ; you are a fishmonger." 
 
 Coleridge and others remark upon this, that Hamlet's mean- 
 ing is, You are sent to fish out this secret. But we are not 
 aware that fishmongers are in the habit of catching their fish. 
 May it not rather be that a fishmonger was referred to as a 
 dealer in perishable goods, and notoriously dishonest ; and 
 thus to give point to the wish : 
 
 " Then I would you were so honest a man." 
 The writers who insist upon, a profound meaning, even in 
 Hamlet's most hurling words, have been mightily puzzled 
 with the Unes ; 
 
60 HAMLET. 
 
 " For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a 
 god [or, a good], kissing carrion," &c. 
 
 Coleridge refers to " some tbougbt in Hamlet's mind, con- 
 trasting the daughter with the tedious old fool, her father." 
 Is it not rather a wild taunt upon the old man's jealous sus- 
 picion of his daughter, as if he had said, since the sun causes 
 conception in such vile bodies, "let not your precious 
 daughter walk in the sun." 
 
 Perhaps he only intended to convey to Polonius, by a con- 
 temptuous simile, the intimation that he cared not for the 
 daughter, and thus to throw him off the scent of his quest. 
 The intention to offend the tedious old fool, and thus to dis- 
 embarrass himself of his presence, becomes still more obvious 
 in the description of old age which immediately follows : 
 " Slanders, sir," &c. 
 
 The poiat of the satire, and the absence of unreason, strikes 
 Polonius. 
 
 "Pol. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. 
 Will you walk out o'the air, my lord ? 
 
 Ha/m. Into my grave ? 
 
 Fol. Indeed, that is out o'the air. How pregnant some- 
 times his replies are ! a happiness that often madness hits 
 on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be 
 delivered of" 
 
 In this, again, the old man shews that though his wits may be 
 somewhat superannuated, yet, either from reading or observa- 
 tion, he has no sUght knowledge of mental disease. 
 
 What depth of melancholy and life weariness is there not 
 apparent in the conclusion of the interview. 
 
 " Fol. I will most humbly take my leave of you. 
 
 Ham,. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I 
 win more willingly part withal ; except my hfe ! except my 
 life ! except my life !" 
 
 But when his old school-fellows arrive, how frank and 
 hearty his greeting ; how entirely is all disguise for the 
 
HAMLET. 61 
 
 moment thrown aside ! The noble and generous native 
 nature is nowhere made more manifest than in his reception 
 of these friends of his youth, men to whom he once adhered, 
 neighbours to his youth and humour. Until his keen eye 
 discovers that they have been sent for, and are mean in- 
 struments, if not spies, in the hands of the king, he throws 
 off all dissimulation with them, greeting them with right 
 hearty and cheerful welcome. Yet, how soon his melancholy 
 peers through the real but transient cheerfulness. The world 
 is a prison, " in which there are many confines, wards, and 
 dungeons ; Denmark being one of the worst." If it is not so 
 to his friend, yet is it so to him, from thinking it so, for 
 " there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it 
 so : to him it is a prison." The real prison, then, is his own 
 mind, as, in the contrary mental state, a prison is no prison, for 
 
 " Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage." 
 
 Hamlet feels that he could possess perfect independence of 
 circumstance, if the mind were free. 
 
 " Mos. Why, then your ambition makes it one ; 'tis too 
 narrow for your mind. 
 
 Ham. Oh God ! I could be bounded in a nut-sheU, and 
 count myself a king of infinite space ; were it not that I have 
 bad dreams." 
 
 The spies sound him further on the subject of ambition, 
 thinking that disappointment at losing the succession to the 
 crown may be the true cause of his morbid state. In this 
 intention they decry ambition : " it is but a shadow's shadow." 
 Hamlet rephes logically enough, that if ambition is but a 
 shadow, something beyond ambition must be the substance from 
 which it is thrown. If ambition represented by a King is a 
 shadow, the antitype of ambition represented by a beggar 
 must be the opposite of the shadow, that is the substance. 
 " Then are our beggars, bodies ; and our monarchs, and 
 
62 HAMLET. 
 
 outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' shadows." He reduces the- 
 sophistry of his false friends to an absurdity, and closes the 
 argument by declining to carry it further : " By my fay, I 
 cannot reason." But Mr. Coleridge declares the passage to 
 be unintelligible, and perhaps this interpretation may be too 
 simple. 
 
 So far from being able to examine and recover the wind of 
 Hamlet, his old schoolfellows are put by him to a course of 
 questioning as to the motives of their presence, as to whether 
 it is a free visitation of their own inclining, or whether they 
 have been sent for. Their want of sldll in dissemblance, and 
 their weaker natures, submit the secret that they had been 
 sent for to him, and the old " rights of fellowship," " the 
 obUgations of ever-preserved love," are immediately clouded 
 by distrust : " Nay, then, I'U have an eye of you," he says. 
 Yet notwithstanding he freely discloses to them the morbid 
 state of his mind ; and, be it remarked, that in this ex- 
 quisite picture of hfe-weariness, in which no image could be 
 altered, no word omitted or changed, without obvious damage 
 to its grand effect, he does not describe the maniacal state, the 
 semblance of which he has put on before OpheUa and Polonius, 
 but that morbid state of weakness and melancholy which he 
 really suffers, of which he is thoroughly self-conscious, and 
 which he avows in his first speech, before he has seen the 
 Ghost : 
 
 " I have of late (but wherefore, I know not), lost aU my 
 mirth, foregone aU custom of exercises : and, indeed, it goes 
 so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the 
 earth, seems to me a steril promontory ; this most excellent 
 canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, 
 this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears 
 no other thing to me, than a foul and pestUent congregation 
 of vapours. What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in 
 reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form, and moving, how 
 express and admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in ap- 
 prehension, how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! the 
 
HAMLET. 63 
 
 paragon of animals ! And yet, to me, what is tbis quintessence 
 of dust ? man delights not me, nor woman neither ; though, 
 by your smiling, you seem to say so." 
 
 How exqiiisitely is here conveyed the state of the reasoning 
 melanchoHac, (melancholia without delusion,) who sees all 
 things as they are, but feels them as they are not. All 
 cheerfulness fled, all motive for action lost, he becomes 
 listless and inert. He still recognises the beauty of the earth 
 and the magnificence of the heavens, but the one is a tomb, 
 and the other a funereal pall. His reason still shews him the 
 place of man, a Httle lower than the angels, but the sources 
 of sentiment are dried up, and, although no man-hater, he no 
 longer derives pleasure from kindly affections. The waters of 
 emotion are stagnant ; the pleasant places of the soul are 
 steril and desert. 
 
 Hamlet is not slow to confess his melancholy, and indeed 
 it is the peculiarity of this mental state, that those suffering 
 from it, seldom or never attempt to conceal it. A man wUl 
 conceal his delusions, will deny and veil the excitement of 
 mania, but the melancholiac is almost always readily confi- 
 dential on the subject of his feelings. In this lie resembles 
 the hypochondriac, though not perhaps from exactly the same 
 motive. The hypochondriac seeks for sympathy and pity ; 
 the melanchoUac frequently admits others to the sight of his 
 mental wretchedness, from mere despair of relief and con- 
 tempt of pity. 
 
 Although Hamlet is ready to shew to his friends the mirror 
 of his mind, observe how jealously he hides the cause of its 
 distortion. "But wherefore I know not," is scarcely con- 
 sistent with the truth. In his first soUloquy, which we take 
 to be the key-note of his real mental state, he clearly enough 
 indicates the source of his wretchedness, which the Queen 
 also with a mother's insight, has not been slow to perceive : 
 " His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage." 
 
6-i HAMLET. 
 
 Again, hovr jealous he is that his frierids should not refer his 
 melancholy to love-sickness. With his acute iasight into cha- 
 racter, the opinion propounded by Polonius, that he was mad for 
 love, could not have escaped him ; a theory, moreover, which 
 would be hkely to wound his pride severely. Polonious had 
 already made, in his presence, sundry aside observations on 
 this poiat ; and the significant smile of Eosencrantz at his 
 observation, " Man deHghts not me," would be Kkely to 
 stimulate the sleeping suspicion that he was set down as a 
 brain-sick, rejected lover, and some annoyance at an attempt 
 to explain his madness as the result of his rejection by 
 Ophelia, may combine with the suspicion that he is watched, 
 to explain his harshness towards her in his subsequent inter- 
 view with her. 
 
 How are we to understand his confession to the men he 
 already distrusts, that m the appearance of his madness the 
 King and Queen are deceived, except by his contempt for their 
 discrimination, and his disHke to wear the antic disposition 
 before all company. 
 
 When Polonius returns, he unmediately puts on the full 
 disguise, playing upon the old man's infirmities with the 
 ironical nonsense about Jephtha, king of Israel, who had a 
 daughter, &c., and skilfully leading Polonius by the nose on 
 the scent of his own theory, " Still on my daughter." 
 
 When the players enter, however, he thoroughly throws off 
 not only the antic counterfeit, but the melancholy reality of 
 his disposition ; he shakes his faculties together, and becomes 
 perfectly master of himself in courtesy, scholarship, and sohd 
 sense. His retort to Polonius, who objects to the speech of 
 the player as too long, seems a valuable hint of Shakespeare's 
 own opinion respecting the bad necessity he felt to introduce 
 ribald scenes into his plays : " It shall to the barber's, with 
 your beard. Pr'ythee, say on : he's for a jig, or a tale of 
 bawdry, or he sleeps." What a noble sentiment in homely 
 
HAMLET. 65 
 
 plifase, is that in which he marks the right motive of beha- 
 viour towards inferiors, and indeed towards all men. To 
 Polonius's assurance that he will use the players according to 
 their desert, the princely thought, in homely garb, is, 
 
 " Odd's bodikin, man, much better : Use every man after 
 his desert, and who shall 'scape whippiag ! Use them after 
 your own honour and dignity : the less they deserve, the more 
 merit is in your bounty." 
 
 Although he freely mocks the old lord chamberlain him- 
 self, he will not permit others to do so. His injunction to the 
 player, " FoUow that lord, and look you mock him not," not 
 only indicates that the absurdities of Polonius are glaring, but 
 that there is less real malice in Hamlet's heart towards the 
 old man than he assumes the appearance of. 
 
 Hamlet decides upon the use he will make of the players 
 with a promptitude that shews that his resolve, " sicklied o'er 
 with the pale cast of thought," is but the inactivity of an 
 over-reflective melancholic mind, and that there is energy 
 enough in him to seize any real occasion. 
 
 Hamlet's sohloquy, " 0, what a rogue and peasant slave am 
 I ! " resembles with a difference the one foUowing his iater- 
 view with the Captain : " How all occasions do iaform against 
 me." The latter one, after he has obtained satisfactory proof 
 of his uncle's guilt, is far the least passionate and vehement, 
 justifying in some degree the remark of Schlegel, that " in 
 the last scenes the maia action either stands still or appears to 
 retrograde." There is, however, an important distinction be- 
 tween these two soliloquies. The passionate outburst of the 
 first has been stimulated by emotional imitation. The feigned 
 passion of the player has touched the most sensitive chord of 
 feeling, and given occasion to the vehemence of his angry self- 
 rebuke. The account of the soldier's temper, " greatly to find 
 quarrel in a straw, when honour's at the stake," sets him 
 calmly to reflect and philosophize upon the motives of action. 
 
66 HAMLET. 
 
 In these two soliloquies, we have to some extent Shakespeare s 
 own exposition of Hamlet's natural character, and the motives 
 of his conduct. 
 
 " The whole," says Schlegel, " was intended to shew that a 
 consideration which would exhaust all the relations and pos- 
 sible consequences of a deed, to the very limits of human 
 foresight, cripples the power of actiag." In this tragedy of 
 thought, we have a highly sensitive, reflecting, self-introspec- 
 tive mind, weak and melancholic, sorrow-stricken and hfe- 
 weary. In a manner so awful that it might shake the soundest 
 mind, this man is called upon to take away the life of a king 
 and a relative, for a crime of which there exists no actual 
 proof. Surely Hamlet is justified in pausing to weigh his 
 motives and his evidence, in concluding not to act upon the 
 sole dictation of a shadowy appearance, who may be the devil 
 tempting his "weakness and his melancholy ;" of deciding to 
 " have grounds more relative than this," before he dehberately 
 commits himself to an act of revenge which, even had the 
 proof of his uncle's crime been conclusive and irrefragable, 
 would have been repulsive to his inmost nature. Hamlet's 
 indecision to act, and his over-readiness to reflect, are placed 
 beyond the reach of critical discovery by his own analytical 
 motive hunting, so eloquently expressed in the abstruse thinking 
 in which he indulges. Anger and hatred against his uncle, 
 self-contempt for his own irresolution, inconsistent as he feels 
 it with the courage of which he is conscious, disgust at his 
 own angry excitement, and doubts of the testimony, upon 
 which he is yet dissatisfied that he has not acted, present a 
 state of intellectual and emotional conflict perfectly consistent 
 with the character and the circumstances. If Hamlet had had 
 as much faith in the Ghost as Macbeth had in the Weird Sisters, 
 he would have struck without needing further evidence. If he 
 had been a man of action, whose firstlings of the heart are 
 those of the hand, he would have struck in the earliest heat 
 
HAMLET. 67 
 
 of his revenge. He feels while he questions, that it is not 
 true that he is " pigeon liver' d, and lacks gaU to make op- 
 pression bitter ;" but he does lack that resolution which 
 " makes mouths at the invisible event ;" he does make, " I 
 would, wait upon, I will :" he does hesitate and procrastinate, 
 and examine his motives, and make sure to his own mind of 
 his justification, and allow us to see the painful labour of a 
 noble and sensitive being, struggling to gain an unquestionable 
 conviction of the right thing to do, in circumstances most 
 awry and difficult ; he does feel balancing motives, and pain- 
 fully hear the ring of the yes and no in his head. 
 " Che si, e n6 nel capo mi tenzona." 
 
 Shall we think the less nobly of him because his hand is 
 not ready to shed kindred blood ; because, gifted with God- 
 like discourse of reason, he does look before and after ; because 
 he does not take the law in his own hands upon his oppressor, 
 until he has obtained conclusive evidence of his guilt ; that 
 he seeks to make sure he is the natural justiciar of his 
 murdered father, and not an assassin instigated by hatred and 
 selfish revenge ! 
 
 The report given to the King and Queen by the young 
 
 courtiers is conceived to hide their failure in the mission 
 
 of inquiry. The Prince, they say, "does confess he feels 
 
 himself distracted," while he refuses to yield to them the 
 
 cause : 
 
 " But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof. 
 When we would bring him on to some confession 
 Of his true state. 
 
 He behaves 
 
 " Most like a gentleman ;" 
 
 " But with much forcing of his disposition," 
 
 and he is falsely stated to have' been " niggard of question," 
 but " most free in his reply." 
 
 They must, however, have been surprised to hear the condi- 
 
68 HAMLET. 
 
 tion in which they found their friend described by the King, as 
 "turbulent and dangerous lunacy," since, up to this time, 
 this is an untrue description of Hamlet's state, whatever 
 cause the King may subsequently have to apply it, when the 
 death of Polonius makes him feel that Hamlet's "hberty 
 is fiiU of threats to aU." The expression used by the King, 
 that Hamlet " puts on this confusion," would seem to point 
 to a suspicion, even at this early time, that his madness is 
 but counterfeit. The Queen, however, appears to accept its 
 reality, and, notwithstanding all the arguments of Polonius, 
 she adheres to her first opiaion of its cause. She doth wish, 
 indeed, that Ophelia's "good beauties be the happy cause of 
 Hamlet's wildness ;" since, if so, she entertains the hope that 
 her virtues may bring the remedy. It seems here imphed 
 that the King and Queen have been made aware of Opheha's 
 love for Hamlet ; and both in this speech of the Queen, and 
 in the one she makes over Ophelia's grave, 
 
 " I hop'd thou should' st have been my Hamlet's wife," 
 it appears that the remedy by which the Queen at this time 
 hopes to attain his recovery to " his wonted way again," is 
 by his marriage. This understanding, however, or arrange- 
 ment, is nowhere expressed, and indeed, although the Queen 
 may desire to think with Polonius respecting the cause and 
 nature of her son's malady, her mother's knowledge and 
 woman's tact lead her conviction nearer to the truth, when 
 she avows the real cause to be " His father's death, and our 
 o'erhasty marriage." 
 
 The soliloquy which foUows, " To be, or not to be," is 
 one of the most exquisite pieces of poetic self-communing 
 ever conceived. Imbued with a profotuidly melancholy view 
 of human hfe, which is relieved by no gleam of cheerfulness, - 
 illumined by no ray of hope, the mind of the unhappy 
 Prince dwells with longing desire, not on a future and happier 
 state of existence, but on annihilation. He wishes to end the 
 
HAMLET. 69 
 
 troubles of life in a sleep -without a dream, and is restrained 
 alone from seeking it by the apprehension of 
 
 " What dreams may come. 
 When we have shuffled off this mortal coU ;" 
 
 by the fear, in fact, of a future state, in which the calamities 
 of this life may be exchanged for others more enduring, in the 
 undiscovered country of the future. This " dread of some- 
 thing after death " scarcely deserves the name of conscience, 
 which he apphes to it. The fear of punishment is the lowest 
 motive for virtuous action, and is far removed in its nature 
 from the inward principle of doing right for its own sake. 
 The word, however, does not seem to be here appHed in 
 its higher sense, as the arbiter of right, but rather in that 
 of reflective meditation. It is this that makes " cowards of 
 us all." It is this that prevents Hamlet seeking his own rest 
 in the annihilation he longs for. It is by this also, that his 
 hand is withheld from the act of wild justice and revenge 
 upon which his mind sits on brood. It is thus that he accu- 
 rately describes the trnfibre of his own mind, so active to 
 think, so inert to act, so keen to appreciate the evils of Ufe, 
 so averse to take any active part against them. 
 
 " Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ; 
 And thus the native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ; 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment. 
 With this regard, their currents turn awry. 
 And lose the name of action." 
 
 The motive against suicide here adduced is undoubtedly a 
 mean and fallacious one. It is mean, because it is cowardly ; 
 the coward want of patience manfully to endure the evils of 
 this mortal life being kept in check by the coward fear of future 
 punishment. It is fallacious, because it balances the evils of 
 this Ufe against the apprehended ones of the fature ; there- 
 fore when, in the judgment of the sorely afflicted, the weight of 
 present evils more than counterpoises those which the amount 
 
70 HAMLET. 
 
 of religious faith may point to in the threatening future, the 
 argument here advanced would justify suicide. There is 
 nothing in which men differ more than in their various 
 endowments with the courage of fortitude and the courage of 
 enterprise ; and it is certain that of two men equally groaning 
 and sweating under a weary life, and oppressed by the same 
 weight of calamity, if solely actuated by the reasoning here 
 employed by Hamlet in the contemplation of suicide, one 
 woulA have the courage to endure the present, and the other 
 would have the courage to face the pei-ils of the future. 
 Courage has been described as the power to select the least of 
 two evils ; the evil of pain and death, for instance, rather 
 than that of shame. If this be so, it must yet be admitted 
 that either one of two given evils may be the greatest to 
 different men ; and coiirage may urge one man to fight, and 
 another to flee, either in the vulgar wars of Kings and 
 Kaisars, or in the more earnest trials of the battle of life. 
 The converse of the proposition must also be true, and 
 cowardice may either make us stand by our arms or basely 
 desert. The terrible question of suicide, therefore, is not to 
 be thus solved ; indeed the only motive against suicide 
 which wiU. stand the test, is that which Hamlet in his first 
 speech indicates, namely, obedience to the law of God ; 
 that obedience which, in the heaviest calamities, enables 
 the Christian to "be patient and endure; " that obedience 
 which, in the most frantic desire to put off this mortal coil, 
 can withhold the hand by this one consideration, that 
 
 " The Eternal hath set His canon 'gainst self-slaughter." 
 The motives made use of by Hamlet in his earher and later 
 contemplation of suicide, indicate his religious and his philo- 
 sophic phase of character. Faith in the existence of a God, 
 and of a future state of existence, is so ingrained in his 
 mind that it powerfully influences his conduct, and constantly 
 turns up to invalidate, if not to refute, that sceptical phUo- 
 
HAMLET. 71 
 
 sophy with whicli he is indoctrinated, and which leads him so 
 constantly to trace the changes of matter, as in 
 " Imperial Cssar, dead and turned to clay, 
 Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away." 
 
 This, perhaps, was the philosophy which Horatio and he had 
 learned at Wittenburg, the fallacy of which the Ghost had 
 seemed at first to prove. Yet it is strange how entirely 
 Hamlet appears at times to have forgotten the Ghost and 
 its revelations. The soliloquy, " To be, or not to be," is that 
 of a man to whom any future state of existence is a matter 
 of sincere doubt. He appears as one of those who would not 
 be persuaded, " though one rose from the dead." 
 
 After the soul-harrowing recital made to him by the per- 
 turbed spirit of his father, in which the secrets of the piuga- 
 torial prison-house are not indeed unfolded, but in which 
 they are so broadly indicated that no man who had seen so 
 much of the " eternal blazon " of the spirit-world, could find 
 a corner in his soul for the concealment of a sceptical doubt, 
 after this, the soliloquy, " To be, or not to be," presumes 
 either an entire forgetfulness of the awful revelation which 
 had been made to him, or the existence of a state of mind so 
 overwhelmed with suicidal melancholy as to be incapable of 
 estimating testimony. Now it is well enough known that the 
 most complete sensational and intellectual proofs go for nothing, 
 when opposed to the stubborn strength of a morbid emotion, 
 and if Hamlet reasons . upon the future life, and hunts 
 matter through its transmigrations with a sceptical intent, it 
 must be accepted as the result of mental disease which has 
 perverted the instinct of self-preservation, and made him desire 
 nothing so much as simple unconditional annihilation. 
 
 In his interview with the much enduring Ophelia which 
 follows the soliloquy, Hamlet has been accused of unworthy 
 harshness. Two considerations will tend to modify, though 
 not altogether to remove this judgment. The reader is aware 
 
72 HAMLET. 
 
 that Ophelia entertains the fondest love towards Hamlet ; but 
 he, ignorant of this, only knows that, after accepting the tender 
 of his affections, she has repulsed him with every appearance 
 of heartless cruelty. He feels her to be, the cause in himself, 
 of " the pangs of despised love ;" yet he at first addresses her 
 in a manner indicating his own faithfulness and fond appre- 
 ciation of all her goodness and virtue, as if he could best 
 approach Heaven through her gracious intercession. 
 " The fair Ophelia : Nymph, in thy orisons 
 Be all my sins remember' d." 
 
 What follows is so opposed to the tenderness of this greeting, 
 that we are compelled to assume that he sees through the snare 
 set for him ; and that in resisting it he works himself up into 
 one of those ebulHtions of temper to which he is prone. He 
 sees that Ophelia is under the constraint of other presence, 
 as what keen-sighted lover Would not immediately distiaguish 
 whether his mistress, in whatever mood she may be, feels her- 
 self alone with him, or under the observation of others. He 
 has before shewn his repugnance to the idea that he is love- 
 sick mad. He knows that Polonius thus explains his conduct ; 
 and his harshness to Ophelia is addressed to Polonius, and any 
 others who may be in hiding, more than to Ophelia herself. 
 Yet the harshest words, and those most unfit to be used to 
 any woman, are the true reflex of the morbid side of his mind, 
 which passion and suspicion have cast into the bitterest forms 
 of expression. The true melancholy and the counterfeit mad- 
 ness are strangely commingled in this scene. The latter is 
 shewn by disjointed exclamations and half-reasonings. " Ha, 
 ha ! are you honest ?" " Are you fair 1" " I did love you 
 once." " I loved you not," &c., and by the wUd form in 
 which the melancholy is here cast. " Get thee to a nunnery : 
 why would' st thou be a breeder of sinners 1" " Wha,t should 
 such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven!" 
 "Where's your father ?" Ophelia tells a white he. "At home. 
 
HAMLET. 73 
 
 my lord." Hamlet knows better, and sends a random shaft 
 into his ambuscade. " Let the doors be shut upon him., that 
 he may play the fool nowhere but in his own house." 
 
 " Ham,. Get thee to a nunnery : why would'st thou be a 
 breeder of sinners ? I am myself indifferent honest ; but yet 
 I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my 
 mother had not borne me : I am very proud, revengeful, 
 ambitious ; with more offences at my beck, than I have 
 thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or 
 time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do 
 crawling between earth and heaven ! We are arrant knaves, 
 all ; believe none of us : Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's 
 your father V 
 
 " Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy 
 dowry : Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt 
 not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery ; farewell : or, if 
 thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool ; for wise men know well 
 enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go ; 
 and quickly too. Farewell. 
 
 Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him ! 
 
 Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough ; 
 God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves 
 another ; you jig, you amble, and you Hsp, and nick^name 
 God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance : 
 Go to, I'll no more of 't ; it hath made me mad. I say, we 
 will have no more marriages : those that are married already, 
 all but one, shall live ; the rest shall keep as they are. To a 
 nunnery, go." 
 
 Partly dictated by jealous fear that Ophelia may solace her 
 pain with some other lover, it is yet an attempt to wean from 
 himself any fondness which may remain. The burthen is. 
 Grieve not for me, but do not marry another. The latter 
 speech is directed to the Queen in ambush. 
 
 What exquisite pathos ! what wail of despairiag love 
 in Ophelia's lament over the ruin of her lover's mind ! 
 What fine discrimination of the excellencies marred ! What 
 forgetfulaess of self in the grief she feels for him ! Not for 
 her own loss, but for his fall, is she " of ladies most deject 
 
74 HAMLET. 
 
 and wretched," although it is the dying swan-song of her own 
 
 sanity. 
 
 " 0, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword : 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair state, 
 The glass of fashion, and the mould of form. 
 The observ'd of aU observers : quite, quite down ! 
 And I, of ladies most deject and wretched. 
 That suck'd the honey of his musick vows, 
 Now see that noble and most sovereign reason. 
 Like sweet beUs jangled, out of tune and harsh ; 
 That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth 
 Blasted with ecstasy : O, woe is me ! 
 To have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! " 
 
 The King, in the meanwhile, whose keenness of vision 
 has not been dimmed by the mists of affection, Hke that of 
 Ophelia, nor by self-conceit, like that of Polonius, has detected 
 the prevalence of melancholy and sorrow in the assumed wild- 
 ness of the Prince : 
 
 " Love ! his affections do not that way tend ; 
 Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a Httle, 
 Was not Hke madness. There's something in his soul, 
 O'er which his melancholy sits on brood ; 
 And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose. 
 Win be some danger." 
 
 Polonius thinks weU of the King's scheme to get Hamlet out 
 of the way by pretext of benefiting his health by change of 
 scene ; though with senile obstinacy he stiU holds to his 
 opinion that the commencement of his grief sprung in 
 neglected love. To test this further, he proposes the inter- 
 view with the Queen, who is to be round with her son, and 
 whose conference Polonius wiU hear. If this scheme fails, 
 let him be sent to England without delay, or be put into 
 confinement 
 
 In his speech to the players, Hamlet's attention, abstracted 
 for a moment from the view of his sorrows, leaves his mind 
 free from the clouds of melancholy, and permits him to dis- 
 
HAMLET. 75 
 
 play his powerful and sarcastic intelligence without let or 
 hindrance. His innate nobleness of mind is not less clearly 
 pourtrayed in the conversation with Horatio which imme- 
 diately follows. The character of this judicious and faithful 
 follower, as it is manifested throughout the piece, and especially 
 as it is here pourtrayed by Hamlet himself, forms a pleasing 
 contrast to that of his princely friend. The one passionate 
 in emotion, inert in action ; the other cool in temper, prompt 
 in conduct. The maxim noscUwr a sooiis, may be narrowed 
 to the closer and truer one, " Shew me your friend, and I'U. 
 tell your mind ;" and in a true and deep friendship, there wiU 
 always be found much uniformity of sentiment, though it 
 may be, and indeed often is combined with great diversity 
 of temperament. Deep friendship rarely exists between per- 
 sons whose emotional tendencies closely resemble. A true 
 friend is generally chosen in some contrast of disposition, as 
 if the basis of this rare and noble affection were the longing 
 to remedy the imperfections of one's nature by complementing 
 ourselves with those good quaHties of another, in which we 
 are deficient. 
 
 Before this time, Hamlet has confided to his friend the terrible 
 secret of the Ghost's message, the truth of which he proposes 
 to test by the scheme of the play, and thus to sting the con- 
 science and unkennel the occult guUt of his uncle. 
 
 When the court enter, Hamlet puts on his antics in his 
 ironical half-reasonings with the King and Polonius, and his 
 banter with Opheha. The manners and playhouse licence of 
 the time explain the broad indeHcacy of the latter ; but that 
 he so publicly indulged it may be accepted as proof of his 
 desire to mark his indifference to the woman who had, as he 
 thought, heartlessly jilted him, and whose love he had reason 
 to think had been " as brief as the posy of a ring." 
 
 As the play within the play draws to its climax, Hamlet 
 becomes so excited and reckless that it is a wonder he does not 
 
76 HAMLET. 
 
 spoil his scheme by exposing it to the King, who, on the point 
 of taking the alarm, exclaims, " Have you heard the argu- 
 ment ? Is there no offence in't 1" He is little likely to be 
 reassured by Hamlet's disclaimer, "They poison in jest ; no 
 offence i'the world." 
 
 When the crisis has come, and the King's guilt has been 
 unkenneled, and Hamlet is again left alone with Horatio, 
 before whom he would not feign, his real excitement borders 
 so closely upon the wildest antics of the madness he has put 
 on ia craft, that there is Httle left to distinguish between the 
 two. He quotes senseless doggerel, will join "a fellowship in 
 a cry of players," will " take the ghost's word for a thousand 
 pound," and is altogether iu that state of flippant merriment 
 which men sometimes assume to defend themselves ffom deep 
 emotion ; as they sometimes jest ia the face of physical 
 horrors or mental woe. It is hke the hysterical laughter of 
 iatense emotion ; though not quite. It is partly that levity 
 of mind which succeeds intense straia of thought and feeling, 
 as naturally as it is to yawn and stretch after one long-con- 
 tinued wearisome position. This mood of unfeigned flippancy 
 continues after the re-entrance of his treacherous school 
 friends, well expressing its tone in the doggerel, 
 
 " For if the king Hke not the comedy. 
 Why then, belike, — ^he Ukes it not, perdy." 
 
 To the courtier's request, that he will put his " discourse into 
 some frame," he rejoins, " I am tame, sir : pronounce." He 
 affects a display of poUteness, but the "courtesy is not of the 
 right breed." To the entreaty to give "a wholesome answer" 
 to the Queen's message, he affords an unconscious indication 
 that some at least of his wildness is also not of the right 
 breed, since he appeals to it as a reality. " Make you a 
 wholesome answer ; my wit's diseased." Of a disease, how- 
 ever, which leaves the wit too quick for their play. He sees 
 through them thoroughly. To the sUly-enough inquiry of 
 
HAMLET. 77 
 
 Rosencrantz, " Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? 
 you do, surely, but bar the door of your own liberty, if you 
 deny your griefs to your friend ;" — ^he gives answer, laying bare 
 the selfish motives of the other, " Sir, I lack advancement." 
 Suppressing irony, he becomes for a moment serious with 
 them ; " Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as 
 if you would drive me into a toil ?" And then that lesson of 
 sarcastic earnestness, to prove that he knew the breed of 
 their friendship and solicitude for him. 
 
 " Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of 
 me. You woiild play upon me ; you would seem to know 
 my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery ; 
 you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my 
 compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, in this 
 little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. S'blood, do you 
 think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? Call me 
 what instrument you wiU, though you can fret me, you 
 cannot play upon me." 
 
 The veil which he deigns to put on before these mean and 
 treacherous ephemera of the court, is of the thinnest coun- 
 terfeit ; but with Polonius the mental antics are more pro- 
 nounced, for with him he rejoices in spiteful mischief, as when 
 the tiresome old man "fools him to the top of his bent." 
 " Do you see yonder cloud ?" &c. How thoroughly in the 
 surface all this flippancy was, the soliloquy immediately fol- 
 lowing fully proves. The dread purpose is gathering to action, 
 and the mind was never more sad than all this while, under 
 the mask of iuteUectual buffoonery, for 'tis even now he 
 
 " could drink hot blood ; 
 And do such bitter business, as the day 
 Would quake to look on." 
 
 At this juncture the King re-appears, with his mind 
 thoroughly made up on the point that Hamlet has in him 
 something dangerous, if his doubts are not also solved on the 
 point of his madness. The play, which has discovered the King 
 to Hamlet, must also have discovered his knowledge of the 
 
78 HAilLET. 
 
 murder to the King. Before tHs time, Claudius thinks his 
 nephew's madness must be watched, and although he fears 
 that the hatch and disclose of his melancholy will be some 
 danger, it does not appear that he yet proposes to send him 
 to England with any purpose upon his life. After the play, 
 and before the death of Polonius, the King's apprehension is 
 excited. 
 
 " I like him not ; nor stands it safe with us 
 
 To let his madness range." 
 " The terms of our estate may not endure 
 
 Hazard so near us, as doth hourly grow 
 
 Out of his lunes." 
 " We will fetters put upon this fear, 
 
 Which now goes too free-footed." 
 
 Although the King speaks to the courtiers of dispatching 
 their commission to England foi^hwith, and desires them to 
 arm to this speedy voyage, it can scarcely be that at this 
 time he is guilty of that treacherous design on Hamlet's 
 life which he unfolds after the death of Polonius. The agony 
 of repentance for his past crime, so vehemently expressed in 
 the soliloquy, " Oh, my offence is rank," &c., appears scarcely 
 consistent with the project of a new murder on his mind. 
 The King has no inconsiderable mental endowments and 
 moral courage, though personally he is a coward, and 
 a sottish debauchee. But notwithstanding this personal 
 cowardice, we must accept Hamlet's abuse of him, in contrast 
 to the manly perfection of his father, as applying rather to 
 his appearance, and to his deficiency in those soldier-hke 
 quahties which would command respect in a nation of war- 
 riors, than to his intellect. Although- the King holds fencint^, 
 that quahty of Laertes which hath plucked envy from Hamlet, 
 " as of the unworthiest siege ; " yet, although a plotter, " a 
 cut-purse of the empire and the rule," and, according to the 
 description of his son-in-law, altogether a contemptible person, 
 intellectually, he is by no means despicable. That burst of 
 
HAMLET. 79 
 
 eloquent remorse seems too instinct with the longing for 
 real repentance to have been uttered by this cowardly- 
 fratricide, who even in the act is juggling with heaven 
 itself. We feel no pity for the scheming hypocrite, in spite of 
 the anguish which wrings from hi-m the cry : 
 
 " wretched state ! O bosom, black as death ! 
 limed soul ; that struggling to be free. 
 Art more engag'd !" 
 
 K in that fine appreciation of mercy and of Heaven's justice, 
 in which 
 
 " There is no shuffling ; there the action hes 
 In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd, 
 Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults. 
 To give in evidence ;" 
 
 if these thoughts appear too just to be expressed by so foul 
 a mouth, even as the polished wisdom of the precepts given to 
 Laertes appear inconsistent with the senile capacity of Polonius, 
 we must attribute the fact to that lavish wealth of power and 
 beaaty which we find only in Shakespeare ; who sometimes 
 in wanton extravagance sets pearls in pinchbeck, and strews 
 diamonds on the sanded floor, who pours nectar into the 
 wooden cup, and feeds us with ambrosia when we should have 
 been satisfied with bread. 
 
 It will scarcely be denied by those who have escaped 
 that blindness of bigotry, which the intense admiration 
 Shakespeare naturally excites ia those who study him closely 
 accoimts for and excuses, that he sometimes gives to, one 
 of his personages an important speech, somewhat out of har- 
 mony with the general delineation of the character ; his 
 characters being in other parts so thoroughly natural and 
 consistent, that he is able to do this without injury to the 
 general effect. But when he does so, what breadth of wisdom 
 and beauty of morality does not the discursive caprice afford ! 
 
 The soliloquy of the King, a homily in thirty lines, on the 
 
80 HAMLET. 
 
 mercy and justice of God, and the utter folly of hypocrisy in 
 prayer, is followed by the speech of Hamlet, " Now might I 
 do it pat," &c., containing sentiments which Johnson desig- 
 nates as atrocious. 
 
 We are inclined to think that in writing both this speech 
 and the King's soliloquy, Skakespeare had in mind the in- 
 tention of conveying instruction on the nature and office of 
 prayer, rather than that of developing his plot. From the 
 King's speech, we learn that the mercy of the sweet Heavens 
 is absolutely unlimited, the two-fold force of prayer to bring 
 aid and pardon, the condition of forgiveness namely a true 
 repentance which does not shame justice by retaining the 
 offence, and the worthlessness of word prayers. We know 
 that the prayers of the King are hollow and unavaihng, but 
 so does not Hamlet, who is made to bear testimony to the 
 all-sufficient efficacy of prayer, since it can save so damnable 
 a viHaui as his imcle. His father had been 
 
 " Cut off even in the blossom of his sin, 
 
 Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd." 
 " He took my father grossly, fuU of bread ; 
 
 With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May." 
 
 so that his audit with Heaven was likely to stand heavy with 
 him. Villain as his uncle was, 
 
 " Bloody bawdy villain ! 
 Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!" 
 
 still there was that in prayer which would fit and season him 
 for his passage to the future hfe, and, if taken "in the purging 
 of his sovl," why, " so he goes to Heaven." 
 
 Both of these speeches seem to have been written to im- 
 press most forcibly the efficacy of sincere and prayerful 
 repentance. It was to the reHgious sentiment that the 
 revival of play acting was due, but when Shakespeare wrote, 
 this had already ceased to be a common subject of theatrical 
 representation, and (Measure for Measure perhaps excepted,) 
 
HAMLET. 81 
 
 in no other of his Dramas has it been very prominently 
 brought forward. The motive for delay, assigned ia this 
 speech, was certainly neither Christian or merciful. Yet the 
 act itself was merciful, and the more horrid bent for which 
 Hamlet excused his inaction, was but speculative. A conscience 
 yet unsatisfied that his purposed deed was a just and righteous 
 one, rather than a cruel thirst for the fiill measure of revenge, 
 appears to have been Hamlet's real motive for delay at 
 this period. Hi a opportunities for assassinating the King, had 
 he so desired, were certainly not limited to this moment, yet 
 he forbore to use them, imtU his uncle's murderous treachery 
 towards himself at length resolved him to quit accounts with 
 his own -arm. Moreover, it is the Romanist theology which is 
 represented in this play, and its doctrines must be taken into 
 consideration in judging of the excuse which Hamlet makes 
 for delaying to kUl the King, until " about some act what has 
 no relish of salvation in't" The future state of punishment 
 is represented as a terminable purgatory ; Hamlet's father is 
 doomed " for a certain time" to fast in fires, until his crimes 
 are burnt and purged away. Hamlet swears by the rood, and 
 he lays the stress of a catholic upon the incest of the Queen 
 in becoming her husband's brother's wife. At the funeral of 
 Ophelia it is the catholic ritual which is in abeyance. Great 
 command has over-swayed the order of priory or abbey, where 
 the funeral is taking place. The priest says, " her death was 
 doubtful ;" and, 
 
 " We should profane the service of the dead. 
 To sing a requiem, and such rest to her, 
 As to peace-parted souls." 
 
 In this passage, the Romanist idea is for the third time 
 produced that the soul's future depends upon the mode of 
 leaving this Hfe, rather than upon the manner ia which this 
 life has been spent. 
 
 In the intei-view with his mother, the idea of Hamlet's pro- 
 
 G 
 
82 HAMLET. 
 
 found affection for her has been most skilfully conveyed in 
 
 the painful effort with which he endeavours to make her 
 
 conscious of her position, to set before her a glass where 
 
 she may see her inmost part, to speak daggers to her, to 
 
 be cruel, but not unnatural. From the speech, 
 
 " A bloody deed ; almost as bad, good mother. 
 As Idll a King, and marry with his brother," 
 
 it would appear that he entertained some suspicions of his 
 mother's complicity in the murder of his father, and that these 
 words were tentative to ascertain whether her conscience was 
 sore on that side. From what follows we must suppose this 
 suspicion allayed. The readiness with which Hamlet seizes 
 the opportunity to strike the blow which kiUs Polonius, 
 under the belief that he strikes the King, is of a piece with a 
 character too meditative to frame and follow a coiirse of action, 
 yet sudden and rash Iq action when the opportunity presents 
 itself. The rapid action with which he utOizes the players, 
 with which he circumvents bis treacherous schoolfellows, with 
 which he at last kUls the King, resembles the quick blow 
 which sends to his account " the wretched, rash, intruding 
 fool," whom he mistakes for his betters. So long as resolution 
 can be " sickled o'er with the pale cast of thought," so long as 
 time is allowed for any scruple to be hstened to, he thinks too 
 precisely on the event, and Hves to say the thing's to do. But 
 let the opportunity of action present itself, and he is quick to 
 seize it, as he would have been dilatory in seeking it. It is 
 the meditative, inactive man, who often seizes opportunities for 
 action, or what he takes for such, with the greatest eagerness. 
 Unable to form and follow a deliberate course of action, he is 
 too ready to lend his hand to circumstances, as they arise 
 without his intervention. Sometimes he fails miserably, as in 
 the death of Polonius ; sometimes he succeeds, as when he 
 finds occasion to praise that rashness, which too often stands 
 him in the place of steady purpose. 
 
HAMLET. S3' 
 
 " Eashly, 
 And praised be rashness for it, — ^let us know, 
 Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, 
 When our dear plots do paU ; and that should teach us, 
 There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will." 
 
 The comments of Hamlet upon the death of Polonius, if they 
 had been calmly spoken by a man holding the even tenour 
 of his way through hfe, would have deserved the moraUst's 
 reprobation quite as much as his speech over the praying 
 King. To us they teU of that groundwork of unsound 
 emotion upon which the almost superhuman intellectual 
 activity of the character is founded. In Hamlet's life-weary, 
 m.elancholy state, with his attention fixed elsewhere, such 
 an event as the death of Polonius would have a very different 
 effect to that which it would have had upon so sensitive and 
 noble a mind, if its condition were healthy. His attention at 
 1(he time is concentrated upon one train of ideas, his feehngs 
 ai'e pre-occupied, Ms sympathies somewhat indurated to the 
 sufierings of others, and his comments upon them are likely, 
 therefore, to appear unfeeling. 
 
 The Queen indeed, with affectionate invention, represents 
 to the King the very opposite view. She says " he weeps 
 for what he's done ;" his natural grief shewing itself pure in 
 his very madness, like a precious ore in a base mineral, silver 
 in lead ore. It is, however, not thus that Hamlet is repre- 
 sented "to draw toward an end" with the father of his 
 mistress, and to deposit the carrion. 
 
 The ideas which almost exclude the wrong he has done 
 Polonius from Hamlet's thoughts, now Become expressed with a 
 vehemence inconsistent with sound mind. The manner in 
 which he dallies with the idea of his mother's incest, using 
 images of the grossest kind — ^the blighting comparison of that 
 mildewed ear, his uncle, with his warrior father — the vehe- 
 ment deniinciation of his uncle — " a murderer and a villain, 
 
84 HAMLJJT. 
 
 a slave," "a vice of kings, a cutpurHc of' the empire and the 
 rule," " a king of .shreds and patehes," " a toad," " a hat, a 
 gib," — all this verifies his own sneer on himself, that while he 
 cannot act he can curse " like a very drab." Although he 
 succeeds in his purpose of turning the Queen's ^es into her 
 very soul, and shewing black and grained spots there, it must 
 be admitted that this excessive vehemence is not merely so 
 much out of the belt of rule as might be justified by the 
 circumstances, but that it indicates a mind unhinged ; and 
 never does Bbmlet apjjear less sane than when he is declaring 
 
 " That I essentially am not in madness. 
 But mad in craffc." 
 Hamlet's belja,viour in the .second ghost .scene is more excited 
 and terrified than in the former one. TTie apparition cornes 
 upon him when in a le.ss firm and prepared mood. The first 
 interview is expected, and each i)*^ty artery is kriit to hardi- 
 hood. The second Ls wholly unexpecte^l, and comes upon him 
 at a time when his rnind is v/r ought to passionate excitement ; 
 and it is &r easier for the mind to pas.s from one state of 
 emotional excitement to the opposite, th^ui from a state 
 of .self-pos.^es.se'l tranquillity to one of excitement. It is thus 
 with Hamlet's rapid transition from passionate vehemence, 
 with which he Ls describing >us uncle's crimes and qualities, to 
 the ecsta-sy of fear, which seizes him when his Other's shade 
 once more stands before him. The sting of cori-science aLs/j 
 adds force to tlie emotion of awe. He has neglecte^l the dread 
 command, the .sacre^l behe.^, of the buried majesty of 
 Denmark. With unworthy doubts and laggard procrastina- 
 tion, his purpose hai^ Wyjme almost blunted. His doubts, 
 however, have now vanished ; he no longer entertains the 
 thought that " the spirit he has seen may be the devil ;" he 
 no longer questions whether it is " a spirit of health, or goblin 
 damned ;" but accepts the appearance implicitly as the gra^ 
 cious figure of his fetlier. Since the first appearance of the 
 
HAMLET. 85 
 
 uneartUy visitant, he lias caught the conscience of the fratri- 
 cide King, and unkenneled the dark sfecret of his guilt ; 
 therefore it is that at this second visitation the feeling of awe 
 is unmixed with doubt and that touch of defiance which is so 
 perceptible on the former one. Since that, moreover, his 
 nerves have been rudely shaken ; he has Hved in the torture 
 of extreme anxiety and profound giief, and the same cause 
 would produce upon him a greater effect. Even while he is 
 vehemently railing at the criminal whom he had been called 
 upon to punish, the Ghost appears. 
 
 " Ham. How is it with you, lady ? 
 
 Queen. Alas ! how is't with you ? 
 That you do bend your eye on vacancy. 
 And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse ? 
 Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep ; 
 And as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm, 
 Your bedded hair, like life in excrements. 
 Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son. 
 Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper 
 Sprinkle cool patience." 
 
 " Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain : 
 This bodiless creation ecstasy 
 Is very cunning in. 
 
 Ha/m. Ecstasy ! 
 My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, 
 Andi makes as healthful music : It is not madness. 
 That I have utter' d : bring me to the test. 
 And I the matter will re-word ; which madness 
 , Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace. 
 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul, 
 That not your trespass, but my madness, speaks : 
 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place, 
 While rank corruption, mining all within. 
 Infects unseen." 
 
 It is in this agony of awe that he calls upon the heavenly 
 guards to save and protect him, that his eyes wildly indicate 
 alarm, that his bedded hairs stand on end, that the heat and 
 flame of his distemper appears to lack all patience. It Ls in 
 
86 HAMLET. 
 
 this agony of awe that he feels himself so unnerved, that he 
 entreats his father not to look upon him, lest he should be 
 thus rendered incapable of all action, and only live to weep. 
 During the brief space of the Ghost's second appearance, 
 Hamlet's extremity of fear can scarcely be overrated. Still it 
 is the fear of awe, not that of horror which petrifies Macbeth 
 in the banquet scene. Mo'reover, in Hamlet the reaction 
 tends to tears, in Macbeth it is to rage. 
 
 There is something exquisitely touching in the regard which 
 the poor Ghost shews towards the fraU partner of his earthly 
 state. The former injunction 
 
 " Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
 Against thy mother aught." 
 
 had scarcely been obeyed ; and now the entreaty 
 
 " 0, step between her and her fighting soul," 
 
 is a fine touch of the warrior heart, whose rough and simple 
 
 silouliette is thrown upon the page in those two hues of 
 
 unsurpassable descriptive terseness. 
 
 " So frowned he once, when in an angry parle 
 He smote the sleded Polack on the ice." 
 
 The Ghost, indeed, is a character as never ghost was before, 
 
 So far from being a neutral it, a thing, the buried majesty 
 
 of Denmark is highly personal in his simple Sclavonic majesty. 
 
 Though he instigates revenge in the old viking, rather than 
 
 in that of the Christian spirit, though he protests against the 
 
 luxury and damned incest which defiled his royal bed, yet is 
 
 he nobly pitiful to the wretched woman, through whose frailty 
 
 the transgression arises. After the intercession of the Ghost, 
 
 Hamlet's manner to his mother entirely changes. In his 
 
 former reference to the incest, he makes her a fuU partner of 
 
 the crime. In his subsequent one he represents the King as 
 
 the tempter, and supposes her future conduct as that of " a 
 
 queen fair, sober, wise ;" and to the end of the piece he gives 
 
 her his aflFection and coofidenca. 
 
HAMLET. 87 
 
 That the apparition was not an hallucination, as accounted 
 by the Queen, a bodiless creation caused by the diseased 
 brain, is known to Hamlet and the reader of the play by its 
 previous appearance, and by its reference to the disclosure 
 then made. Its speech distinguishes it from the supposed 
 ghost of Banquo. It is a stupid error to put the Ghost on 
 the stage clad in armoiir on this second occasion. 
 " My father, in his haMt, as he lived ! " 
 indicates that this time the design of the poet was to repre- 
 sent him in the weeds of peace. The quarto edition, indeed, 
 gives as a stage direction, " Enter the Ghost, in his night- 
 gown." The appearance is suited to the place, even as the 
 cap-a-pie armament to the place of warlike guard. UnUke 
 the appearance on the battery, which is seen by all who 
 were present, on this occasion it is only visible to Hamlet, 
 and invisible to his mother. Ghosts were supposed to have 
 the power to make themselves visible and invisible to whom 
 they chose ; and the dramatic effect of the Queen's surprise 
 at Hamlet's behaviour was well worth the poetic exercise of 
 the privilege. The Queen, indeed, must have been thoroughly 
 convinced of her son's m.adness, in despite of his own dis- 
 claimer, and of the remorseless energy with which he wrings 
 her own remorseful heart. Her exclamation, "Alas, he's mad!" 
 is thoroughly sincere ; and though her assurance that she 
 has " no life to breathe '' the secret that he is " but mad in 
 craft," seems to imply her assent to the fact, Hamlet's 
 lan<niage and demeanour are certainly not such as are 
 calculated to convince her of the truth of this avowal. She 
 is therefore Hkely to have spoken not falsely, but according 
 to her convictions, when she immediately afterwards says 
 that her son is 
 
 " Mad as the sea, and ynnd, when both contend 
 Which is the mightier." 
 
 The Queen in this ghost scene, and Lady Macbeth in the. 
 
88 HAMLET. 
 
 banquet scene, are placed in very similar circumstances : they 
 both refer these appearances to a morbid state of the brain, 
 by which the son of the one and the husband of the other 
 are so terribly moved ; they both, but in very different degrees, 
 are endeavouring to conceal remorse. But the Danish Queen 
 is affiighted at the behaviour of her son ; the Scottish Queen, 
 incapable of fear, is mainly anxious about the effect which 
 her husband's conduct wlU have upon the bystanders. The one 
 gives free expression to her alarm, — she allows amazement to 
 sit visible in her expression and attitude ; the other, firm and 
 self-possessed, is the ruling spirit of the hour. The one is 
 a middle-aged voluptuary who, incestuously married to a 
 dnmkard of degraded appearance, has feelings so Httle refined 
 that, until her son holds up the mirror to her soul, she is 
 barely sensible of her own shameless position ; the other, a 
 great criminal, is as conscious as she .is outwardly confident. 
 The one is animated with the spirit of Belial ; the other with 
 that of Satan. 
 
 Hamlet finds that his assumed madness, which he puts on 
 and off rather capriciously, is hkely to become an impediment 
 to a right understanding with his mother. He sees her ready 
 to deny the reahty of her own trespass, because it is min'ored 
 with the demeanour, and, in some sort, with the words of 
 ecstasy. He therefore offers as tests of his sanity, that his 
 pulse is temperate, that his attention is under command, and 
 his memory faithful ; tests which we are bound to pronounce 
 about as fallacious as could well be offered, and which could 
 jonly apply to febrile delirium and mania. The pulse in 
 mania averages about fifteen beats above that of health ; that 
 of the insane generally, including maniacs, only averages nine 
 beats above the healthy standard : the pulse of melancholia 
 and mononiania is not above the average. That a maniac 
 would gambol from reproducing in the same words any state- 
 ment he had made, is true enough in the acute forms of the 
 
HAMLET. 89 
 
 disease ; but it is not so ia numberless instances of chronic 
 mania, nor in melancholia or partial iasanity. The dramatic 
 representations which are in vogue in some asylums prove the 
 power of attention and memory preserved by many patients ; 
 indeed, the possessor of the most brilliant memory we ever 
 met with was a violent and mischievous maidac. He would 
 quote page after page from the Greek, Latin, and French 
 classics. The Hiad, and the best plays of Molifere in particular, 
 he seemed to have at his fingers' ends. In raving madness, 
 however, the two symptoms referred to by Hamlet are as a 
 rule present. The pulse is accelerated, and the attention is so 
 distracted by thick-flowing fancies that an account can scarcely 
 be given of the same matter in the same words. It is, there- 
 fore, to this form alone that the test of verbal memory applies. 
 The death of " the unseen good old man " Polonius, which 
 Hamlet in his "lawless fit" and "braioish apprehension" had 
 effected, adds to the alarm of the Kiug, already excited by the 
 " pranks too broad to bear with " of the play. The courtiers 
 and the Queen do not seem to have inquired how it was that 
 the King was so marvellously distempered with choler, where- 
 fore he became so much offended with the catastrophe of the 
 play. Like good courtiers, they accept his humour un- 
 questioning. Now, however, the King has a good presentable 
 excuse for alarm. 
 
 " heavy deed ! 
 It had been so with us, had we been there : 
 His Uberty is full of threats to all ; 
 To you yourself, to us, to every one. 
 Alas ! how shaU this bloody deed be answer'd ? 
 It will be laid to us, whose providence 
 Should have kept short, restrain' d, and out of haunt, 
 This mad young man : but, so much was our love. 
 We would not understand what was most fit ; 
 But, like the owner of a foul disease, 
 To keep it from divulging, let it feed 
 Even on the pith of life." 
 
90 HAMLET. 
 
 From which it appears that the all-observing eye of the 
 poet had noted the custom of the -world to conceal the 
 occurrence of insanity within the family circle, a custom 
 which still prevails, and from which much evil is wrought. To 
 keep secret the existence of this dreaded malady, the relatives 
 of an insane person oftentimes postpone all effectual treat- 
 ment until the time of its usefulness is past ; and they forego 
 measures of security until some terrible calamity results. 
 Accepting the ignorant and wicked opinion that disease of 
 the brain is disgraceful, they give grounds to others for 
 holding this opinion, by the sacrifices they are willing to make, 
 that the existence of insanity in the family may be concealed. 
 They not only sacrifice to this the safety of the pubhc, but that 
 of the patient himself with his present comfort and the probable 
 means of restoration. From motives variously compounded of 
 selfishness and ignorance, they ignore the two great facts in 
 the treatment of insanity that it must be early, and that it 
 must be conducted in scenes remote from those influences in 
 which it has its origin. Under a real or assumed regard for 
 the feelings of the unhappy patients they retain them at 
 homes which may once have been happy, but which now 
 have become places of moral torture, where every look in- 
 flicts a wound, every word probes a sore. When the patient 
 is removed to fresh scenes, and to that skilfully arranged 
 repose of the excited mental functions, which is provided by 
 judicious treatment, the misery inflicted by the disease abates, 
 even as the anguish of a broken Hmb is allayed by simple rest 
 and well-arranged position. If all asylums for the educated 
 and the wealthy were what they ought to be, or even what 
 asylums for the poor actually are, the detention of the insane, 
 amidst the moral miseries of home, would be utterly inexcu- 
 sable. At present it has the excuse of prejudice, and of sus- 
 picion not without some foundation in fact. 
 
 In the following scene with Rosencrantz, GuUdenstem, and 
 
HAMLET. 91 
 
 the King, Hanilet is again in his most antic disposition of 
 mind. His sarcastic irony to his two old school-fellows, whom 
 he now trusts as he would adders fanged, is more directly 
 insulting than before. They are sponges that soak up the 
 King's countenance, the ape's first morsel, first mouthed, last 
 swallowed. Still he throws a thicker cloak of counterfeit un- 
 reason over his sarcasm than he has done before. His repHes, 
 
 " The body is with the king, but the king is not with 
 
 the body. The king is a thing — " 
 " of nothing : bring me to him. Hide fox, and 
 
 aU after ;" 
 
 his answers to the King, "Farewell, dear mother," "My 
 mother : Father and mother is man and wife ; man and wife 
 is one flesh ; and so, my mother" — are fairly on a par in 
 unreasoning suggestiveness with his reply to Polonius. " For 
 if the sun breed maggots," &c. These mad absurdities are 
 never altogether meaningless, and never altogether foreign to 
 the natural train of his own thoughts. The description of 
 Polonius at supper, "not where he eats, but where he is 
 eaten," is the foreshadowing idea of the serious and earnest 
 meditations on the mutability of matter in which he indulges 
 over the church-yard skulls. " A man may fish with a worm 
 that hath eat of a king ; and eat of the fish that hath fed of 
 that worm." And thus, " A kiag may go a progress," &c. 
 'Tis the very same speculation as that so seriously expressed 
 to his friend. 
 
 " To what base uses we may return, Horatio ! Why may 
 not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find 
 it stopping a bung-hole 1 " 
 
 This is the philosophy he had learnt at Wittenburg, and 
 which he toyed with to the last. He had learned, indeed, its 
 inadequacy to explain all things, by sights which make 
 
 " us fools of nature, 
 So horribly to shake our disposition, 
 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls." 
 
92 HAMLET. 
 
 He had been compelled to acknowledge that there '' are more 
 
 things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in this 
 
 philosophy. StiU this form of speculation was the habit of 
 
 the mind, and whether in antic disposition of madness, or in 
 
 earnest converse with his friend it is found his frequent topic. 
 
 Might not this habit of dwelling upon the material laws to 
 
 which our flesh is subject, have been resorted to as a kind of 
 
 antidote to those " thoughts beyond the reaches of the soul," 
 
 to which his father's apparition had given rise, — ^his father, 
 
 whose " bones had burst their cerements," whose sepulchre 
 
 had ope'd its ponderous jaws to cast him up again. Was not 
 
 this materialist speculation a struggle against these thoughts, 
 
 and akin to the unconscious protest against the Ghost, that 
 
 beyond the grave is 
 
 " The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn 
 No traveller returns." 
 
 Alas for Hamlet ! What with his material philosophy and his 
 spiritual experiences, there was contention enough in that 
 region of the intellect which abuts upon veneration, to un- 
 hinge the soundest judgment ; let alone the grief, and shame, 
 and just anger, of which his uncle's crimes and his mother's 
 frailty were the more than sufficient cause, in so sensitive a 
 miad. 
 
 In the following scene with the captain of the army of 
 Fortinbras, we have a comment upon the folly of useless war, 
 and an occasion for another fine motive- weighing soliloquy ; 
 Uke the prayer scene, useless indeed to the progress of the 
 piece, but exquisite in itself. Never does Shakespeare seem 
 to have found a character so suited to give noble utterance to 
 his own most profound meditations as in Hamlet. It is on 
 this account that we unconsciously personify Shakespeare in 
 this character, as we personify Byron in Childe Harold, or 
 Sterne in Yorick, and, may we not add, Goethe in Faust. 
 
 The soUloquy, " How all things do inform against me,'' 
 
HAMLET. 93 
 
 marks a state of iaclination to act, in advance of that mani- 
 fested in the soliloquy beginning, " Oh, what a rogue and pea- 
 sant slave am I !" but stiU not screwed up to the point of 
 resolve. The gross example of soldiers, who " for a fantasy, 
 and trick of fame," are so lavish of life and Hmb, places 
 before Hamlet, in the strongest hght, his own craven scruples, 
 and, as he chooses to say, his apprehension of results. But on 
 this point he does not do himself justice. His personal 
 courage is of the most undaimted temper. In his first inter- 
 view with the Ghost, he does not set his " life at a pin's fee ;" 
 and the independent evidence of Fortinbras testifies to his 
 high promise as a soldier. It is not the lack of courage, but 
 the inabihty to carry the excitements of his reason and his 
 blood, into an act so repugnant to his nature as the assassi- 
 nation of his uncle, that yet withholds his hand ; and» although 
 he concludes, 
 
 " 0, from this time forth. 
 My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth ! " 
 
 he leaves his purpose unfulfilled, and allows himself to be 
 sent out of the country ; a proceeding likely to postpone his 
 revenge indefinitely, or to defeat it altogether ; and it is not 
 until he discovers the King's villainous plot against his own 
 life, that he determines to " quit him with this arm." 
 
 There is an inconsistency in the reasoning of the first part 
 of this soliloquy, which leads us to surmise that after the 
 words "to rust in us unused," a sentence has been lost. 
 Hamlet is fuUy aware that his meditative tendency is exces- 
 sive ; that his reason is so far from being unused that it is 
 overstrong for his active powers, and turns aside the current 
 of his enterprise. He is therefore not hkely to censure him- 
 self for allowing his reason to rust in him unused, especially 
 as he immediately afterwards objects to the impediment to 
 action he finds in a too vigilant forethought. The train of 
 argument appears to have been, that memory and forethought. 
 
94 HAMLET. 
 
 the godlike qualities of reason, were not given man to rust 
 in him unused, neither were they given to abuse, or one to 
 be used to the exclusion of the other ; yet either through too 
 slight an appreciation of his wrongs and duties, or through 
 dwelling with too much forethought upon the probable results 
 of action, he still delays to do that which is to be done. As 
 the text stands, the sentence " Since he that made us," &c., 
 is inapplicable to Hamlet, and contradictory to his own ex- 
 pressed opinion of his mental state, and opposed to all we 
 . know of it ; since the only inference which can be drawn from 
 it is, that he condemns himself for allowing his reason to rust 
 in him unused, which of all men he did not do. The sentence 
 must rather have been a justification of the use of his reason 
 in forethought ; but to make this apparent, and to connect 
 the sense with the fault he immediately finds with himself on 
 the very point of excessive use of forethought, requires an 
 additional sentence, which may have been accidentally omitted. 
 The coUoquy with the grave-digger and Horatio in the 
 church-yard affords abundant proof that the bitiag satire and 
 quaintness of thought, which have been accepted as the 
 antic garb of Hamlet's mind, are quite natural to him when 
 he is playing no part. The opening observation on the iti- 
 fluence of custom is a favourite theme with him When 
 he wishes to wring his mother's heart, he is apprehensive 
 whether 
 
 " damned custom has not braz'd it so. 
 That it is proof and bulwark against sense." 
 
 And when he dissuades her from her incestuous intercourse, 
 he says : 
 
 " That monster, custom, who aU sense doth eat, 
 Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this ; 
 That to the use of actions fair and good 
 He hkewise gives a frock, or livery, 
 That ajDtly is put on." 
 
HAMLET. ya 
 
 " For use alone can change the stamp of nature, 
 And either curb the devil, or throw him out. 
 With wondrous potency." 
 
 Custom, therefore, brazes the heart in vice ; custom fortifies 
 the body in habits of virtue ; it also blunts the sensibihties of 
 the mind ; so that grave-making becomes " a property of 
 easiness." 
 
 " Ham. 'Tis even so : the hand of Httle employment hath 
 the daintier sense." 
 
 This, however, is but half truth. The " hand of Httle em- 
 ployment " hath not always " the daintier sense " in use. 
 Does custom blimt the fingers of a watchmaker, the eyes of 
 a printer, or the auditory nerve of a musician ? Did the 
 grave-digger do his own sombre work with less skiU because 
 he had been accustomed to it for thirty years? Custom 
 blunts our sensations to those impressions which we do not 
 attend to, and sharpens them to those which we do. Custom, 
 in Hamlet himself, had sharpened the speculative faculties 
 which he exercised, while it had dulled the active powers, 
 which depend upon that resolution which he did not practise. 
 
 Hamlet's comments upon the skulls, — upon the politicians, 
 who could circumvent God, — on the courtiers, who praised my 
 lord Such-a-one's horse when he meant to beg it, — on the 
 lawyers, whose fine of fines is to have his fine pate fuU of fine 
 dirt, and whose vouchers vouch him for no more of his pur- 
 chases than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures, — 
 are the quaint prosaic expression of his melancholy, his 
 gloomy view of the nothingness of life, combined with his 
 peculiar speculations upon death as the mere corruption of 
 the body. He revolts at the idea of this ignoble fife, as he 
 thinks it, ending in annihilation, and he equally recoils at the 
 idea that it may end in bad dreams. He thinks that if 
 death is an eternal sleep, such an end of the ills of life is a 
 consummation devoutly to be wished, but the fear that it is 
 
96 HAMLET. 
 
 an eternal dream is unendurable. His fancy is too active to 
 permit him to rush into an eternity of unknown consciousness. 
 Like Prince Henry, ia the Spanish Student, he feels, 
 
 " Rest ! rest ! O give me rest and peace ! 
 The thought of life, that ne'er shall cease, 
 Has something in it like despair — 
 A weight I am too weak to bear." 
 
 To return to his mother earth an unconscious clod seems his 
 most earnest hope ; yet when the offensive debris of mortality 
 meets his eyes, such an ignoble termination of mental activity 
 revolts both his sensibflity and his reason. " Here's a fine 
 revolution, if one had the trick to see't." His bones ache to 
 think on't. When he sees the skuU of his old friend the jester, 
 from whose companionship he may have derived much of his 
 own skni in fence and play of words and poignancy of wit, 
 his imagination is absolutely disgusted. 
 
 " Alas, poor Yorick ! — I knew him, Horatio ; a feUow of 
 infinite jest, of most excellent fancy ; he hath borne me on 
 his back a thousand times ; and now how abhorred in my 
 imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips 
 that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes 
 now ? your gambols ? your songs ? your flashes of merriment, 
 that were wont to keep the table on a roar 1 Not one now, 
 to mock your own grinning ? quite chap-fallen ? Now, get 
 you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch 
 thick, to this favour she must come ; make her laugh at 
 that." 
 
 The grave-digger's jest that Hamlet's madness wiU not matter 
 in England, since " 'twill not be seen in him : there the men 
 are as mad as he," is legitimate enough ia the mouth of a 
 foreigner, since for ages have the continentals jested upon 
 the mad EngUsh, who hang themselves by scores every 
 day, and who, in November especially, immolate themselves 
 in hecatombs to the dun goddess of spleen. By this time the 
 jest has somewhat lost its point At least, it may be said that 
 if the English furnish as many madmen as their neighbours. 
 
HAMLET. ■ 97 
 
 they are somewhat better acquainted -with the means of ame- 
 liorating their sad condition. Madness, however, and suicide, 
 are now known to be as prevalent in the great neighbour 
 nation, whose own writers jest upon their universal diffusion. 
 
 AU men are mad, writes Boileau, the grand distinction 
 among them being the amount of skiU. employed in concealing 
 the crack ; and if statistics prove anything with regard to 
 suicides, it is that our once volatile neighbours have an un- 
 happy advantage over us in that respect, both in numbers and 
 variety. If it was ever a habit with us ; it has now become 
 a fashion with them. 
 
 The funeral of Opheha, and the bravery of her brother's 
 grief, are the occasion of conduct in Hamlet which cannot be 
 considered either that of a sane man or of a counterfeit mad- 
 man. He acknowledges to his friend that he forgot himself, 
 and that he was in a towering passion. The more probable 
 explanation is, that the shock of Ophelia's death, made known 
 to him so suddenly, strangely, and painfully, gave rise to an 
 outburst of passionate excitemient referrible to the latent 
 unsoundness of his mind, and that the Queen's explanation of 
 his conduct is the true one : 
 
 " This is mere madness : 
 And thus a while the fit will work on him ; 
 Anon, as patient as the female dove. 
 When that her golden couplets are disclos'd, 
 His silence wiU sit drooping." 
 
 It is indeed mere madness ; for why should a brother's 
 phrase of sorrow over the grave of a sister, however exag- 
 gerated its expression, excite a sane lover to such rage, — the 
 rage of passion, not of grief. A sane man would have been 
 struck dumb by overwhelming: grief, if he had thus acci- 
 dentally met at the verge of the tomb the body of a mistress 
 whom he devotedly loved, and whose stinted ritual betokened 
 that with desperate hand she had foredone her own life. In 
 H 
 
98 HAMLET. 
 
 Hamlet's state of mind, the occurrence gives birth to rash 
 conduct and vehement passion ; passion, be it remarked, not 
 caused by the struggle in the grave, but by the bravery of the 
 brother's grief 
 
 Although after this scene Hamlet converses -with thorough 
 calmness with his self-possessed friend, there are passages 
 which strongly iadicate the morbid state of his mind. 
 Speaking of his condition on ship-board, he says : 
 
 " Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting, 
 That would not let me sleep : methought, I lay 
 Worse than the mutineers in the bilboes." 
 
 And again, referring to his present feelings, he says : " Thou 
 would' st not thiak, how iU aU's here about my heart ; but it's 
 no matter." " It is but foolery ; but it is such a kind of gain- 
 giving as would, perhaps, trouble a woman." 
 
 Above all, if his conduct in the church-yard is not the 
 result of morbidly violent emotion, uncontrolled by reason, 
 what can we say of his own explanation : 
 
 " Give me your pardon, sir : I have done you wrong ; 
 But pardon it, as you are a gentleman. 
 This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, 
 How I am punish' d with a sore distraction. 
 What I have done. 
 
 That might your nature, honour, and exception. 
 Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness. 
 Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes ? Never, Hamlet : 
 If Hamlet from himself be ta'en away : 
 And, when he's not himself, does wrong Laertes, 
 Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it. 
 Who does it then ? His madness : If 't be so, 
 Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd ; 
 His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy. 
 Sir, in this audience, 
 Let my disclaiming from a purpos'd evil 
 Free me so far iu your most generous thoughts. 
 That I have shot my arrow o'er the house, 
 And hurt my brother." 
 
HAMLET. 99 
 
 This reference to the random arrow shot madly o'er the 
 house may possibly have been taken from the play of Titus 
 Andronicus. 
 
 Except the above brief reference to the inner wretchedness, 
 which Horatio takes for an evil augury, Hamlet shews no 
 disposition to melancholy after the rough incidents of his sea 
 voyage. The practice of the King upon his own life appears 
 to have fixed his resolve : He'll wait till no further evU is 
 hatched. He that hath 
 
 " Thrown out his angle for my proper life. 
 And with such cozenage ; is't not perfect conscience, 
 To quit him with this arm ? and is't not to be damn' J, 
 To let this canker of our nature come 
 In further evil?" 
 
 Moreover, what there is to do he'll do quickly. The issue of 
 
 the business in England, with Rosencrantz and GuUdenstern, 
 
 will quickly be known, but 
 
 " the interim is mine ; 
 And a man's life's no more than to say, one." 
 
 In this temper it would have been frivolous in him to have 
 accepted the challenge of Laertes, were it not that he saw in 
 it an opportunity to right himself with his old friend, by the 
 image of whose cause he read the portraiture of his own. It 
 is after a seeming reconcihation thus obtained, that he 
 determines to accept " this brother's wager." Might not also 
 the challenge be accepted as likely to offer a good opportunity 
 to meet the King, and " quit him with this arm," an oppor- 
 tunity which he now resolves to seize whenever it offers? 
 The sentiment of coming evil lends probability to the thought. 
 
 " Not a whit, we defy augury ; there is a special providence 
 in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come ; if it 
 be not to come, it will be now : if it be not now, yet it wiU 
 come : the readiness is all : since no man has aught of what 
 he leaves, what is't to leave betimes ? " 
 
 The final scene of indiscrimiaate slaughter, which, as 
 
100 HAMLET. 
 
 Fortinbras thinks, would more become a battle-field than a 
 palace, points the moral so obvious throughout the piece, that 
 the end of action is not within the hands of the hum.an 
 agents. The blow which finally quits the King was fuUy 
 deserved for his last act. His end has an accidental sudden- 
 ness about it, which disappoints the expectation of judicial 
 revenge. Like Laertes, he is a woodcock caught in his own 
 springe. Retribution is left to the terrible future, whose 
 mysteries have been partially unveiled ; and the mind, pre- 
 pared by the revelations of the Ghost, accepts the death of the 
 King but as the beginning of his quittance. 
 
 The death of Hamlet has been objected to, as cruel and 
 needless ; but would it not rather have been cruel to have left 
 him alive in this harsh world, drawing his breath in pain. 
 Heart-broken, and in that half-mad state which is vastly more 
 painful than developed insanity, what could he do here, after 
 the one act for which he was bound to live had been accom- 
 plished. Had he survived, he must have sank into inert 
 motiveless melancholy, or have struggled on in the stiU more 
 painful state of contention between conscience and suicidal 
 desire. To prevent a wounded name being left behind him, 
 he can command his friend to " absent him from felicity 
 awhile ;" but for himself the best is the dark mantle of 
 oblivion, the rest with hope which his friend so gracefully 
 expresses : 
 
 " Now cracks a noble heart : Good night, sweet prince. 
 And flights of angels guard thee to thy rest ! " 
 
 There is no attempted poetical justice in this bloody finale 
 to the drama. The way of the world rather is followed in the 
 indiscriminate mischief Sweet Ophelia and noble Hamlet 
 meet the same fate which attends the incestuous Queen, the 
 villanous King, the passionate Laertes, and the weU- 
 meaning Polonius. The vortex of crime draws down the 
 innocent and the guilty ; the balance of desert being left for 
 
HAMLET. 101 
 
 adjustment in the dark future. The intricacy of the action, 
 and the unexpected nature of the events, are copied from life 
 as closely as that marvellous delineation of motive and feeling 
 which brings Hamlet so intimately home to the consciousness of 
 reflective men. Those dramas in which we accurately foresee 
 the event in the first act are as little like the reality of human 
 life as a geometric problem is like a landscape. Granted that 
 there is nothing like accident in human affairs, that if a 
 special providence in the fall of a sparrow may be doubted, 
 the subjection of the most trivial circumstances to general laws 
 is beyond question. Still, in human affairs, the multipUcity 
 and mutual interference of these laws is such, that it is utterly 
 beyond human foresight to trace forward the thread of events 
 with any certainty. In Hamlet this uncertainty is peculiarly 
 manifested. Everything is traceable to causes, which operate, 
 however, in a manner which the most astute forecaster of 
 events could never have anticipated ; though, after their occur- 
 rence, it is easy enough to trace and name them, as Horatio 
 promised to do. 
 
 " So shall you hear 
 Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts ; 
 Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters ; 
 Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause ; 
 And, in this upshot, purposes mistook 
 Fall'n on the inventors' heads ; aU this can I 
 Truly deliver." 
 
 Although we arrive at the conviction that Hamlet is morbidly 
 melanchoHc, and that the degree to which he puts on a part 
 is very small ; that, by eliminating a few hurling words, and 
 the description which Ophelia gives of the state of his stockings, 
 there is very little, either in his speech or conduct, which is 
 truly feigned ; let us guard ourselves from conveying the 
 erroneous impression that he is a veritable lunatic. He is 
 a reasoning melancholiac, morbidly changed from his former 
 state of thought, feeUng, and conduct. He has "foregone all 
 
102 HAMLET. 
 
 custom of exercise," and longs to commit suicide, but dares not. 
 Yet, like the melancholiacs described by Burton, he is " of 
 profound judgment in some things, excellent apprehensions, 
 judicious, wise, and witty ; for melancholy advanceth men's 
 conceits more than any humour whatever." He is in a state 
 which thousands pass through without becoming truly insane, 
 but which in hundreds does pass into actual madness. It is 
 the state of incubation of disease, " in which his melancholy 
 sits on brood," and which, according to the turn of events, or 
 the constitution of the brain, m.ay hatch insanity, or terminate 
 in restored health. 
 
 There is an apparent inconsistency between the sombre 
 melancholy of Hamlet's sohtary thoughts and the jesting 
 levity of his conversation, even when he seeks least to put on 
 the guise of antic behaviour ; an inconsistency apparent only, 
 for in truth this gloomy reverie, which in solitude " runs dark- 
 ling down the stream of fate," is thoroughly coherent in nature 
 with the careless mocking spirit plajnng in derisive contempt 
 with the foibles of others. The weeping and the mocking 
 philosopher are not usufJly divided as of old, but are united 
 in one, whose laugh is bestowed on the vanity of human 
 wishes as observed in the world around, while the earnest 
 tear is reserved for the more deeply felt miseries of his 
 own destiny. The historian of melancholy himself was a 
 double philosopher of this complexion. Deeply imbued 
 with melancholy when his mental gaze was introverted, 
 when employed upon others it was more mocking than 
 serious, more minute than profoundr Thence came the 
 charming and learned gossip of the Anatom/y ; thence also 
 the curious habit recorded of him, that for days together he 
 would sit on a post by the river side, listening and laughing at 
 the oaths and jeers of the boatmen, and thus finding a strange 
 solace from his own profound melancholy. Here is his own 
 evidence : 
 
HAMLET. 103 
 
 " Humorous they (melancholiacs) are beyond measure ; 
 sometimes profusely laughing, extraordinary merry, and then 
 agaia weeping without a cause; groaning, sighing, pensive, 
 sad, almost distracted, restless in their thoughts and actions, 
 contiaually meditating. 
 
 Velut asgri somnia, vanse 
 Fing^ntur species ; 
 more Hke dreamers than men awake, they feign a company of 
 antick fantastical conceits." 
 
 There is an intimate relationship between melancholy and 
 humour. The fact is finely touched in the Yorick of 
 Lawrence Sterne, and, what is more to the purpose, in the 
 real history of many of the most celebrated humourists ; 
 and the truth even descends to those humourists of action, 
 theatrical clowns. Who has not heard the story of one of the 
 most celebrated of these applying incognito to a physician for 
 the relief of melancholy, and being referred for a remedy 
 to his own laughter-moving antics? Not that humour is 
 always attended by any tinge or tendency to melancholy, 
 as the plenitude of this faculty exhibited by joUy Sir John 
 fully proves. Still there is this in common to the roystering 
 humour of Falstaff, the melancholy humour of Jacques, and 
 the sarcastic humour of Hamlet, that they have each a 
 perverse ingenuity in contemplatiag the weakness and sel- 
 fishness of human motive. "Wit deals with ideas and their 
 verbal representations ; humour with motives and emotions ; 
 and that melancholy cast of thought, which tends to exhibit 
 our own motives in an unfavourable light, is apt to probe 
 the motives of others with searching insight, and to represent 
 them in those unexpected contrasts, and those true, but 
 unusual, colours which tickle the intelligence with their 
 novelty and strangeness. 
 
 The character of Hamlet presents another contrast, which, 
 if not more obvious than the above, has at least attracted 
 more attention, perhaps because he himself comments upon 
 
lOi HAMLET. 
 
 it, and because it is a main point upon which the drama 
 turns. It is the contrast between his vivid uitellectual ac- 
 tivity, and the inertness of his conduct. To say that this 
 depends upon a want of the power of will to transmute thought 
 into action, is to do no more than to change one formula of 
 words into another. There must be some better explanation 
 for the unquestionable fact that one man of great intellectual 
 vigour becomes a thinker only, and another a man of vehement 
 action ; one man a mute inglorious MUton, another a village 
 Hampden, or even a Caesar or Napoleon. That activity of 
 intellect is in itself adverse to decisiveness of conduct, is abun- 
 dantly contradicted by biography. That activity of intellect 
 may exist with the utmost powerlessness, or even perversity of 
 conduct, is equally proved by the well-known biographies of 
 many men, " who never said a fooHsh thing, and never did a 
 wise one." The essential difference of men who are content 
 to rest in thought, and those who transnaute it into action, 
 appears not to consist in the presence or absence of that in- 
 comprehensible function, that unknown quantity of the mind, 
 the will; but in the presence or absence of clearly defined and 
 strongly-felt desire, and in that power of movement which 
 can only be derived from the exercise of power, that is, from 
 the habit of action. It is conceivable, as Sir James Mackintosh 
 has well pointed out, that an intellectual being might exist 
 examining all things, comparing all things, knowing all things, 
 but desiring and doing nothing. It is equally conceivable 
 that a being might exist with two strong desires, so equally 
 poised that the result should be complete neutrahzation of 
 each other, and a state of inaction as if no emotional spring 
 to conduct whatever existed. Hence, inaction may arise, from 
 want of desire, or from equipoise of desire. 
 
 It is, moreover, conceivable that an intellectual being might 
 exist in whom desires were neither absent nor equipoised, but 
 in whom the habit of putting desires into action had never 
 
HAMLET. 103 
 
 been formed. We are indeed so constituted, that clearly 
 formed desires tend naturally to transmute themselves iato 
 action, and the idea of a being at once intellectual and emo- 
 tional, iQ whom circumstances have entirely prevented the 
 development of the habit of action, has more the character of 
 a metaphysical speculation than of a possible reality. StUl the 
 immense influence of habit upon the power of action is un- 
 questionable, and the want of this habit appears to have been 
 one chief cause of Hamlet's inert and dilatory conduct, and 
 of the contention between that meditative cast of thought, 
 which he in vaiu strove to screw up to the point of action, and 
 the desire to discharge that repulsive duty which his uncle's 
 viHanies had laid upon him. That the time was out of joiut 
 would have been for him a subject of painful reflection only, 
 but for the accursed spite which had laid it upon him to set it 
 right, and which was the cause of that fierce moral strife between 
 duty and disposition, which forms the innermost web of the piece. 
 The rash execution of an unpremeditated action is entirely 
 consistent with this sensitive motive-weighing inability to act 
 upon mature resolve. The least resolute men are often the 
 most rash ; as quick spasm in feeble muscles is substituted 
 for healthy, regular, and prolonged exertion. Hamlet praises 
 rashness in the instance iu which it served him, but he would 
 scarcely have been able to have done so when it led him to slay 
 Polonius in mistake for the King ; and the incidents of the 
 drama, no more than the incidents of real hfe, justify us 
 in rough-hewing our purposes with rashness, though the 
 Divinity may shape the ends even of our most politic arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 This reasoning melanchohac, disgusted with the world, and 
 especially disgusted with the repulsive duty which a hard fate 
 has laid upon him, is not less different to the Hamlet of the 
 past, to him who had been 
 
 " The expectancy and rose of the fair state," 
 
106 HAMLET. 
 
 to him who, as a soldier, 
 
 " was likely, had he been put on, 
 To have proved most royally," 
 
 than he is the good feeble young gentleman whom Goethe 
 describes, and whose " mind is too feeble for the accomplish- 
 ment " of " the great action imposed as a duty." " Here is 
 an oak planted in a vase ; proper only to receive the most 
 delicate flowers. The roots strike out, the vessel flies to pieces. 
 A pure, noble, highly moral disposition, but without that 
 energy of soul which constitutes a hero, sinks under a load 
 which it can neither support nor abandon altogether." " Ob- 
 serve how he shifts, hesitates, advances, and recedes ! " Goethe's 
 simile however, beautiful though it be, appears to halt on both 
 feet, for the great action, which is the oak, does not strike 
 out its roots, does not increase in magnitude or responsibility ; 
 nor does the Prince deserve to be compared to a vase, sense- 
 less and inert, which cannot expand or "shift ;" and, moreover, 
 it is not the greatness of the action which is above the energy 
 of his soul, but the nature of it which is repulsive to its 
 nobility. If Hamlet must be compared to a vase, let it not 
 be to a flower-pot, but to that kingly drinking cup, whose 
 property it was to fly to pieces when poison was poured into it. 
 In addition to the above, there are other causes of turmoil 
 in Hamlet's mind less plainly stated, but traceable enough 
 throughout the piece. One of these is the contention 
 between his rehgious sentiments and his sceptical philosophy. 
 His mind constantly wavers between behef and unbehef; 
 between confidence in an overruling Providence, who shapes 
 all our ends to wise purposes, and even permits its angels and 
 ministers of grace to attend unseen on our hours of trial ; 
 between this reverential faith and that scepticism which sees 
 in man but so much animated dust, and looks upon death 
 as annihilation. The pain of this same doubt has been finely 
 expressed by him, whom future centuries will regard as the 
 
HAMLET. 107 
 
 great lyric of the nation, even as Shakespeare is for aye 
 itB great dramatist : 
 
 " I trust I have not wasted breath : 
 I think we are not wholly brain, 
 Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 
 Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death : 
 
 Not only cunning casts in clay : 
 
 Let Science prove we are, and then *• 
 What matters Science unto men — 
 
 At least, to me ? I would not stay." 
 
 " And he, shall he 
 Who loved, who suffered countless iUs, 
 
 Who battled for the true and just, 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or sealed within the iron hiUsI" 
 
 Indeed, the manifold points of resemblance between Hamlet 
 and In Memoriam are remarkable. In each the great questions 
 of eternal interest are debated by a mind to whom profound 
 grief makes this world a sterile promontory. The unknowable 
 future absorbs all interest. The lyric bard, however, fights his 
 way to more Ught than the dramatist attains. The fear of 
 annihilation oppresses, but does not conquer him. He 
 rebukes Lazarus for holding his peace on that which afflicts 
 the doubting soul, but for himself he fights his way to faith. 
 
 " He fought his doubts, and gathered strength ; 
 He would not make his judgment blind ; 
 He faced the spectres of the mind. 
 And laid them." 
 
 It is not easy to estimate the amount of emotional disturbance 
 for which Love is answerable in Hamlet's mind. Probably, 
 if other matters had gone well with him, Ophelia's forced 
 unkindness would easily have been seen through and over- 
 come ; but, with a mind pre-occupied with the dread mission 
 of his. father's revenge, it is likely that he would not question 
 the earnestness of OpheUa's rejection, and that " to the pangs 
 of despised love," he might well attribute one of the most 
 
lOS HAMLET. 
 
 poigiiaut ills tliat flesh is hoir to. His demoaiiour In OiiIioIIm., 
 whou lie first puts on his antic disposition, and which slie so 
 graphically describes, not less tl\an his own avowal at hor 
 grave, that " twenty thousand brothers covild not ninlce n|) 
 his sum of love," point to the ejdstence, not of " trix-ial Ibnd 
 records," b\it of a passion for licr, both deep and constant ; 
 a passion thrjjst rudely into the backgronnd indeed, but 
 not extinguished, or oven weakened, by the inm-o urgent 
 emotions of revenge lor his father, of slianie for his motlier, of 
 scorn and hatred for his uncle. The ehara,ct,er of Ha.nilet 
 would have been incomplete if the element of love had Ihhmi 
 forgotten in its composition. Harshly as he may seem to 
 treat his mistress, this element adds a warm sienna tint to 
 the portraiture, without which it would have been not only 
 cold and hard, but less true to the nature of the mela,nclioly 
 sensitive being delineated. 
 
 There is little trace of ambition in his e]iM,rn,cter ; for, 
 although he makes the Jving's having stejipeil bi^Uveen tlio 
 election and his hopes one of the list of his injiu-ics, his com- 
 ments ujDon the manner in which this was done sa,vovn- rathtu- 
 of contempt for his uncle's ignoble means of success, for the 
 manner in whick he filched the crown, and was " a, cutp(usu 
 of the empire and the rule," rather than of any pi'ofonnd 
 disappointment that the election had not farlleu uium liinisell'. 
 Indeed, this character has been painted in dimensions fa,r 
 exceeding those of the sce]itred rulers of the eartli. An\bition 
 would have dwarfed him to the type of a class ; he sta.nds 
 forth the mighty poetical type of the ra.ei\ 
 
 It is this universal humanity of the chara,ctter which lies at 
 the root of its wonderful reality and fan\iHa,rity. Ha,nilet 
 seems known to us like an old friend. " This is that Hamlet 
 the Dane," says Hazlitt, "whom we read of in oTir yonth, and 
 whom we seem almost to nunember in our after years." 
 " Hamlet is a name : his s])ceches and sayings but the idle 
 
HAMLET. 109 
 
 coinage of the poet's brain. What, then, are they not real ? 
 They are as real as our own thoughts. Their reality is in the 
 reader's mind. It is we who are Hamlet. This play has a 
 prophetic truth which is above that of history." Are we then 
 wrong in treating Hamlet as a reality, and in debating the 
 state of his mind with more care than we would choose to 
 bestow upon the insane vagaries of an Emperor Paul, or a 
 Frederick the First ? Have we not more sure data upon which 
 to exercise judgment than upon the uncertain truth of his- 
 tory ? Buckle, in his Histoo^y of Civilizafion, has elaborately 
 argued the madness of Burke ; a domestic grief, a change of 
 temper, and, above all, a change of pohtical opinions from 
 those which the historian thinks true, to those which he ttdnks 
 false, being held sufficient to estabhsh the confirmed insanity 
 of the great statesman. Those who read the ingenious 
 argument will feel convinced, at least, of this, that history 
 rarely or never leaves grounds relative enough to solve such a 
 question. Nay, when we are close upon tlie footsteps of a 
 man's life, when the question is not one of learned trifling, 
 Uke that of the insanity of Socrates, but the practical one of 
 \\^ether a man just dead was competent to devise his pro- 
 perty, when his papers and letters are ransacked, his daily 
 life minutely examined, when scores of men who knew him 
 intimately, bear testimony to their knowledge, we often find 
 the balance of probability so even, that it is impossible to say 
 to which side it inclines, and the feelings of the jury as often 
 as not fabricate the vnlL But when the great mind of mind 
 speaks out as in Hamlet, it is not so. Then it is as in the 
 justice of Heaven, then the " action hes in its true nature," 
 which neither ignorance can obscure nor sophistry pei-vert. 
 
 It is by this great faculty that Shakespeare unfolds to our. 
 view the book of the mind, and shews alike its fairest and most 
 blotted pages, and leaves in us a thirst not for more hght, but 
 for more power to read. 
 
110 HAMLET. 
 
 If familiarity and fellow-feeling compel us at one time to 
 regard Hamlet as a reality, reflection and curious admiration 
 compel us at others to wonder at it, as a work of man's creative 
 power; and it has ever been to us a question of int-ense 
 interest to speculate upon the manner it was worked out. There 
 appears this great distinction between Hamlet and all other 
 characters of Shakespeare, in which real or feigned insanity is 
 represented, that, while they are CAridently all drawn from the 
 life, it could scarcely have been drawn from observation. Ophe- 
 lia, for instance, is the very type of a class of cases by no means 
 uncommon. Every mental physician of moderately extensive 
 experience must have seen many Ophelias. It is a copy from 
 nature, after the fashion of the pre-Raphaelite school, in which 
 the veias of the leaves are painted. Hamlet however is not 
 pre-Raphaelite, but Raphaehte ; like the Transfiguration, it is 
 a glorious reflex from the mind of the author, but not a copy 
 of aught which may be seen by other eyes. It is drawn, in- 
 deed, in accordance with the truth of nature, just as Raphael 
 made use of anatomical knowledge in painting the Trans- 
 figuration ; but there is something beyond and above that 
 which any external observation can supply. From whence 
 did this come ? Without doubt, fr-om within. Shakespeare has 
 here described a broad phase of his own mind ; has reflected 
 the nadir of his own great soul ; has set up a glass in which 
 the ages wUl read the inmost part of him ; how he thought 
 of death and suicide ; how he doubted of the futxire, and 
 felt of the present, 
 
 " That this huge state presenteth nought but shows ;" 
 
 how he looked inwards until fair nature became dark, and spun 
 
 " A veil of thought, to hide him from the sun." 
 
 Hallam, the most learned and just of English critics, has 
 recognised this inner reflection of the soul in this and some 
 others of the great bard's sombre characters. 
 
HAMLET. Ill 
 
 " There seems to have been a period of Shakespeare's life 
 when his heart was ill at ease, and ill-content with the world 
 or his own conscience ; the memory of hours misspent, the 
 pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of 
 man's worser nature, which intercourse with ill-chosen asso- 
 ciates, by choice or circumstance, peculiarly teaches ; these, 
 as they sank down into the depths of his great miud, seem 
 not only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear and 
 Timon, but that of one primary character, the censurer of 
 mankind. This type is first seen in the philosophic melan- 
 choly of Jacques, gazing with imdiminished serenity, and with 
 a gaiety of fancy, though not of manners, on the foUies of the 
 world. It assumes a graver cast in the exiled Duke of the 
 same play, and next one rather more severe in the Duke of 
 Measure for Measure. In all these, however, it is merely 
 contemplative philosophy. In Hamlet this is mingled with 
 the impulses of a perturbed heart, \m.der the pressure of ex- 
 traordinary circumstances ; it shines no longer a-s in the former 
 characters, with a steady hght, but plays in fitful con-uscations, 
 amid feigned gaiety and extravagance. In Lear it is the 
 flash of sudden inspiration across the incongruous imagery of 
 madness ; in Timon it is obscured by the exaggerations of 
 misanthropy." 
 
 However true this may be in the main, we can scarcely 
 agree to recognise any part of our own ideal of Shakespeare's 
 individuality iu any of these characters, except in Hamlet and 
 in Jacques. Doubtless there was melancholy and cynicism 
 enough in the great bard, but there could have been no real 
 misanthropy, no mad fury, no stem congelation of feehng, 
 as in Timon, Lear, and the Duke ; nor is there any of these 
 in Hamlet or Jacques, or in the real heart history as it is 
 written in the Sonnets. 
 
 Misanthropy and cynicism appear to have been very gene- 
 rally confounded. Doubtless they are often found together ; 
 yet is there a wide difference between the two in their real 
 nature. The cynic may even carp and sneer at the faults of 
 his brother men, from the depth of his human love, and thus 
 be at quite the opposite pole of feehng to him who avows, 
 
112 HAMLET. 
 
 " I am misanthropos, and hate mankind." The author of 
 Kasselas, that prosaic reflection of Hamlet, was eminently a 
 cynic ; yet a more tender and pitiful soul never animated 
 human clay, than that which dwelt in the burly Diogenes of 
 Fleet Street. He of Sinope so zealously inculcated virtue 
 as to derive from Plato the nickname of the mad Socrates. 
 Though he lived in a tub he loved mankind, and rudely 
 taught them at how cheap a rate they might obtain hap- 
 piness. But misanthropy is quite a different thing, either 
 from melancholic dissatisfaction or cynical content. It 
 is a perversion of all human sympathy, incompatible with 
 all nobility of soul, and, most of all, with that sympa- 
 thetic touch-stone of human emotions, the soul of the true 
 poet. We recognise this in Swift, who was a misan- 
 thropist puT sang, and whose vast intellectual powers might 
 have placed him among the first of his country's poets, had 
 not his sympathies been utterly out of unison with those 
 of his kind. The expression of universal hatred is not that 
 of exalted passion, but that of the heartless sneer which is 
 utterly anti-pathetic. Goethe touches the point when he 
 makes the man-hating demon excuse himself in the heavenly 
 court from the use of pathetic speech. 
 
 " Verzeih, ich kann nicht hohe Worte machen, 
 Mein Pathos brachte dich gewiss zum Lachen." 
 
 The poetic soul of Faust, on the contrary, swells with wide and 
 warm human sympathy ; although in despairing rage he curses 
 all human desires, aU hope, all faith, and, above all, all patience. 
 In one of these characters we have true misanthropy serving 
 as a foil to the other, to whom, as in Hamlet, not man but 
 man's position Ls hateful, and whose human sympathies are 
 passionate, even in the despair which cries out in the life- 
 weary agony, and almost in the words of Hamlet : 
 
 " Und so ist mir das Daseyn eiae Last 
 Der Tod erwiinscht, das Leben mir verhasst." 
 
HAMLET. 113 
 
 An enquiry into the mental pathology of this character 
 may aptly conclude with a quotation from the writings of a 
 kindred and cotemporary mind to that of the great dramatist, 
 namely, those of Michael de Montaigne. Coleridge, in his 
 truly beautiful lectm-es, which have been so happily preserved 
 by the notes of Mr. Payne CoUier, admits that " such a mind 
 as Hamlet's is near akin to madness " from its " greatness of 
 genius," which is the sense in which Dryden used the word 
 " wit " in the Hne — 
 
 " Great wit to madness nearly is aUied." 
 Montaigne actually saw the saddest exemplification of this 
 truth in one of the greatest " wits " of the age — ^the immortal 
 Tasso. His comments on the sad spectacle are less harsh 
 than they seem ; for although very far from being deficient in 
 human sympathy and pity, he also had a strong dash of the 
 cynic in him, cynicism without misanthropy. 
 
 " What puts the soul beside itself, and more usually throws 
 it into madness, but her own promptness, vigour, and agility, 
 and finally, her own proper force ? Of what is the most subtle 
 folly made, but of the most subtle wisdom ? As great 
 friendships spring from great enmities, and vigorous health 
 from mortal diseases, so from the rare and vivid agitations 
 of our souls proceed the most wonderful and most distracted 
 frenzies ; 'tis but half a turn of the toe from the one to the 
 other. In the actions of madmen, we see how infinitely 
 madness resembles the most vigorous operations of the souL 
 Who do^s not know how indescribable the difference is 
 betwixt folly and the sprightly aspirations of a free soul, and 
 the effects of a supreme and extraordinary virtue? Plato 
 says, that melancholy persons are the most capable of dis- 
 cipKne, and the most excellent ; and accordingly in none is 
 there so great a propension to madness. Great wits are 
 ruined by their own proper force and pliability ; into what 
 a condition, through his own agitation and promptness of 
 fancy, is one of the most judicious, ingenious, and nearest 
 formed of any other Italian poet to the air of the ancient 
 and true poesy, lately fallen ? Has he not vast obligation to 
 this vivacity that has destroyed him ? to this light that has 
 
114 HAMLET. 
 
 blinded him? to this exact and subtle apprehension of 
 reason that has put him beside his own ? to this curious 
 and laborious search after sciences, that has reduced him to 
 imbecility ? and to this rare aptitude to the exercises of the 
 soul, that has rendered him without exercise and without 
 soul ? I was more angry, if possible, than compassionate, to 
 see him at Ferrara in so pitiful a condition, surviving himself, 
 forgetting both himself and his works, which, without his 
 knowledge, though before his face, have been published 
 unformed and incorrect. 
 
 " Would you have a man healthy, would you have him 
 regular, and in a steady and secure posture ? MuiSe him 
 upon the shades of stupidity and sloth. . We must be made 
 beasts to be made wise, and hood-winked before we are fit to 
 be led. And if one shall tell me that the advantage of having 
 a dull sense of pain and other evUs brings this disadvantage 
 along with it, to render us consequently less sensible also in 
 the fruition of good and pleasure, this is true ; but the misery 
 of our condition is such, that we have not so much to enjoy 
 as to avoid, and that the extremest pleasure does not affect 
 us to the degree that a light grief does ; " Segnius homines 
 bona quam mala sentiunt." ' We are not so sensible of the 
 most perfect health as we are of the least sickness.' 
 
 "Pungit 
 In cute vix suilima violatum plagula corpus ; 
 Quando valere nihil quemquam movet. Hoc juvat unum. 
 Quod me non torquet latus, aut pes : Coetera quisquam 
 Vix queat aut sanum sese, aut sentire valentem." 
 
OPHELIA. 115 
 
 OPHELIA. 
 
 " Che per amor venne in furore e matto." 
 Ophelia, so simple, so beautiful, so pitiful ! The exquisite 
 creation is so perfect, yet so delicate, that we fear to approach 
 it with the rough touch of critical remark. Child of nature 
 in simplicity aud innocence — ^without guile, without suspicion 
 — and therefore, without reserve, or that deceit which often 
 simulates a modesty more dainty than the modesty of 
 innocence. And yet, not ignorant though innocent ; but with 
 quick native intellect, which appreciated the selfishness, and 
 rebuked the fears, of her brother's caution ; which still more 
 fully appreciated, and was able most eloquently to describe, 
 the noble quahties of her princely lover, " the glass of fashion 
 and the mould of form ;" simple, yet not obtuse ; but pos- 
 sessing quick sentiment, and lively fancy, to a degree which 
 made her most impressible to all generous emotion ; sensitive, 
 but yet reticent ; thrilling through every fibre of the soul to 
 the touch of love, and the anguish of despair ; yet allowing 
 no confession to be extorted, and no cry to escape, until she 
 sees her lover " quite, quite down ;" when, with unselfish 
 grief lamenting his fall, she aUies her fate with his, and cries 
 aloud in the agony of woe, — " and I of ladies most deject 
 and wretched." It is strange how thoroughly we seem to 
 know Ophelia, notwithstanding her taciturnity and reserve. 
 She says nothing of herself, and yet we seem to look into the 
 very recesses of her clear soul ; thus presenting one form of 
 
116 OJPHELIA. 
 
 contrast to the being witli whose fate her own. was entwined, 
 who constantly soliloquising and self-analysing, nevertheless 
 leaves upon us the impression that we know the vast ampli- 
 tude of his thoughts and feelings, but dimly and in part. 
 The one is the translucent and hmpid fountain, reflecting but 
 one image ; the other, the ever-varyihg river, with rapids, and 
 smooth reaches, and profound depths, reflecting and repre- 
 senting the varied features of earth and Heaven. 
 
 Ophelia is passive, but not impassive ; her very reticence is 
 eloquent of feeUng. Her love, Hke that of Imogen and Desde- 
 mona, has more of sentiment than of passion in it. It does not 
 vent itself in strong expressions like the passions of Juliet and 
 Cleopatra. It is imaginative, retiring, sensitive, fearful of it- 
 self, and yet without one particle of selfishness. In this, also, 
 it is unlike the amour passion, which is essentially selfish. 
 Not that OpheHa is wholly without passion ; for love without 
 passion cannot exist, except as a mere dream. But the con- 
 stituents, sentiment and passion, which are in all love, though 
 in infinitely varying degrees, appear in Ophelia to exist in the 
 greatest possible amount of the former, and the least of the 
 latter. 
 
 Sensitive, and imaginative, and devoted, the poor girl was 
 endowed with aU the faculties of moral suffering. That she 
 should suffer greatly, undeservedly, irremediably, was needful 
 in order to make her the object of that intense pity which the 
 character excites ; and which was certainly wanted in the 
 drama to perfect it as a tragedy. The character is not very 
 prominent, but it so entirely seizes upon our sympathy and 
 pity, that, in this respect, it leavens our regard for the whole 
 play. Ulrici has called Hamlet a " Gedankentrauerspiel," or, 
 tragedy of thought ; as if. there could be any tragic emotion 
 excited by thought alone, whose unmodified influence is to 
 cause assent or dissent ? Yet, if the character of Ophelia were 
 wanting, there would be so much justice in the epithet which 
 
OPHELIA. 117 
 
 this critic has applied to the drama, it would appeal so much 
 to thoughts and opinions, and so little to sentiment, that 
 it would be too much a drama of thought and opinion to 
 take the rank it does in the most sacred shrine of the tragic 
 muse. 
 
 Pity, soft-eyed mother of the virtues, ever assuagiag the 
 severe aspect of their male parent, justice ; pity, most unsel- 
 fish of all the emotions, although in truth but one form of 
 self-suffering ; pity, that appreciation of evil which we under- 
 stand and sympathize with, and therefore suffer with or com- 
 passionate when we behold others under the weight of its 
 affliction ; pity, whose Heavenly influence it is the highest aim 
 and object of the tragic muse to invoke, is the sentiment which 
 the character of Ophelia more powerfully elicits than that of 
 any other of Shakespeare's female characters. For if Imogen 
 was at one time as wretched, her misery was changed into joy ; 
 and if Desdemona was equally innocent, her agony was more 
 brief, and less intense. The suffeiings of Cordelia were 
 alleviated by active resistance against the evil power by which 
 they were occasioned. In Lear, the king of sorrows, and in 
 Othello, the lion poisoned by a villain's hand, are charac- 
 ters which excite pity as intense, though not as unmixed ; for 
 in neither is the agony felt to be quite undeserved, or quite 
 unavoidable. For it is to be remarked, that to excite the 
 pure sentiment of pity — First, it is needful the suffering re- 
 flected from the consciousness of another upon our own sensi- 
 bility should be such as we can appreciate, and bring home, 
 as it were, to ourselves ; 
 
 " Hand ignarus mali miseris succurrere disco." 
 
 Secondly, that the sufferings should be great. We do not pity 
 the petty miseries of life ; and although a man's happiness may 
 be stung to death by poisonous insects as certainly as it can be 
 torn by the fangs of a savage monster, we are not revolted at 
 
118 OPHELIA. 
 
 •wounds which we cannot see. Thirdly, unmixed pity can 
 only be excited by suffering, which is undeserved and un- 
 avoidable. When a man brings upon himself only so much 
 suffering as he deserves to endure ; or when, through wil- 
 fukiess or obstiuacy, he endures suffering which he can avoid, 
 justice holds up the stem finger and forbids pity to iaterfere. 
 But avoidabUity of suffering and desert of suffering are so 
 relative and varied with circumstance, that some amount of 
 obstinacy or demerit is readily overlooked by the tender eyes 
 of compassion. "Treat us aU according to our merits," 
 says Hamlet, " and who shall escape whipping ?" Feel for us 
 aU according to our merits, and who shall deserve pity ? 
 
 Yet justice modifies pity, nay, sometimes forbids it — even 
 where suffering is greatest. The agonies of heU, as they are 
 painted on the broad canvas of Milton, do not excite pity, 
 because they are felt to be justly endured. 
 
 Opheha is, from the first moment of her appearance, suffer- 
 ing the anguish of doubt and wounded love. Unlike Desde- 
 mona and Imogen, there is no bright period of the character. 
 There is gentle but real sorrow in her first words, "No more but 
 so 1" Must she consider herself merely the toy of her princely 
 lover? "The perfume and suppUance of the minute?" Has 
 he been trifling with her love ? and his own, is it nothing 
 but youthful lust, dishonourable to himself and dangerous to 
 her? "No more but so?" She does not believe it; her brother 
 sees that she does not believe it, and he gives more credit 
 to Hamlet's earnestness. " Perhaps he loves you now ;" but 
 he may not marry where he chooses ; he may not carve for 
 himself ; therefore it behoves poor Ophelia to exercise her 
 wisdom where wisdom is rarely exercised, and to beHeve Ham- 
 let's love only so far as the probability of an honourable marriage 
 may justify her faith. Match-making probabilities, which 
 the poor girl was far enough from being able to estimate ! 
 Laertes does not advise his sister according to the truth of the 
 
OPHELIA. 119 
 
 saying, that "the woman who hesitates is lost." He advises 
 her to helieve in Hamlet's love to a certain extent, not to give 
 too credent an ear : 
 
 " Be wary then, hest safety lies in fear ; 
 Youth to itself rebels, though none else near." 
 Polonius knows that best safety hes vnfiigM; he insists upon 
 no half measures. The not very dehcate warning of Ophelia's 
 disagreeable brother, that she is likely to lose her honour to 
 Hamlet's unmastered importunity, is evidently distasteful to 
 the poor girl, and gives occasion to the only sparkle of dis- 
 pleasure which the gentle creature ever shews, in that quick 
 witted retaliation of advice, 
 
 " But, good my brother, 
 Do not, as some ungracious pastors do. 
 Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven ; 
 Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, 
 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. 
 And recks not his own read." 
 Ophelia's reference to the primrose path of dalliance which 
 her libertine brother was likely to lead, shews, from the first, 
 that her purity of mind is not the result of ignorance. She 
 seems young and ardent — ^her brother fears for her honour not 
 more on account of Hamlet's importunity, than on account of 
 her own youth, which is Hkely to rebel agaiast the dictates of 
 prudence, though unsoHcited, " though none else near." 
 
 What the old father has to say takes a much more straightfor- 
 ward and decisive form than the advice of Laertes, who feels 
 that he is treading on tender ground, and who gets repaid by 
 counter advice. Polonius reproaches his daughter that she 
 has been "most free and bounteous of her audience with 
 Hamlet;" and he teUs her downright, "you do not understand 
 yourself so clearly, as it behoves my daughter, and your 
 honour." To the demand that she should give up the truth to 
 him, the poor frightened girl at once acknowledges Hamlet's 
 suit, but carefully conceals the state of her own heart. 
 
120 OPHELIA. 
 
 " Ofh. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders 
 Of his affection to me. 
 
 Pol. Affection ? puh ! you speak like a green girl. 
 Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. 
 Do you believe his tenders, as you call them ? 
 
 Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. 
 
 Pol. Marry, I'U teach you : think yourself a baby : 
 That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay, 
 Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly ; 
 Or, (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, 
 Wrongiag if thus,) you'll tender me a fool. 
 
 Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love. 
 In honourable fashion. 
 
 Pol. A.J, fashion you may call it ; go to, go to. 
 
 Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord. 
 With almost aU the holy vows of heaven. 
 
 Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks." 
 
 A green girl, indeed ; a baby in the perils of court amours, 
 having the credulity of innocence, but not that of stupidity. 
 A sensitive unsophisticated maiden for the first time in 
 love, wondering at the new and strange sensation, scarcely 
 confessing it to herself, unable to distinguish the traits of 
 the niysterious tyrant who has set up his throne in her 
 young heart. The father and the brother fear for her chastity ; 
 and these fears may have been well founded, for she appears 
 the very prototype of Margaret in Faust, who, in the very 
 spirit of unselfish devotion, could refuse her lover nothing. 
 But they need not have feared for her modesty, or for that 
 precious quality in women which the cold word modesty, or 
 rhoral moderation, does not express : the shamefacedness of 
 love {pudicitia, puudeur, Keuscheit) at once the effect and 
 the proof of moral purity. Had Ophelia been capable of 
 measuring her love in accordance with the advice of her 
 worldly brother, of yielding to Hamlet so far as the proba- 
 bility of the voice of the nation assenting to his mamage 
 might justify her, her chastity might have been perfectly safe ; 
 but it is certain that the pudicitia of her love would have 
 
OPHELIA. 121 
 
 been lost. There are such beings as brazen prudes. There 
 are also those who have fallen and are pure. Rousseau well 
 says, " Le vice a beau se cacher dans 1' obscurity, son em- 
 preinte est sur les fronts coupables ; I'audace d'une femme est 
 le signe assur^ de sa honte ; e'est pour avoir trop k rougir 
 qu'eUe ne rougit plus, et si quelquefois la pudeur survit k la 
 chastite, que doit on penser de la chastity quand la pudeur 
 m^me est ^teinte?" 
 
 Between this scene and the next one in which Ophelia appears, 
 time must have elapsed, during which Hamlet has pursued 
 his suit ; since Ophelia, in obedience to her father's command, 
 has repelled his letters and denied access. These letters 
 would scarcely have been written by Hamlet, subsequently to 
 his interview with the ghost and his vow to erase all trivial 
 fond records from the table of his memory. According to 
 the progress of the love story, therefore, the last scene of the 
 first act would appear to belong to the second act ; which 
 would leave Hamlet's mad appearance in Ophelia's closet as 
 the first and immediate consequence of his resolve to " put 
 an antick disposition on." This it is which changes the old 
 courtier's fear that Hamlet intended to wreck his daughter's 
 honour, into the belief in his sincerity and consequent mad- 
 ness ; and thus arises his regret that he had not noted him 
 with better heed and judgment. 
 
 Ophelia's plasticity and yieldiagness of character, rather 
 than her depth of filial affection, appear manifested iu 
 the readiness with which she first obeys the old man's orders 
 to reject Hamlet's addresses, and with which she subsequently 
 lends herself to the deceit which is practised upon her lover, 
 to test and demonstrate his state of mind, and especially, 
 whether, as Polonius maintained, and the Queen finely 
 expressed, that her "good beauties be the happy cause of 
 Hamlet's wildness." The arranged meeting of Hamlet and 
 Ophelia, " as 'twere by accident," and the pretence of the 
 
122 OPHELIA. 
 
 maiden to read a book as a colour to her loneliness, was a 
 
 species of conduct inconsistent with her ingenuousness of 
 
 character, and to which she appears to have lent herself 
 
 in sorrowful unquestioning obedience. The dialogue which 
 
 follows is a terrible punishment for any fault she may 
 
 almost unconsciously have committed. Her lover sees the 
 
 snare laid for him, and recognizes the deceitful part she 
 
 is taking. She has not seen him " for this many a day," and 
 
 longs to re-dehver his remembrances formerly so precious to 
 
 her, now become so poor since he has proved unkind. How 
 
 much she expresses in how few words. "What simplicity and 
 
 faith in his love — "Indeed, my lord, you made me beUeve so." 
 
 What patient anguish at his denial of his love — " I was the 
 
 more deceived." What unselfish forgetfulness of her own 
 
 deep sorrow, to which the word forgiveness would be misap- 
 
 pUed, siace the slightest notion of resentment never seems to 
 
 have entered her gentle soul. When she recognizes in his 
 
 disdainful vituperation the incoherence of insanity, she cries, 
 
 " Oh ! help him, ye sweet heavens ! " — ^not herself, but him. 
 
 Not because she is deceived and rejected, but because he is 
 
 quite, quite down, is she of ladies most deject and wretched. 
 
 Not for her own blighted hopes, but because his unmatched 
 
 form is blasted with ecstacy, does she raise that cry of 
 
 anguish — 
 
 " Oh ! woe is me ! 
 To have seen what I have seen, see what I see ! " 
 
 In the whole of the play there is not a more exqxiisite passage 
 than this lamentation of the desolate maid over the supposed 
 ruin of her lover's intellect. 
 
 Ophelia appears once more, before her own mind is "as sweet 
 bells jangled out of tune," when one of the audience before 
 the players ; but it is to be remarked, that she never makes 
 a consecutive speech again. To Hamlet's indehcate banter, 
 she makes the curtest repUes, scarcely sufficient to defend her 
 
OPHELIA. 123 
 
 outraged modesty. She is concealing, and, as well as may be, 
 beariag up against the anguish gnawing at her heart. But 
 fancy and intellect are henumhed by sorrow, only to display 
 themselves at a later date, again active, though perverted, 
 under the stimulus of disease. 
 
 It is left in some doubt to what extent grief at the death of 
 Polonius concurred, with pining sorrow at the blight of her 
 love, in giving rise to Ophelia's distraction. The King and 
 Queen, and Laertes, evidently refer it to the former cause ; yet 
 although ia her gentle ravings she constantly refers to her 
 father's death, and never directly to her lover's unldndness, 
 we are iaclined to refer to the latter as by far the most potent, 
 though it may, perhaps, not be the sole cause of her distrac- 
 tion. This opinion founds itself upon the form of insanity 
 which is depicted, namely, mania with prevalent ideas of the 
 sentiment of love, or erotomania, as it is learnedly called. 
 " In medicine," says Ferriar, "we have fine names at least, 
 for every species of disease," and erotomania is the fine name 
 for that form of insanity in which the sentiment of love is 
 prominent, as nymphomania is the fine name for an aUied but 
 sufficiently distinct variety in which the instinct is excessive. 
 We have somewhere read that Opheha's snatches of song 
 were culled from the street ballads of the day, and that Shake- 
 speare thus obtained an easy theatrical effect. This, however, 
 seems probable only with reference to the two longer and 
 more indelicate effusions beginning, " Good morrow, 'tis St. 
 Valentine's day," and " By Gis and by Saint Charity." The 
 snatches of song which precede have so peculiar a reference to 
 her state of mind, that it seems impossible they could be 
 other than impromptu, strung together at the time : 
 
 " How should I your true love know from another one ? 
 By his cockle hat and staff, and his sandal shoon ? " 
 
 " He's dead and gone, lady, he's dead and gone ; 
 At his head a grass-green turf, at his heels a stone." 
 
124 OPHELIA. 
 
 " White his shroud as the mountain snow, 
 Larded all with sweet flowers, 
 Which bewept to the grave did go. 
 With true-love showers." 
 
 They well express the confused connection in the poor head, 
 between the death of her father, and the loss of her lover ; 
 the one is foremost on her lips, but it is not difficult to see 
 that the latter is uppermost in her thoughts. The same 
 confusion between the two sources of her sorrow is manifested 
 in all she says. In the lines — 
 
 " They bore him barefaced on the bier. 
 And in his grave rain'd many a tear ; — 
 Fare you well, my dove ! " — 
 
 the two first lines seem to go for the loss of her father — the 
 last for her lover. The same lucid confusion and imperfect 
 concealment are still more obvious in her distribution of 
 flowers. 
 
 Oph. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance : pray 
 you, love, remember : and there's pansies, that's for thoughts. 
 There's fennel for you, and columbines : — ^there's rue for you ; 
 and here's some for me : — we may call it, herb of grace 
 o' Sundays : — you may wear your rue with a difference. — 
 There's a daisy : — I would give you some violets ; but they 
 withered all when my father died : — They say, he made a 
 good end." 
 
 Well might her passionate brother, softened for a moment 
 by her grief and sweetness, exclaim — 
 
 " Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself. 
 She turns to favour, and to prettuiess." 
 
 For never was sentimental mania more truly and more ex- 
 quisitely depicted than in this effusion of mad song. 
 
 " Sie wiegte Schmerz und Sehnsucht 
 Und jeden Wunsch mit leisen Tdnen ein. 
 Da wurde Leiden oft Genuss, und selbst 
 Das traurige Gefiihl zur Harmonie." — Goethe's Tasso. 
 
OPHELIA. 125 
 
 It seems impossible that Shakespeare could have done 
 otherwise than drawn from the life in this character. He has 
 m truth and in deed verified the introductory observation, that 
 her mood will needs be pitied, for gentleness and goodness, 
 strugghng in the deepest affiction of which human nature is 
 capable, have never been more finely drawn ; and yet not 
 overdrawn, for in the vivid reality of the picture there is not 
 one touch of mawkishness. Compare, in this respect, the 
 love-lorn maiden of Sterne, poor Maiia, who allowed the 
 stranger to wipe away the tears that trickled down her cheeks 
 with his handkerchief, which he steeped in his own, and then 
 in hers, then in his own, untU it was steeped too much to be 
 of any further use. "And where will you dry it, Maria?" 
 said I. " I will dry it in my bosom," said she, " it will do me 
 good." One never meets with such bathos of sentiment as 
 this in the real insane, nor in the insane characters of the 
 great master. Opheha's prettinesses are as natural as they 
 are touching. The freshness of reality encircles her head 
 like the wild flowers with which she weaves her garlands. 
 This fantastical dress of straws and flowers is a common habit 
 of the insane, but it seems more natural in Opheha than 
 in the angry and raging madness of old Lear, in whom it 
 is also represented. The picture of her iusanity is perfected 
 by many other touches as natural and true. She 
 
 " Spurns enviously at straws ; speaks things in doubt. 
 That carry but half sense." 
 
 She winks, and nods, and makes gestures, which have the 
 double effect of breeding dangerous conjectures iu the 
 minds of the people, and of delineating, with exactness, the 
 habits and practices of gentle but general mania. There is 
 no consistency m her talk, or rather, there is only the con- 
 sistency of incoherence, with two prominent ideas, the loss of 
 her lover, and her father's death. 
 
126 OPHELIA. 
 
 " Well, God'ield you ! they say the owl was a baker's daugh- 
 ter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we 
 may be. God be at your table ! " 
 
 "You must sing, Down a-down, an you call Aim a-dotun-a. 
 O, how the wheel becomes it ! It is the false steward, that 
 stole his master's daughter." 
 
 Compare this perfect incoherence with the apparent inco- 
 - herence of Hamlet, whose replies, as Polonius observes, are 
 often more pregnant of indirect meaning, than reason and 
 sanity could be. There is no hidden meaning in aught that 
 poor Ophelia says. When for a moment she wanders from 
 her leading traia of thought, the consequency of ideas is 
 utterly lost. Even at the last, when she has fallen into 
 the weeping -brook, she has no appreciation of her danger. 
 
 " Her clothes spread wide ; 
 And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up : 
 Which time, she chanted snatches of old tunes. 
 As one incapable of her own distress." 
 
 Utterly lost, except to the insane train of ideas, she is as 
 iasensible to danger as a somnambuHst ; and singiag her life 
 away, she passes from the melody of madness to the silence of 
 the grave. rose of May ! too soon blighted ! but whose 
 perfume shall endure in a monument of immortal words, when 
 the tombs of Egyptian kings shall have crumbled into the 
 desert dust ! 
 
KING LEAR. 127 
 
 KING LEAR 
 
 Aye, eveiy inch a king, in all bis pompous vanity, his 
 reckless passion, his unstable judgment, a thorough king, 
 whom even madness could not dethrone from the royal 
 habits of authority, of strenuous will, and of proud predomi- 
 nance. As the highest mountain summit becomes the fearful 
 beacon of volcanic flame, testifying in lurid characters to 
 the world's deep heart-throes, so this kingliest of minds — 
 he who in his little world has been the summit and the 
 cope of things — ^becomes, in the creative hand of the poet, 
 the visible outlet of those forces which devastate the 
 ^oul. We stand by in reverential awe, despairing, with our 
 small gauge of criticism, to estimate the forces of this human 
 Etna. Oppressed by the power and magnitude of the 
 passions, as depicted in this most sublime and awful of 
 poetic creations, it is only after the senses have become 
 accustomed to the roar and turmoil that we throw off the 
 stupor, and dare to look down upon the throes of the Titan, 
 and begin to recognize the distinctive features of the fierce 
 commotion. Even then we must stand afar off ; for not in 
 Lear, as in others of the poet's great characters, can one 
 for a single moment perform the act of mental transmuta- 
 tion. In Hamlet, for instance, the most complex of aU, many 
 a man may see reflected the depths of his own soul. But Lear 
 is more and less than human in its isolated grandeur, in 
 the force and depth of its passions, in its abstraction from 
 
128 KING LEAR. 
 
 accidental qualities. In the breadth of his strength and 
 
 weakness he is painted like one of those old gods, older 
 
 and greater than the heathen representatives of small 
 
 virtues and vices — the usurping vulgarities of polytheism. 
 
 The true divinities of Lear were old, Hke himself very 
 
 old and kingly — Saturn and Rhea, the autochthones of 
 
 the heavens ; even as his quaUties are laid upon the dark 
 
 and far off, yet soHd and deep foundations of moral 
 
 personality. Well might this king of sorrows exclaim, in 
 
 the words of the World- spirit, to those who attempt to 
 
 tear his passions to tatters before the foothghts ; yea, 
 
 even to the more reverent efforts of critics — 
 
 " Du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst, 
 Nicht mir !" 
 
 Essajrists upon this drama have followed each other in 
 giving an account of the development of Lear's character 
 and madness, which we cannot but regard as derogatory 
 to the one, and erroneous in relation to the other. They have 
 described Lear as an old man, who determines upon abdication, 
 and the partition of his kingdom, while he is of sane mind, 
 and fully capable of appreciating the nature of the act. 
 Thence it becomes necessary to view the original character 
 of Lear as that of a vain weak old man ; thence it becomes 
 necessary to discuss the point when the faculties first give 
 way ; thence it becomes necessary to view the first acts of 
 the drama as a gross improbability. " Lear is the only 
 serious performance of Shakespeare," says Coleridge, " the 
 interest and situations of which are derived from the as- 
 sumption of a gross improbability." Such undoubtedly they 
 would be, if they were the acts of a sane mind ; but if, on 
 the contrary, it be accepted that the mind of the old king 
 has, from the first, entered upon the actual domain of un- 
 soundness, the gross improbability at once vanishes, and 
 the whole structure of the drama is seen to be founded. 
 
KING LEAR. 129 
 
 not more upon " an old story rooted in the popular faith," 
 than upon the verisimilitude of nature. The accepted ex- 
 planation of Lear's mental history, that he is at first a 
 man of sound mind, but of extreme vanity and feeble 
 power of judgment, and that, mider the stimulus of sub- 
 sequent insanity, this weak and shallow mind, develops 
 into the fierce Titan of passion, with clear insight into the 
 heart of man, with vast stores of life science, with 
 large grasp of morals and polity, with terrible eloquence 
 making known as with the voice of inspiration the heights 
 and depths of human nature ; that all this, under the 
 spur of disease, should be developed from the sterile mind 
 of a weak and vain old man ; this, iadeed, is a gross im- 
 probability, in which we see no clue to explanation. 
 
 Gross improbabilities of circumstance are not so rare in 
 Shakespeare. The weird sisters in Macbeth, and the ghost 
 in Hamlet, are certainly not more probable as events, than 
 the partition of Lear's kingdom. But there is one kind 
 of improbability which is not to be found in Shakespeare — ■ 
 the systematic development of goodness from badness, of 
 strength from weakness ; the union of that which, either 
 in the region of feehng or of intellect, is antagonistic and 
 incompatible. Even in depicting the mere creatures of the 
 imagination, Shakespeare is consistent ; we feel the fairy 
 to be a fairy, the ghost to be a ghost ; and even those 
 foul tempters in woman's form, 
 
 " Who look not like the inhabitants of the earth 
 And yet are on it," 
 
 are distinct, special, clear-cut creations of the poet's brain, 
 consistent in every characteristic with themselves : Ariel 
 is all aerial, and CaUban all earthly. In Shakespeare's 
 characters there is no monstrous union of fair with foulj 
 and foul with fair, as in those phantasms Avho opposed 
 Ruggier in the island of Alcina : 
 K 
 
130 KING LEAH. 
 
 " Alcun' dal collo in giii d'uomini lian forma, 
 Col viso altri di simie, altri di gatti ; 
 Stampano alcun' con pife caprigni rorma ; 
 Alcun son centauri a^li et atti ; 
 Son gioveni impudenti, e vecchi stolti, 
 Chi nudi, e chi di strane pelli involti." 
 
 There is nothing of this in the works of the Supreme 
 Mind, whose poem is created nature. There is nothing of 
 this in the works of that human mind, who, in the consistency 
 and power of his work, has attained the nearest approxi- 
 mation to his great Author. Neither ia nature, that is, in 
 the works of God, nor in high art, that is, in truthful 
 imitation of nature, is any such monster to be found as 
 a vain and weak old man developing into the strength and 
 grandeur of a prophet ; the voice of Isaiah in the mouth of 
 an imhecUe. 
 
 HaUam expresses unreservedly the opinion that Lear's 
 wondrous intellectual vigour and eloquence are the result of 
 his madness, and that the foundation of his character is that 
 of a mere " headstrong, feeble, and selfish being." 
 
 " In preparing us for the most intense sympathy with this 
 old man, he first abases him to the ground ; it is not (Edipus, 
 against whose respected age the gods themselves have con- 
 spired ; it is not Orestes, noble minded and affectionate, 
 whose crime has been virtue; it is a headstrong, feeble, 
 and selfish being ; whom, in the first act of the tragedy, 
 nothing seems capable of redeeming ia our eyes; nothing 
 but what follows — iatense woe, unnatural wrong. Then 
 comes on that splendid madness, not absurdly sudden as 
 in some tragedies, but in which the strings, that keep his 
 reasoning powers together, give way, one after the other, 
 in the frenzy of rage and grief. Then it is that we find, 
 what in life may sometimes be seen, the intellectual energies 
 grow stronger in calamity, and especially under wrong. An 
 awful eloquence belongs to unmerited suflfering. Thoughts 
 burst out more profound than Lear, in his prosperous hour, 
 could ever have conceived ; inconsequent, for such is the 
 
KING LEAR. 131 
 
 condition of madness, but in themselves fragments of co- 
 herent tnith, the reason of an unreasonable mind." 
 
 If this great and sound critic had possessed any practical 
 knowledge of mental pathology, he could not have taken 
 this view of the .development of the character. Intellectual 
 energy may, indeed, sometimes be seen to grow stronger 
 under, the greatest trials of life, but never when the result 
 of these trials is mental disease. So far as eloquence is 
 the result of passion, excitement of passion may stimulate 
 its display ; and it is remarkable that so long as Lear 
 retains the least control over his passion, his imagiaation 
 remains comparatively duU, his eloquence tame. It is only 
 when emotional expression is unbridled, that the majestic 
 flow of burning words finds vent. It is only when all the 
 barriers of conventional restraint are broken down, that the 
 native and naked force of the soul displays itself. The 
 display arises from the absence of restraint, and not from 
 the stimulus of disease. 
 
 The consistency of Shakespeare is in no characters more 
 close and true, than in those most difficult ones wherein 
 he portrays the development of mental unsoundness, as in 
 Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear ; into these he throws the 
 whole force of his genius ; in these he transcends, not 
 only all that other poets have effected before him, but all 
 that he has ever done himself. The border country be- 
 tween sanity and insanity — ^that awful region of doubt and 
 fear, where the distorted shadows of realities, and the chimeras 
 dire of the brain, are distinguishable in the sunless gloom of 
 our unreason by flickering corruscations of the fancy, by fog 
 meteors of humour, and by lightning flashes of passion — this 
 region his bold and fearless mind delights to explore, and to lead 
 those who can follow him, even as Virgil led Dante through 
 the circles of hell. He dehghts to observe and to explore it, 
 and, with his own clear Hght of genius, to look down 
 
132 KING LEAK. 
 
 upon it and through it, and to trace the wanderings and 
 the falls of the erring, misled, spirit ; but never, for one 
 moment, does he lose his own sharp and accurate faculty 
 of distinguishing reaUties and moral probabilities. In his 
 hands the development of an insane character is as strictly 
 amenable to law, as that of the most matter-of-fact and 
 eonamon-place sanity. In his hands the laws of mental 
 aberration are as sure as those of the most regular develop- 
 ment ; nay, they often tend to illustrate the latter, as 
 in the hands of a botanist a green petal proves the develop- 
 ment of the flower from the leaf. It is on the develop- 
 ment of insanity, the gradual loosening of the mind from 
 the props and supports of reason and of fact, the gradual 
 transition of the feehngs from their old habitudes and re- 
 lations to morbid and perverted excess, the gradual ex- 
 aggeration of some feehngs and the extinction of others 
 and the utter loss of mental balance resulting therefrom ; 
 it is Ln this passage from the state of man when reason 
 is on its throne to a state when the royal insignia of his 
 preeminence among God's creatures are defaced, that the 
 great dramatist dehghts to dwell. Other poets and drama- 
 tists have represented the developed state, either in fea- 
 tures so repulsive, that, Hke Gibber's statues of madness 
 at Bethlem, they need to be curtained from the vulgar 
 gaze, or like Gray's 
 
 "Moping maniac, laughing wild amidst severest woe," 
 
 they combine in an absurd manner qualities which neither 
 in the sane man nor the maniac can possibly co-exist. 
 
 Cervantes, indeed, has painted with exquisite skill the 
 half-lights of one form of insanity ; but Shakespeare alone 
 has described the transition period and the state of resis- 
 tance. It is remarkable within how small a compass all 
 that Shakespeare has wiitten on perfected madness may be 
 
KING LEAE. 133 
 
 brought ; namely, one short scene of Ophelia's madness, 
 and three scenes of the madness of Lear. 
 
 The "willfulness ivith which critics have refused to see the 
 symptoms of insanity in Lear, until the reasoning power 
 itself has become undeniably alienated, is founded upon 
 that view of mental disease which has, until recently, been 
 entertained even by physicians, and which is still maintained 
 in courts of law, namely, that insanity is an affection of the 
 intellectual, and not of the emotional part of man's nature. 
 The author of these essays was among the first to raise 
 the standard of revolt against this theory, in two articles 
 on the " Law and Theory of Insanity," ux the 24th and 25th 
 numbers of the Mecl/ico-Ghirurgical Review. The veteran 
 Guislain had already fuUy recognized the immense influence 
 of emotional suffering in the causation of insanity ; but the 
 wider and still more important principle, that morbid emotion 
 is an essential part of mental disorder, still remained a novel 
 doctrine. Any detailed exposition of the metaphysical and 
 psychological arguments, by which I have endeavoured to 
 maintain the validity of this doctrine, would here be out 
 of place. It may suffice to state, that with the exception of 
 those cases of insanity which arise from injuries, blood poisons, 
 sympathetic irritations, and other sources of an unquestionably 
 physical nature, the common causes of insanity are such as 
 produce emotional changes, either in the form of violent 
 agitation of the passions, or that of a chronic state of ab- 
 normal emotion, which pronounces itself in the habitually 
 exaggerated force of some one passion or desire, whereby 
 the healthy balance of the mind is at length destroyed. 
 From these and other reasons founded upon the symptom- 
 atology and treatment of insanity, upon the definite 
 operation of the reasoning faculties, and their obvious in- 
 ability to become motives for conduct without the inter- 
 vention of emotional influence, and also from the wide chasm 
 
IM KING LEAfi. 
 
 which intervenes, and must intervene, between all the legal 
 and medical definitions of insanity founded upon the intel- 
 lectual theory and the facts as they are observed in the broad 
 field of nature, the conclusion appears inevitable, that no 
 state of the reasoning faculty can, by itself, be the cause 
 or condition of madness ; congenital idiocy and acquired 
 dementia being alone excepted. The corollary of this is, that 
 emotional disturbance is the cause and condition of insanity. 
 This is especially obvious in the periods during which the 
 disease is developing ; "in the prodromic period of the dis^ 
 order, the emotions are always perverted while the reason 
 remains intact." Disorders of the intellectual faculties are 
 secondary ; they are often, indeed, to be recognized as the 
 morbid emotions transformed into perverted action of the 
 reason ; but in no cases are they primary and essential. 
 
 How completely is this theory supported by the develop- 
 ment of insanity, as it is pourtrayed in Lear ! Shakespeare, 
 who painted from vast observation of nature, as he saw it 
 without and felt it within, places this great fact broadly 
 and unmistakably before us. It has, indeed, been long 
 ignored by the exponents of medical and legal science, at 
 the cost of ever futile attempts to define insanity by its 
 accidents and not by its essence ; and, following this guid- 
 ance, the litei-ary critics of Shakespeare have completely 
 overlooked the early symptoms of Lear's insanity ; and, 
 according to the custom of the world, have postponed its 
 recognition until he is running about a fi:antic, raving, 
 madman. 
 
 Lear is kiag at a time when kings are kings. Upon 
 his wiU has hung the life and wealth, the being and the 
 having, of all around. Law exists indeed ; the reverend 
 man of justice and his yoke-feUow of equity are benched 
 high in the land, but be is the little godhead below. 
 
KING LEAR. 135 
 
 " Aye, every inch a king. 
 Wlien I do stare, see how the subject quakes !" 
 
 Perilous height, too giddy fpr the poor human brain ! 
 Uneasy lies the head which wears a crown! Unsafely 
 thinks the head which wears a crown ! The very first king 
 by divine appointment went mad. What are the statistics 
 of insanity among crowned heads ? Who can tell ? About 
 half a century ago, one fourth of the crowned heads of Europe 
 were insane, those of Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, 
 and England. But often the chariot of government may be 
 kept in the ruts of routine long after the guiding mind is 
 obscured. With trembling hands, royal servants and kins- 
 folk hold a veil before the piteous spectacle. Not as of old 
 does Nebuchadnezzar wear his chains in public. The wide 
 purple hides all, until the service becomes too dangerous ; 
 and then perchance the sharp remedy of the assassin's scarf 
 has to be apphed round Paul's, imperial neck. 
 
 Or the madness may not be quite so extreme, nor the 
 remedy so conclusive. It may be disguisable and tolerable 
 untU it abates, and the poor patient emerges to become one 
 of Mr. Carlyle's hero-kings. It may display itself, as in 
 Frederick Wilheim of Prussia, only in violence of langxiage 
 and conduct towards his children, in beatings and kickings, 
 in restless frightened nights and wanderings from chamber 
 to chamber, in terrors of assassination with loaded pistols 
 under the pillow, and yet the government machine be guided 
 by the frantic hand in an altogether admirable manner, 
 according to Mr. Carlyle, and those who bow down in pious 
 worship before power in high places, be it ever so wild. 
 
 And why should not Mr. Carlyle make a hero of his mad 
 king, who is also a dumb poet polishing to perfection prac- 
 tical unspoken stanzas, as that of his giant regiment, which 
 might irreverently be called one of his delusions? Why 
 not? since SchiUer has made a beautiful, all perfect hero 
 
I Za KING LEAK. 
 
 from the materials of an insane prince : Don Carlos, viko 
 in this country and in private station, might have found 
 his way to the criminal wards at Bethlem, to whom, in 
 fact, the sharp remedy of assassination had to be applied, 
 as to Muscovite PaviL Why not 1 except that poetry and 
 history are rather different things. 
 
 This fact of royalty in Lear; that he has been eighty 
 years and more a prince and king, that he is not only 
 despotic in authority but in disposition, that his will can 
 tolerate no question, no hindrance ; tKis, if not the pri- 
 mary cause of his lunacy, gives colour and form to it. 
 He strives to abdicate, but cannot ; even madness cannot 
 dethrone him ; authority is stamped legibly on his brow ; 
 he is not alone a mad man but a mad king. 
 
 Unhappy king, -what was thy preparation for thy crown 
 of sorrows, thy sceptre of woe ! Unlimited authority ; that is, 
 isolation. To have no equals, that is to say, no friends ; to be 
 flattered to the face, and told that there were gray hairs 
 in the beard before the black ones were there, pUed with 
 lies from early youth, (for this teaches that Lear was a 
 king before he wore a beard), and therefore to be set on 
 a pedestal apart from his kind, even from his own flesh 
 and blood, until all capacity to distinguish truth from false- 
 hood, affection from hypocrisy is lost, this is thy preparation. 
 
 Half a century of despotic power, yielded by a mortal of 
 rash and headstrong temper, and with vivid poetic imagi- 
 nation, may weU produce habitudes of mind to which any 
 opposition will appear unnatural and monstrous as if the laws 
 of nature were reversed, to which the incredible fact can 
 be accepted only with astonishment and unbounded rage. 
 
 But Lear's mind is conditioned by extreme age as 
 well as by despotism ; age which too often makes men 
 seMsh, unsympatMsiag, and unimpressible ; age, which in 
 some "hardens the heart as the blood ceases to run, and 
 
KING LEAR; 137 
 
 the cold snow strikes down from the head and checks the 
 glow of feeling," in others, is the occasion of stronger 
 passion and hotter temper. A sad state, one of labour 
 and sorrow, and dangerous to happiness, honour, and 
 sanity. The natural state of old age is, that the judgment 
 matures as the passions cool ; but a tendency of equal 
 force is, that the prevailing habitudes of the mind strengthen 
 as years advance ; and a man who, in "the best and 
 soundest of his time hath been but rash," feels himself, 
 and makes those around him feel, " not alone, the imper- 
 fections of engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly 
 waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with 
 them ;" a maxim not less true because it is the heartless 
 observation of a thankless child, and one capable of being ex- 
 tended to almost all the prevailing emotions and tendencies 
 of man. In old age, the greedy man becomes a miser; in 
 old age, the immoral man becomes the shameless repro- 
 bate ; in old age, the unchecked passions of manhood tend 
 to develop themselves iato the exaggerated proportions of 
 insanity. How stem a lesson is the foUy, the extravagance, 
 and the vice of old men, that whUe it is yet time, passion 
 should be brought into subjection, and the proportions and 
 balance of the mind habitually submitted to the ordiaances 
 of the moral law ! 
 
 It is worthy of remark that Lear's age is physically 
 strong and vigorous ; he has been a warrior as well as a 
 kiag. 
 
 " I've seen the day with my good biting falchion 
 I would have made them sMp." 
 
 Even at liie last he has vigour enough to kill the slave 
 who was hanging Cordelia. He is a keen hardy hunts- 
 man, and he rides from the house of one daughter to 
 that of another with such speed, that his strong willing mes- 
 senger can scarcely arrive before him by riding night and 
 
138 KINGf LEAR. 
 
 day. Physically, therefore, he is a strong, hale, vigorous 
 man ; and the desire he expresses to confer his cares on 
 younger strengths, that he may "unburthened crawl to- 
 wards death," is either a specious reason for his abdication, 
 or one which has sole reference to the consciousness of that 
 failing judgment which is obvious to others, and probably 
 not unfelt by himself; and which his daughter so cruelly 
 insinuates when he claims her gratitude. 
 
 This state of hale bodily strength in senile mania is true to 
 nature ; it is observed, both ia second childhood, that is, in. 
 the dementia of old age, and in the insanity of old age, 
 that the physical powers are commonly great — ^the body out- 
 Uves the mind — or to speak more physiologically and truth- 
 fully, some functions of the body remain regular and vigorous, 
 while others suflFer morbid excitement or decay ; general 
 nutrition retains its power, while the nutrition of the brain 
 becomes irregular or defective. 
 
 Coleridge justly observes, that " it was not without fore- 
 thought, nor is it without its due significance, that the 
 division of Lear's kingdom is, in the first six Hues of the 
 play, stated as a thing determined ia all its particulars 
 previously to the trial of professions, as the relative rewards- 
 of which the daughters were to be made to- consider their 
 severa portions." "They let us know that the trial is a 
 silly trick, and that the grossness of the old king's rage 
 is in part the result of a silly trick suddenly and most 
 unexpectedly baffled and disappointed." 
 
 That the trial is a mere trick is unquestionable ; but is 
 not the significance of this fact greater than Coleridge sus- 
 pected ? Does it not lead us to conclude, that from the 
 first the king's mind is off its balance ; that the partition 
 of his kingdom, involving inevitable fends and wars, is 
 the first act of his developing insanity ; and that the man- 
 ner of its partition, the mock-trial of his daughters' affec- 
 
KING LEAH. 1S9 
 
 tions, and its tragical denouement, is the second, and 
 but the second act of his madness ? The great mind, 
 so vigorous in its mad ravings, with such clear insight 
 into the heart of man that aU the petty coverings of pre- 
 tence are stripped off in its wild eloquence, not only 
 IS unable to distinguish between the most forced and ful- 
 some flattery and the genuineness of deep and silent love ; 
 It cannot even see the folly of assuming to apportion 
 the three exact and predetermined thirds of the kingdom 
 according to the professions made in answer to the "silly 
 trick ;" cannot even see that after giving away two-thirds, 
 the remainder is a fixed quantity, and cannot be more or 
 less according to the warmth of the professions of his 
 youngest and favorite daughter ; a confusion not unlike the 
 the account he subsequently gives of his own age — "four 
 score and upwards ; not an hour more or 4ess." 
 
 With what courtly smoothness of pretence goes on the 
 toocking scene, until Cordelia's real love, and obstinate temper, 
 and disgust at her sister's hyprocrisy, and repugnance perhaps 
 at the trick she may see through, interrupt the old king's 
 complacent vanity ; and then the astonishment, the retained 
 breath, the short sentences, the silence before the storm ! 
 and then the outbreak of unbridled rage, in that terrible 
 curse in which he makes his darling daughter — her whom 
 he loved best, whom he looked to as the nurse of his 
 age — for ever a stranger to his heart ! It is madness 
 or it is nothing. Not, indeed, raving, incoherent," formed 
 mania, as it subsequently displays itself ; but exaggerated 
 passion, perverted affection, enfeebled judgment, combining 
 to form a state of mental disease — incipient indeed, but 
 still disease — in which man, though he may be paying for 
 past errors, is for the present irresponsible. 
 
 The language in which is couched the expostulations of 
 the noble-minded Kent collected and even-tempered in all his 
 
140 KING LEAR. 
 
 devoted loyalty and self-sacrifice, shews the impression which 
 this conduct makes upon the best and boldest mind present : 
 
 "Be Kent unmannerly 
 When Lear is mad." 
 
 " With better judgment check 
 This hideous rashness." 
 
 " Kill thy physician and thy fee bestow 
 Upon the foul disease." 
 
 Lear's treatment of Kent ; his ready threat in reply to 
 Kent's deferential address, which, in the words of true devo- 
 tion, only looks like the announcement of an expostulation ; 
 his passionate interruptions and reproaches ; his attempted 
 violence, checked by Albany and Cornwall ; and finally the 
 cruel sentence of banishment, cruelly expressed : all these 
 are the acts of a man in whom passion has become disease. 
 In the interview with France and Burgundy the seething 
 passion is with difficulty suppressed by the rules of decorum 
 and kingly courtesy. To CordeUa's entreaty that Lear 
 would let the King of France know the simple truth of 
 his displeasure, only the savage reply is given — 
 
 "Better thou 
 Hadst not been born than not have pleased me better ;" 
 
 and he casts out his once loved daughter — ^the darling of 
 his heartj the hope of his age — without his grace, his love, 
 his benison. 
 
 AU this is exaggerated passion, perverted affection, weak- 
 ened judgment ; all the elements, in fact, of madness, except 
 incoherence, and delusion. These are added later, but they 
 are not essential to madness ; and as we read the play, 
 the mind of Lear is, from the first, in a state of actual 
 unsoundness, or, to speak more precisely, of disease. The 
 conference between Regan and Goneril, which ends the 
 scene, seems to prove this view correct ; for, although they 
 attribute their father's outrageous conduct to the infir- 
 
KING LEAB. 141 
 
 mity of age, it is evident it has surprised and alarmed 
 them. His sudden changes, unguarded by any judgment, 
 are evidently a new thing to these selfish and clear-sighted 
 observers ; although, indeed they are but the exaggerated 
 iresidts of long habits of rule and rashness, matured into a 
 state which renders him unfit for the exercise of authority. 
 
 Gon. You see how fuU of changes his age is ; the obser- 
 vation we have made of it hath been little ; he always loved 
 our sister most ; and with what poor judgment he hath now 
 cast her off, appears too grossly. 
 
 Reg. 'Tis but the infirmity of his age : yet he hath ever 
 but slenderly known himself. 
 
 Gon. The best and soundest of his time hath been but 
 rash ; then must we look from his age to receive, not alone 
 the imperfections of long-engraffed condition, but therewithal, 
 the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring 
 with them. 
 
 Reg. Such inconstant starts are we like to have from him, 
 as this of Kent's banishment. 
 
 Gon. There is further compliment of leave-taking between 
 France and him. Pray you, let us sit together : if our father 
 carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last sur- 
 render of his will but offend us. 
 
 Reg. We shall further think of it. 
 
 Gon. We must do something, and i' the heat." 
 
 Goneril speedily finds that such authority as her old 
 father chooses to exercise does offend her. He strikes her 
 gentleman for chiding his fool ; wrongs her, as she thinks, 
 by day and night; every hour he flashes, as she thinks, 
 into one gross crime or other ; he upbraids her on every 
 trifle. She '11 not endure it. She has no love for the old 
 mai, and little patience for his infirmities, whether they 
 be those of native disposition, of dotage, or of disease ; 
 
 " Idle old man. 
 That still would manage those authorities 
 That he hath given away ! Now, by my life, 
 Old fools are babes again ; and must be us'd 
 With checks as flatteries — ^when they are seen, abus'd." 
 
142 KING LEAH. 
 
 Strong as lier language has been on her father's constant 
 ■wrongs to her, and his 'gross crimes,' Goneril attri- 
 butes them to the eiJects of dotage, and appears to entertain 
 no suspicion that real madness is threatening. It is not 
 till long after — in the third act, when Glo'ster is " tied to 
 the stake" — that the old king's insanity is recognized by 
 one of his ungrateful daughters ; Regan asking — 
 
 "To whose hands have you sent the lunatic king?" 
 Soon after Goneril' s exposition of the terrain, Lear enters 
 from hunting, hungry and impatient — 
 
 "Let me not stay a jot for dinner, go get it ready." 
 
 A collected conversation with disguised Kent follows, and 
 then the steward appears to put upon him the predeter- 
 mined insolent negHgence, which his mistress had given 
 him instructions for. Lear, in his magnanimity, does but 
 half see it, and requires to have his attention directed to 
 it by the knight, whose keener observation has remarked 
 the great abatement of kindness, and lack of ceremonious 
 attention, which has been latterly shewn to his master. 
 The king has seen it too, but had rather blamed his own 
 jealous curiosity, than permitted himself to think the un- 
 kindness was intentional. Even now he throws off the 
 thought Kghtly, and calls eagerly for that strange being, 
 that wonderful medley of wit and philosophy, of real affec- 
 tion and artificial folly, " my fool ! " whom he loves none 
 the less for his attachment to disgraced Cordeha. 
 
 " Knight. Since my young lady's going into France* the 
 fool hath much pined away. 
 
 Lear. No more of that, I have noted it well." 
 
 Silent repentance for his rash and cruel treatment of this 
 weU-loved daughter hath already touched the old man's 
 heart. But the transitions of feeling are more rapid than 
 the changes of sunshine and shade in an April day. In 
 
KING LEAR. 143 
 
 the next sentence, he is in unmeaisured rage with the 
 steward for his insolent reply, and has no control over 
 his tongue or his hands : 
 
 " My lady's father ! my lord's knave ! you whoreson dog ! 
 you slave ! you cur ! " " Do you bandy looks with me, you 
 rascal ? [Striking him.\ " 
 
 Enough of Lear's violence, both in language and con- 
 duct is manifested, to confirm the truth of Goneril's harsh 
 accusations. It must be owned that the old king has 
 a terrible tongue, and a quick and heavy hand. The 
 slightest opposition throws him into violent and out- 
 rageous speech and behaviour, Httle likely to be endured 
 with patience, except by those who have strong motives 
 for it in love or duty or interest. It is strange, however, 
 with what patience he endures the bitter taunts and 
 sarcasm of his fool. They seem only to pique his curiosity, 
 and to excite his interest in the gladiatorial display of 
 wit and folly. The fool, indeed, is "a bitter fool," "a 
 pestilent gall," but his taunts are elicited, not repressed ; 
 and the "all-licensed fool" says to his master's face, and 
 without a word of reproof, fifty times more than had 
 brought upon Kent his cruel sentence of banishment. But 
 the talk with the fool is only a luU in the storm. 
 Goneril enters with a frontlet of frowns, and in a set 
 speech — ^harsh in its rythm even, and crabbed in its 
 diction — she accuses her old father of the rank and 
 not to be endured riots of his insolent retinue ; charges 
 him with allowing and protecting it, and threatens to 
 apply instant redress, whether it offend him or not. Too 
 much astonished to be angry, he exclaims, " Are you our 
 daughter?" She retorts with accusations personal to himself, 
 forcibly conveying the impression of Lear's changed state at 
 this period ; a point important to the view here maintained, 
 that from the first the old king's mind is off its balance, 
 
144 KING LEAR. 
 
 "Onn. I would you would make use of your good wis- 
 dom, whereof I know you are frauglit ; and put away 
 these dispositions, which of late transport yoii from what 
 you rightly are." 
 
 The altercation becomes warmer, the daughter's accu- 
 sations more pointed and offeusive. Her father's changed 
 dispositions are " new pranks," his knights, " debosh'd and 
 bold," infecting the court with their lewd and riotous man- 
 ners. The king is commanded, rather than requested, to 
 apply the remedy by diminishing and reforming his train. 
 If he does not, Goneril will do it herself — "will take the 
 thing she begs." The impression left on the mind is, that 
 GonerU's accusations are well founded ; urged, indeed, with- 
 out affection, or sense of gratitude or duty, or even of that 
 decent forbearauce towards the failings of the old king, 
 which a good woman would have felt had she not been 
 his daughter. Hitherto only the hard selfishness of Gone- 
 ril's character has been developed ; its dark mahgnancy 
 is unfolded by future events. However, she has struck 
 her old father on the heart with harsh and bitter words, 
 and his changing moods are now fixed into one master- 
 passion. Delusion and incoherency and other features of 
 insanity are added as the disease subsequently develops 
 itself ; but incontroUable i-age is nowhere more strongly ex- 
 pressed than in the execrations and curses which Lear 
 now hurls against his daughter. Eloquent as his terrible 
 curses are, they are without measui'e and frantic. He beats 
 his head, 
 
 " Oh, Lear, Lear, Lear ! 
 Beat at this gate that let thy foUy in, 
 And thy dear judgment out !" 
 
 He weeps, and is ashamed at the hot tears ; he weeps 
 for rage, and curses through his tears. He threatens to 
 resume his kingly power, and adds to Gonerir.s other sel- 
 
KING LEAR. l-iS 
 
 fishness, that of alarm. There cannot he a doubt that 
 
 at this time his conduct is thoroughly beyond his control. 
 
 He is beside himself, and insane. 
 
 Lear, who never appears more tranquil than when the 
 
 butt of the fool's jests, is diverted by them for a few 
 
 moments, and consents to laugh at his own folly ; but, 
 
 his thoughts run upon his injury to Cordeha, and the 
 
 one he has himself received : 
 
 " I did her wrong. 
 To take it again perforce ! Monster ingratitude ! " 
 
 He is conscious of his mental state, and even of its cause. 
 He feels the goad of madness akeady urging him, and strug- 
 gles and prays against it, and strives to push it aside. He 
 knows its cause to be unbounded passion, and that to be kept 
 in temper would avert it. 
 
 " Oh, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven ! 
 Keep me in temper ; I would not be mad ! " 
 
 This self consciousness of gathering madness is common 
 in various forms of the disease. It has recently been pointed 
 to by an able French author as a frequent symptom in that 
 form of insanity accompanied by general paralysis. Ac- 
 cording to my own observation, it is a far more common 
 symptom in that form of mania which developes gra- 
 dually from exaggeration of the natural character. A 
 most remarkable instance of this was presented in the 
 case of a patient, whose passionate but generous tem- 
 per became morbidly exaggerated after a blow upon the 
 head. His constantly expressed fear was that of im- 
 pending madness ; and when the calamity he so much 
 dreaded had actually arrived, and he raved incessantly and 
 incoherently, one frequently heard the very words of Lear 
 proceeding from his lips : " Oh, let me not be mad ! " 
 
 Lear struggles against this temper, which he feels is 
 leading towards madness ; and even against the plain 
 L 
 
146 KING LEAE. 
 
 evidence of his daughter's ingratitude, which iaflames 
 the temper. He will not understand Goneril's accu- 
 sations and threats, until they are expressed in lan- 
 guage too gross and cruel to be mistaken. In the same 
 manner he wiU not believe that Regan and Cornwall have 
 placed his messenger in the stocks. To Kent's blunt 
 assertion, it is both he and she — ^your son and daugh- 
 ter — he reiterates denial, and swears by Jupiter it is 
 
 not so : 
 
 " They durst not do't ; 
 They could not, would not, do't ; 'tis worse than murder, 
 To do upon respect such violent outrage ;" 
 
 and when conviction follows upon Kent's plain narrative 
 of his treatment and its occasion, rage almost chokes the 
 utterance. At first he struggles to repress its expression : 
 
 " Lear. 0, how this mother swells up towards my heart ! 
 Hysterica passio ! — down thou climbing sorrow. 
 Thy element is below ! " 
 
 He does not succeed long, and when denied access to his 
 child ; under the pretence of sickness, which he well recog- 
 nizes as the image of revolt and flying off; and when re- 
 minded, inopportunely enough, "of the fiery quality of the 
 duke," the climbuig sorrow will not be repressed : 
 
 " Lear. Vengeance ! plague ! death ! confusion ! — 
 Fiery ? what quality ? why, Gloster, Gloster, 
 I'd speak with the duke of Cornwall, and bis wife. 
 
 Olo. Well, my good lord, I have informed them so. 
 
 Lear. Inform'd them ! Dost thou understand me, man ? 
 
 Glo. Ay, my good lord. - 
 
 Lea/r. The king would speak with Cornwall ; the dear father 
 Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends, service : 
 Are they informed of this ? — My breath and blood ! — 
 Fiery ? the fiery duke ? — Tell the hot duke, that — 
 No, but not yet : — ^may be, he is not weU : 
 Infirmity doth stiU neglect all office, 
 Whereto our health is bound ; we are not ourselves, 
 When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind 
 
KING LEAR. 14)7 
 
 To suffer with the body ; 1 11 forbear ; 
 
 And am fallen out with my more headier will, 
 
 To take the indispos'd and sickly fit 
 
 Tor the sound man. — Death on my state ! wherefore 
 
 Should he sit here ? This act persuades me, 
 
 That this remotion of the duke and her 
 
 Is practice only. Give me my servant forth : 
 
 Go, tell the duke and his wife, I 'd speak with them, 
 
 Now, presently : bid them come forth and hear me. 
 
 Or at their chamber door I 'U beat the drum. 
 
 Till it cry — death to sleep. 
 
 Olo. I 'd have all weU betwixt you. 
 
 Lear. me, my heart, my rising heart ! — but down." 
 
 The first indication of commencing incoherence is seen in 
 
 this most affecting expression of the conflict within : — 
 
 "commands, tends, service;" — unless it be that the rapid 
 
 flow of ideas only permits the expression of the leading 
 
 words, omitting the connecting ones which would make 
 
 sense of them. There is more of sorrow, than of 
 
 haughty passion, in this conflict of emotion ; the strong will 
 
 resisting the stronger passion, and attempting to palliate 
 
 and explain the evidence of that indignity, upon which it 
 
 is too justly founded. The Fool's philosophy, that absurd 
 
 cruelty and absurd kindness have the same origin, is well 
 
 introduced at this pomt ; though little likely to attract his 
 
 frantic master's attention, whose unreasoning generosity 
 
 to his daughter is now replaced by unmeasured rage and 
 
 hatred. 
 
 " Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels, 
 when she put them i' the paste alive ; she knapp'd 'em o' the 
 coxcombs with a stick, and cry'd, Down, wardons, down : 
 'Twas her brother, that, in pure kindness to his horse, 
 butter'd his hay," 
 
 Lear is evidently more unwilling to quarrel with Regan 
 than he was with Goneril. He loves her better ; and in- 
 deed, if any difference can be marked between these most 
 bad women, the temper and disposition of Regan are 
 
148 KING LEAK. 
 
 certainly, far less repulsive than that of her fierce sister. 
 Black as her conduct undoubtedly is, viewed by itself, it 
 is but grey when brought into contrast with that of her 
 hellish sister — ^the adulteress, the murderess-poisoner, and 
 suicide. Lear himself acknowledges the difference between 
 them : 
 
 " No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse ; 
 Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give 
 Thee o'er to harshness ; her eyes are fierce, but thine 
 Do comfort, and not burn ;" 
 
 and it is remarkable that he does not curse Regan, except 
 in connection with her sister. His terrific imprecations 
 are heaped upon the head of Goneril alone, as if, with the 
 instinct of madness, he had recognized the dark supremacy 
 of her wickedness. When Regan, whom he appears to 
 have loved, joins the old man, his heart is somewhat 
 softened, and grief, for a moment, takes the place of pas- 
 sion ; yet it is passionate grief, choking its expression with 
 
 its intensity : 
 
 " Beloved Regan, 
 Thy sister 's naught : 0, Regan, she hath tied 
 Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here, — 
 
 [JPoints to his heart. 
 It not 
 
 I can scarce speak to thee ; thou 'It not believe 
 With how deprav'd a quality — O, Regan !" 
 
 He finds his convictions somewhat checked at this con- 
 juncture ; he does not meet with that sympathy from 
 Regan, which he has made sure that his injuries will 
 excite. She reasons with him, not accusingly and threaten- 
 ingly as Goneril, and yet not yielding a point of the ques- 
 tion at issue. She tells him the truth without flinching, 
 and strangely, without at first giving offence, as far as she 
 
 is concerned : 
 
 " 0, sir, you are old ; 
 Nature in you stands on the very verge 
 Of her confine : you should be rul'd and led 
 
KING LEAR. 149 
 
 By some discretion, that discerns your state 
 Better than you yourself." 
 
 One cannot but perceive, that if Regan had been per- 
 mitted to act without the bad interference of her fiend 
 sister, she might have ruled and led the old king without 
 seeming to do so, and have guided his madness in a less 
 turbulent channel ; but she takes side with her sister, 
 and suggests that the king should ask her forgiveness — the 
 forgiveness of a daughter. The old king kneels and adds 
 the eloquence of action to his reproof — unsightly tricks, as 
 Regan calls it — and certainly not dignified, nor consis- 
 tent with the demeanour of a sane king ; but adding terri- 
 ble force to the mockery of the suggested forgiveness, and 
 to the fierce imprecation which it calls forth ; " You 
 nimble Hghtnings," &c., during the utterance of which Lear 
 probably remains on his knees, with hands extended, to call 
 down " the stored vengeance of heaven," which he invokes. 
 
 He now returns to the outrage upon Kent. He will not 
 believe that Regan knew bn't, and is in a way, for the 
 present, to be easily soothed, if it had suited the plans of 
 the bad sisters to do so ; but Goneril appears, and all 
 goes wrong with him and with them : 
 
 " Who comes here ? 0, heavens. 
 If you do love old men, if your sweet sway 
 Allow obedience, if you yourselves are old, 
 Make it your cause ; send down, and take my part !" 
 
 Is there any passage more pathetic and sublime than 
 this, even in Shakespeare ? 
 
 Although Regan has immediately before defended the 
 conduct of Goneril, Lear is astonished that she should take 
 her by the hand ; but the unison of the sisters, made patent 
 to him by this act, recalls the cause of offence which he 
 has with Regan herself, and which he has referred to and 
 forgotten more than once : 
 
150 KINO LEAR. 
 
 " O, sides, you are too tough ! 
 Will you yet hold 1 How came my man i' the stocks ?" 
 
 This flightiness ^f thought, this readiness to take up a 
 subject strongly, and to lay it down again Ughtly, to run 
 from one subject to another, and still more, from one tem- 
 per to another, is a phase of mental disease approaching 
 that which is caQed- incoherency. At present, the sudden 
 changes of thought and feeling are capable of being re- 
 ferred to some cause recognizable, although inadequate. 
 In complete incoherency, the mind wanders from subject 
 to subject without any clue being apparent by which the 
 suggestion of thought by thought, or idea by idea, can be fol- 
 lowed and explained. In the sane mind one idea foUows 
 another, according to laws of suggestion, which vary in indivi- 
 duals, but are subject to general principles ; so that a man, 
 intimately acquainted with the mental peculiarities of ano- 
 ther, might give a very probable opinion as to the succes- 
 sion of any ideas which had passed through the well 
 known mind ; or, one idea being given, might guess 
 the character of the one which suggested it, and the one 
 which in turn it would suggest. But, in the mind of the 
 insane, these general principles of 'the succession of ideas 
 are abrogated. Doubtless there are rules of suggestion 
 and succession if we knew them, but for the most part 
 they are too strange and uncertain to be recognized ; 
 the mode of suggestion of ideas in one madman being 
 far more unUke that which exists in another madman, 
 than the different modes which exist among sane 
 people. Moreover, the genesis of thought differs 
 greatly in the same insane mind, during different periods 
 and phases of the malady. The idea of preaching, for in- 
 stance, in the present phase of Leair's insanity, would pro- 
 bably have suggested some sublime expression of moral 
 truth. At a later period it brought under his notice the 
 
KING LEAR. 151 
 
 make and material of his hat, and suggested cavalry shod 
 with felt, and the surprise and slaughter of his enemies. 
 The idea-chain of a sane mind is somewhat like the 
 images in a moving panorama ; one can tell, if the country 
 is known, what has preceded and what vnll follow any 
 particular scene ; but the sequence of ideas in the insane 
 mind is more Hke the arbitrary or accidental succession of 
 grotesque images, which are thrown on the curtain of a 
 magic lanthorn ; there is no apparent connection between 
 them, and no certainty of sequence : it is as if ideas were 
 suggested by the points and corners of those which pre- 
 cede, by the unessential parts, and not by their real na- 
 ture and character. This,, no doubt, is owing to the rapid 
 flow of ideas which takes place in these phases of insanity; 
 an idea is not grasped in its entirety, it only touches the 
 mind as it were, and^^ggests another. The Ideen-jagd 
 of the Germans is a good descriptive term for a common 
 form of incoherence. 
 
 Lear, however, is not yet incoherent; he is only approach- 
 ing that phase of the malady. He has entirely lost that 
 obstinate resolve, which his heady and passionate will 
 gave him at the commencement. He is flighty, even on 
 subjects of the most dire moment to him. He takes up 
 and lays down his determinations, with equal want of 
 purpose. This is evident in his hasty references to 
 the treatment which Kent has met with from the fiery 
 duke and Kegan. This flightiness of thought is accom- 
 panied by a rapid and undirected change of emotion, 
 a still weightier evidence of the mind's profound malady. 
 This is strongly marked in the speech to Goneril, whom, 
 in eight lines, he addresses in four different tempers : irri- 
 tation ; sadness, with some memory of affection ; followed 
 by an outburst of rage and hate ; and again by straining 
 patience : 
 
152 KING LEAR. 
 
 " Lear. I prithee daughter, do not make me mad ; 
 T mil not trouble thee, my child ; farewell ; 
 We '11 no more meet, no more see one another — - 
 But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter ; 
 Or, rather, a disease that 's in my flesh. 
 Which I must needs call mine ; thou art a boU, 
 A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle. 
 In my corrupted blood. But I '11 not chide thee ; 
 Let shame come when it will, I do not call it. 
 I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot. 
 Nor teU tales of thee to high-judging Jove ■■" 
 
 This state of mind is further evident from the sudden 
 change of his resolution to return home and reside with 
 Goneril, because he believes that she will let him have 
 more attendants than her sister. He has just before de- 
 clared that he would rather " abjure all roofs," or " knee 
 the throne of France," or be "slave and sumpter to this 
 detested groom," than return with her ; and yet, because 
 Regan entreats him to bring but five-and-twenty followers, 
 assigning as good reason : 
 
 " How, in one house, 
 Should many people, under two commands. 
 Hold amity ? 'Tis hard, almost impossible '" — 
 
 he forgets all the comparisons he has drawn between 
 
 her and Goneril, so unfavourable to the latter ; he 
 
 forgets his deep-rooted hatred to Goneril, and proposes 
 
 to return home with her : 
 
 " I '11 go with thee ; 
 Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty, 
 And thou art twice her love." 
 
 At this point the mind seems almost falling into fatuity; 
 yet it is but for a moment, for immediately after comes 
 that outburst of eloquence : " O, reason not the need," &c., 
 the grandeur of which it would be difiicult to overmatch 
 with any other passage from dramatic literature. It con- 
 cludes, not with expressions of noble anger, but with 
 those of insane rage, at a loss for words to express itself. 
 
KING LEAK. 153 
 
 " No, you unnatural hags, 
 I will have such revenges on you both. 
 
 That aU the world shall , I wiU do such things . 
 
 What thej' are yet I know not ; but they shall be 
 The terrors of the earth. You think I '11 weep ; 
 No, I 'U not weep : — 
 
 I have full cause of weeping ; but this heart 
 ShaHTbreak into a hundred thousand flaws, 
 Or ere I 'U weep : — O fool, I shall go mad !" 
 
 It is the climax of his intercourse with these daughters, 
 who turn their backs on him and bar their doors. Not 
 yet do they directly plot against his life. He rushes 
 into the stormy night, such a night that nature seldom 
 sees, such a storm that " man's natm'e cannot carry the 
 affliction nor the fear." He escapes from the cruel 
 presence of his daughters to the bare heath, where " for 
 many miles about, there's scarce a bush." Here, in com- 
 pany with the fool, " who labours to out-jest his heart- 
 struck injuries," in reckless, frantic rage, he "bids what 
 will take all." On this scene Coleridge finely remarks, 
 
 " What a world's convention of agonies is here ! All 
 external nature in a storm, all moral nature convulsed, — ^the 
 real madness of Lear, the feigned madness of Edgar, the 
 babbling of the Fool, the desperate fidelity of Kent — surely 
 such a scene was never conceived before or since ! Take it 
 but as a picture for the eye only, it is more terrific than any 
 which a Michael Angelo, inspired by a Dante, could have 
 conceived, and which none but a Michael Angelo could have 
 executed. Or let it have been uttered to the blind, the how- 
 lings of nature would seem converted into the voice of con- 
 scious humanity. This scene ends with the first symptoms of 
 positive derangement." 
 
 Hardly so ; it is but the climax of the disease, the catas- 
 trophy of the mind history. The malady, which has existed 
 from the first, has increased and developed, until it is now 
 completed. And yet writers generally agree with Coleridge 
 in considering that Lear only becomes actually insane 
 
154 KING LEAE. 
 
 at this point, and some indeed have endeavoured to 
 mark the precise expression which indicates the change 
 from sanity to insanity. That which they (under the vulgar 
 error that raving madness, accompanied by delusion, is 
 alone to be considered real insanity) take to be the first 
 signs, I may enquire into as the signs of the first crisis, or 
 complete development of the disease. It is to be remarked 
 that Lear's first speeches in the storm, beginning 
 
 " Blow winds and crack your cheeks ; rage, blow ! " 
 " Eumble thy beUyfuU, spit fire, spout rain ! " 
 
 and even his frantic demeanour, as be contends unbon- 
 neted with the elements, are the same in character as 
 his language and conduct have been hitherto. There is 
 no difierence in quality, although the altered circumstances 
 make the language more inflated, and the conduct more wild. 
 He has, before this time, threatened, cursed, wept, knelt, 
 beaten others, beaten his own head. Under the exciting in- 
 fluence of exposure to a storm so terrible as to awe the bold 
 Kent who never, since he was a man, remembers the hke ; 
 under this excitement, it is no wonder that the " poor, infirm, 
 weak, and despised old man," should use the extremest 
 emphasis of his eloquence. These speeches, therefore, do not 
 more appear the frantic rant of insanity than much which has 
 preceded them. Still less can I admit, as evidence of delusion, 
 the accusation directed against the elements, that they are 
 "servile ministers" of his "pernicious daughters." This seems 
 but a trope of high-flown eloquence, consistent with the cha- 
 racter and the circumstances. The real critical point where 
 delusion first shews itself I place a little further on, where 
 Lear for the first time sees Edgar, and infers, with the veri- 
 table logic of delusion, that a state of misery so extreme 
 must have been the work of his unkind daughters. Before 
 this point, however, is reached, an event occurs very 
 notable, although likely to escape notice, than which there 
 
KING LEAR. 155 
 
 IS nothing in this great case from the poet's note book 
 more remarkably illustrating his profound knowledge of 
 mental disease, not only in its symptomalology, but in 
 its causation and development. It is the addition of 
 a 'physical cause to those moral causes which have long 
 been at work. 
 
 Lear's inflated speeches, which indicate resistance to the 
 warring elements, are followed by a moment of resignation 
 and of calm, as if he were beaten down by them. He 
 "will be a pattern of all patience." He thinks of the 
 crimes of other men, in that speech of regal dignity : " Let 
 the great gods find out their enemies now." He is "a 
 man more sinned against than sinning." The energy of rage 
 and of frantic resistance has passed by. Calmer thought 
 succeeds, and then comes this remarkable admission : 
 
 " My wits begiu to turn, 
 Come on, my boy : How do'st my boy ? art cold 1 
 I'm cold myself. — Where is this straw, my fellow ? 
 The art of our necessities is strange. 
 That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel ; 
 Poor fool and knave, I 've one string in my heart 
 That 's sorry jet for thee." 
 
 The import of this must be weighed with a speech in the last 
 act, when Lear is incoherent and full of delusion, but 
 calmer than at this time, and with the reason and im- 
 pertinency mixed of complete mania: 
 
 "When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to 
 make me chatter ; when the thunder would not peace at my 
 bidding ; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, 
 they are not men o' their words ; they told me I _was 
 everything : 'tis a lie : I am not ague proof." 
 
 This is thoroughly true to nature. Insanity, arising 
 from mental constitution, and moral causes, often con- 
 tinues in a certaia state of imperfect development ; that 
 state which has been somewhat miscalled by Prichard, 
 
156 KING LEAR. 
 
 moral insanity ; a state of exaggerated and perverted emo- 
 tion, accompanied by violent and irregular conduct, but 
 unconnected vcith intellectual aberration ; until some phy- 
 sical shock is incurred — ^bodily iUness, or accident, or ex- 
 posure to physical suffering ; and then the imperfect type 
 of mental disease is converted into perfect lunacy, cha- 
 racterised by more or less profound affection of the intellect, 
 by delusion or incoherence. This is evidently the case in 
 Lear, and although I have never seen the point referred to by 
 any -writer, and have again and again read the play without 
 perceiving it, I cannot doubt from the above quotations, and 
 especially from the second, in -which the poor madman's im- 
 perfect memory refers to his suffering in the storm, that Shake- 
 speare contemplated this exposure and physical suffering as the 
 cause of the first crisis in the malady. Our -wonder at his 
 profound kno-wledge of mental disease increases, the more 
 carefully we study his -works ; here and else-where he dis- 
 plays with prolific carelessness a knowledge of principles, half 
 of which, if well advertized, would make the reputation of a 
 modern psychologist. 
 
 It is remarkable, that in the very scene where Lear's 
 madness is perfected, his first speeches are peculiarly reason- 
 ing and consecutive. Shakespeare had studied mental dis- 
 ease too closely, not to have observed the frequent concur- 
 rence of reason and unreason ; or the facile transition 
 from one state to the other. Li Lear, his most perfect 
 and elaborate representation of madness, he never rep- 
 resents the mental power as utterly lost ; at no time 
 is the iateUectual aberration so complete that the old 
 king is incapable of wise and just remark. He is as a 
 rudderless ship, which fiUs her sails from time to time, and 
 directs her course aright, and to the eye observing for the 
 moment only, her stately and well directed course speaks 
 of no want of guidance ; but inward bias, or outward force. 
 
KING LEAR. 157 
 
 destroys the casual concurrence of circumstances to pro- 
 duce a right direction, and the next moment she is tossing 
 in the trough of the sea, with sails a-back, drifting help- 
 less, the sport of -wind and wave. 
 
 Lear's first speech in this scene, contains a profound psycho- 
 logical truth : Kent urges him to take shelter in a hovel from 
 the tyranny of the night, too rough for nature to endure ; Lear 
 objects that the outward storm soothes that which rages with- 
 in, by diverting his attention from it ; which he may well feel 
 to be true, though the exposure and physical suffering 
 are at the very time telling with fearful effect upon 
 his excited, yet jaded condition. In the excitement of insanity 
 physical injury is not perceived, for the same reason that a 
 wound is not felt in the heat of battle. But the injury is not 
 the less received, and the sanatory guardianship of pain being 
 abrogated, is more likely to be endured to a fatal extent 
 without resistance or avoidance. It is a cruel mistake, that 
 the insane are not injured by hardships from which they do 
 not appear to suffer. I have heard a barrister urge the 
 argument to exonerate the most heartless and cruel neglect. 
 
 " Lear. Thou thinkst 't is much, that this contentious storm 
 
 Invades us to the skin : so 'tis to thee ; 
 
 But where the greater malady is fix'd. 
 
 The lesser is scarce felt. Thou'dst shun a bear ; 
 
 But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea, 
 
 Thoud'st meet the bear i' the mouth. "When the mind 's free 
 
 The body 's deHcate : the tempest in my mind 
 
 Doth from my senses take aU feeling else. 
 
 Save what beats there. — Filial ingratitude ! 
 * % * 
 
 O, that way madness lies ; let me shun that ; 
 No more of that" — 
 
 This is the last speech of which there have been so many, 
 expressing the consciousness of coming madness, which now 
 yields to the actual presence of intellectual aberration ; the ex- 
 cited emotions of unsound mind giving place to the delusions 
 
158 KING LEAR. 
 
 and incoherence of mania. There is one more speech before 
 delusion appears. Lear will not enter the hovel because the 
 tempest will not give him leave to ponder on things 
 which would hurt him more ; and yet he yields with 
 meekness unnatural to him : he will go in, and then 
 " I 'U pray and then I 'U sleep ; " and then comes that 
 calm and pitiful exordium to houseless poverty, that royal 
 appeal for " poor naked wretches," whose cause has been 
 pleaded in these recent days with so much success by 
 the great power which now acts in the place of des- 
 potic authority — the power of the press. What Lear 
 thought, under the tyi-anny of the wild storm, the great 
 and wealthy have recently felt under the newspaper appeals, 
 which have so forcibly and successfully brought the cause 
 of the houseless poor to their knowledge. 
 
 And now intellectual takes the place of moral distur- 
 bance. It is remarkable how comparatively passionless' the 
 old king is, after intellectual aberration has displayed itself. 
 It is true, that even in his delusions he never loses the 
 sense and memory of the fiUal ingratitude which has been 
 the moral excitant of his madness ; but henceforth he ceases 
 to call down imprecations upon his daughters ; or with con- 
 fused sense of personal identity, he curses them, as the 
 daughters of Edgar. It is as if in madness he has found 
 a refuge from grief, a refuge which Gloster even envies 
 when he finds his own wretchedness " deprived that benefit 
 to end itself by death :" 
 
 " Gloster. The king is mad : How stiff is my vile sense, 
 That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling 
 Of my huge sorrows ! Better I were distract : 
 So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs ; 
 And woes, by strong imaginations lose 
 The knowledge of themselves." 
 
 To lose the sovereignty of reason is, indeed, to be de- 
 graded below humanity : 
 
KING LEAB. 159 
 
 •* . 
 
 " A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch ; 
 
 Past speaking of in a king !" 
 
 and yet, Hke the grave itself, it may be a refuge from 
 intense agony. As the hand of mercy has placed a limit 
 even to physical suffering in senseless exhaustion or for- 
 getful delirium, so in madness it has raised a barrier against 
 the continuance of the extreme agony of the soul. Madness 
 may, as in acute melancholia, be the very climax of moral 
 suffering ; but in other forms it may be, and often is, the 
 suspension of misery — ^the refuge of incurable sorrow. This 
 is finely shewn in Lear, who, from the time that his wits, 
 that is, his intellects, unsettle, is not so much the subject 
 as the object of moral pain. His condition is past speaking 
 of, to those who look upon it, but to himself it is one of 
 comparative happiness, like the delirium which shortens 
 the agony of a bed of pain. The second crisis, indeed, 
 arrives — the crisis of recovery ; and then he experiences 
 a second agony like that of a person reviving from the 
 suspended animation of drowning. 
 
 The king recognizes, in Edgar's miserable state, a re- 
 flection of his own ; and the intellect, now in every way 
 prepared by the accumulation of moral suffering and phy- 
 sical shock, falls into delusion and confusion of personal 
 identity : 
 
 " Lear. Didst thou give all to thy daughters ? 
 And art thou come to this ? " 
 
 " Lear. Now, aU the plagues that in the pendulous air 
 Hang fated o'er men's faults, hght on thy daughters ! 
 
 Kerd. He hath no daughters, sir. 
 
 Lear. Death, traitor ! nothing could have subdued nature 
 To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters. — 
 Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers 
 Shoidd have thus little mercy on their flesh 1 
 Judicious punishment ! 't was this flesh begot 
 Those peUcan daughters." 
 
 The next speech is a wonderful example of reason and 
 
160 KING LEAR. 
 
 madness. He seizes, in Edgar's nakedness, upon the first 
 suggestion of that train of thought which makes him the 
 grand Sartor Resartus of poetry : 
 
 "Lear. Thou were better in thy grave, than to answer with 
 thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. — Is man no 
 more than this ? Consider him well : Thou owest the worm 
 no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no 
 perfume : — Ha ! here 's three of us are sophisticated ! — Thou 
 art the thing itseK : unaccommodated man is no more but 
 such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. — Offj off, you 
 lendings ; — come ; unbutton here. [Tearing off his clothes." 
 
 Before this time he has placed a high value upon ap- 
 pearance and outward respect ; man's need must not be 
 argued ; the gorgeous robes and appurtenance of royalty 
 are of exaggerated value in his eyes ; but henceforth aU 
 is changed, and the spirit of that philosophy, which has 
 found modern expression in the grotesque and powerful 
 work of Carlyle, pervades aU his rational speech. He tears 
 his clothes, not in the common spirit of destructiveness, 
 which instigated the epileptic Orestes to the same act, 
 and which is seen in common operation where madmen 
 are accumulated ; he tears off his clothes as disguises of 
 the real man, as he afterwards tears off the disguise of 
 hypocritical modesty from the simpering dame whose face 
 presages snow ; as he afterwards tears off the disguises of 
 unequal justice ; and of the scurvy pohtician with glass eyes ; 
 and of the gilded butterflies of court ; and the pretences of 
 those who affect to look into the mysteries of things as 
 if they were God's spies ; the disguise, that is, of know- 
 ledge not possessed, the very inmost rind of Teufelsdreck 
 himself, the disguise of philosophy. This tendency of thought 
 is the ground of Lear's second delusion ; he recognizes in 
 Edgar, a philosopher, one who has practically reduced man 
 to his elements ; and he holds to the idea to the end of 
 the scene : 
 
KING LEAR. 161 
 
 " First let me talk with this philosopher : 
 What is the cause of thunder?" 
 
 He is serious enough in the opinion : 
 
 " Let me ask you one word in. private." 
 
 He will not go into the shelter which Gloster at so 
 much risk has provided, unless he is accompanied by his 
 " philosopher," his " good Athenian ;" and Gloster and Kent 
 are fain to permit the companionship of the abject Edgar : 
 " Let Viirin take the feUow." But ia the next scene ia 
 the farm house, this delusion has given way to a third : 
 Edgar and the Fool are believed to be the high justi- 
 ciaries of the kingdom, before whom Goneril and Regan 
 shall be tried. This easy change of delusion is true to 
 the form of insanity represented : acute mania, with rapid 
 flow of ideas, and tendency to incoherence. In the more 
 chronic forms of insanity, the delusions are more perma- 
 nent; but in this form they arise and subside, giving 
 place to others, with the rapidity thus faithfully represented. 
 
 At every stage the king recognizes his own madness. 
 At this point, when the somewhat blind perceptions of 
 Kent have only just recognized the fact, that " his wits 
 begin to unsettle," Lear eagerly acknowledges the com- 
 pleted reality : 
 
 "Fool. Pr'ythee, nuncle, teU me, whether a madman be 
 a gentleman, or a yeoman ? 
 
 Lea/r. A king ! a king !" 
 
 There never yet was an idea, sane or insane, which had 
 not its origin in a sensation, physical or emotional, or in 
 another idea. The laws of the genesis of thought are not 
 abrogated ia insanity : they only differ from those of the 
 healthy mind, as the physical laws of pathology differ from 
 those of physiology. Man's knowledge, indeed, of mental 
 law, is far less precise than that of physical law, and he 
 is far less able to trace its disturbed action. The means of 
 M 
 
162 KING LEAR. 
 
 making a probable conjecture at the genesis of Lear's 
 delusions are, however, left us. The first, respecting 
 Edgar's supposed daughters, is suggested by the lowness 
 to which his nature is subdued, which could only be 
 through his unkind daughters. The second is suggested 
 by Edgar's naked, unaccommodated manhood. The third 
 appears to have had its origia in a slighter suggestion, the 
 sight of a pair of joint stools, hard and warped, whom the 
 poor madman likens to his daughters, and for whose trial 
 he suddenly extemporizes a court of justice : 
 
 "Lear. It shall be done, I will arraign them straight : — 
 Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer : — [To Edgar. 
 Thou, sapient sir, sit here. \To the Fool.] — ^Now, ye she 
 foxes ! — * * *- » 
 
 Bring in the evidence. — 
 Thou robed man of justice, take thy place : — [To Edgar. 
 And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, \To the Fool. 
 
 Bench by his side : — You are of the commission. 
 Sit you too. [To Kent. 
 
 Edg. Let us deal justly. 
 
 Steepest or waJcest thou, jolly shepherd ? 
 
 Thy sheep he m the cm^n ; 
 And for ooie blast of thy Tninikin mouth. 
 Thy sheep shall taJce no harm. 
 Pur ! the cat is grey. 
 
 Lear. Arraign her first ; 't is Goneril. I here take my 
 oath before this honourable assembly, she kicked the poor 
 king her father. 
 
 Fool. Come hither, mistres ; Is your name Goneril ? 
 Lear. She cannot deny it. 
 
 Fool. Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool. 
 Lear. And here 's another, whose warp'd looks proclaim 
 What store her heart is made of. — Stop her there ! 
 Arms, arms, sword, fire ! — Corruption in the place ! 
 False justicer why hast thou let her 'scape ?" 
 
 Were it not for the comments of Kent and Edgar, this 
 scene would read as if Lear threw some voluntary mockery 
 into it ; but his amazed look which we learn from Kent, and 
 the pity with which Edgar is overwhelmed, prove its sad 
 
KING LEAR. 163 
 
 earnestness. It "would be most interesting could we know 
 how this scene was actually played under the. direction of 
 Shakespeare. It does not seem probable that he wished 
 to represent Lear as the subject of so extreme an hallu- 
 cination as that his daughters were present, in their own 
 figure and appearance, and that one of them escaped. It 
 is more probable that he wished to represent them, per- 
 sonified by the excited imagination, in the form of the 
 stools ; and that Kent or Edgar, seeing the bad effects 
 which this vivid personification was working, snatched away 
 one of the stools ; and this produced the passionate explo- 
 sion on Regan's supposed escape. 
 
 There is little, indeed, which, in the features of madness, 
 Shakespeare allowed to escape his observation. Here, thrown 
 out with the carelessness of abundant wealth, is the knowledge 
 that the accusations of the insane are worthless as evidence . 
 " I here take my oath before this honourable assembly that 
 she kicked the poor king, her father." The honourable 
 assembly, doubtless, did not believe the precision of this 
 statement ; but assemblies more honourable, and real 
 official persons, who, at least, ought to possess a larger 
 knowledge of the peculiarities of the insane, have given 
 credence to the accusations of lunatics, like to this of 
 Lear's, except that they had no foundation in the reality 
 of unkindness : 
 
 " 'Tis the times' plague when madmen lead the blind." 
 
 In the speech, " Let them anatomize Regan," &c., passion 
 has, subsided into reflection ; the storm is past, the poor 
 old heart is tranquillized by exhaustion, the senses are falling 
 into the blessed oblivion of sleep : 
 
 " Make no noise, make no noise ; draw the curtains : 
 So, so ; — we 'E go to supper in the morning." 
 
 Even Kent now acknowledges that his dear master's wits 
 
 M 
 
164 KING LEAR. 
 
 are gone ; but trouble him not, he sleeps, and noble affec- 
 tion watches and hopes : 
 
 "Kent. Oppress'd nature sleeps : — 
 This rest might yet have balmed thy broken senses, 
 Which, if convenience will not allow. 
 Stand in haxd cure." 
 
 Hardly so, noble Kent. The mind's malady is too deep- 
 seated to be thus easily cured by nature's effort; nature's 
 sweet restorer wiU scarcely balm the wounds which have 
 so long festered. To use a surgical simUe, there can be 
 no \mion by first intention here ; sleep may terminate the 
 brief and sudden insanity of deHrium, but not this. If, 
 afterward, his "untuned and jarring senses" are actually 
 restored by the sweet influence of sleep, it is not by the 
 brief and insufficient sleep of exhaustion, but by that of 
 skillful and solicitous medication ; sleep, so long and pro- 
 found, that it is needful to disturb it ; sleep, the crown- 
 ing result of successful medical treatment, conducted in the 
 spirit of love and sympathy, and whose final remedy hangs 
 on the sweet lips of Cordelia. In mania, the broken sleep 
 of mere exhaustion does but renew the strength of excite- 
 ment ; but the profound sleep, resulting from skillful treat- 
 ment, is often the happy cause of restoration. 
 
 The intellectual and excited babbling of the Fool, and 
 the exaggerated absurdities of Edgar, are stated by Ulrici, 
 and other critics, to exert a bad influence upon the king's 
 mind. To persons unacquainted with the character of the 
 insane, this opinion must seem, at least, to be highly pro- 
 bable, notwithstanding that the evidence of the drama itself 
 is against it ; for Lear is comparatively tranquil in conduct 
 and language during the whole period of Edgar's mad 
 companionship. It is only after the Fool has disappeared 
 — ^gone to sleep at mid-day, as he says — and Edgar has left 
 to be the guide of his blind father, that the king becomes 
 
KING LEAR. 165 
 
 absolutely wild and incoherent. The singular and undoubted 
 fact was probably unknown to Ulrici, that few things tran- 
 quillize the insane more than the companionship of the 
 insane. It is a fact not easily expUcable, but it is one of 
 which, either by the intuition of genius, or by the informa- 
 tion of experience, Shakespeare appears to be aware. He 
 not only represents the fact of Lear's tranquillity in the 
 companionship of Edgar, of his sudden and close adherence 
 to him, though drawn thereto, perhaps, by delusions ; but 
 he puts the very opinion in the mouth of Edgar, although 
 applying it to his own griefs, and not to those of the king. 
 
 " Who alone suffers, suffers most i' the mind ; 
 Leaving free things and happy shows, behind : 
 But then the mind much sufferance doth o'er-skip, 
 When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship." 
 
 Edgar's assumed madness presents a fine contrast to the 
 reality of Lear's. It is devoid of reason, and full of pur- 
 pose. It has the fault, which to this day feigning maniacs 
 almost invariably commit, of extreme exaggeration. It 
 imposes upon the unskillful observation of Gloster, Kent, 
 and the others ; but could scarcely impose upon any experi- 
 enced judgment. Had Edgar himself found any future 
 need to repeat his deception, he might have taken lessons 
 as to the truer phenomena of diseased mind from the poor 
 old king, whom he observed from the covert of his dis- 
 guise, and have represented that characteristic of true 
 madness — "matter and impertinency mixed" — which he en- 
 tirely fails to exhibit. Edgar's account of his motives for 
 assuming this disguise to escape the hunt after his life, 
 is a curious illustration of the manner in which the insane 
 were permitted to roam the country, in the good old days : 
 
 " Whiles I may 'scape, 
 I wiU preserve myself : and am bethought 
 To take the basest and most poorest shape. 
 
166 KING LEAR. 
 
 t 
 
 That ever penury, in contempt of man, 
 Brought near to beast : my face I '11 grime with filth ; 
 Blanket my loins ; elf aU my hair in knots ; 
 And with presented nakedness out-face 
 The winds and persecutions of the sky. 
 The country gives me proof and precedent 
 Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, 
 Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms 
 Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary ; 
 And with this horrible object, from low farms. 
 Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills. 
 Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with, prayers, 
 Enforce their charity. — Poor Turlygood ! poor Tom ! 
 That 's something yet ; — Edgar I nothing am." 
 
 In Disraeli's " Curiosities of Literature," an interesting 
 and learned account is given of the singular mendicants, 
 known by the name of "Toms o' Bedlam." Bethlem, at 
 the time when Shakespeare wrote, "v^as a contracted 
 and penurious charity," with more patients than fmds, 
 and the governors were in the habit of relieving the 
 establishment by discharging patients whose cure was 
 very equivocal. These discharged patients, thrown upon 
 the world without a friend, wandered about the country 
 chanting wild ditties, and wearing a fantastical dress to 
 attract the notice and the alms of the charitable. Sir 
 Walter Scott suggested to Disraeli, " that these roving 
 lunatics were out-door pensioners of Bedlam, sent about 
 to live as well as they could on the pittance .granted by 
 the hospital" But, in addition to the true "Tom," there 
 was a counterfeit who assumed the grotesque rags, the 
 staff, the knotted hair of the real one, to excite pity or 
 alarm, and to enforce undeserved charity. These men, 
 who are described by Decker ia his " English Villanies " 
 were called "Abram men," and hence the phrase current 
 to the present day, to " sham Abram." They had a cant 
 language, a silly, rambling " Tnaund," or phrase of begging. 
 
KING LEAK. 167 
 
 The fullest source of information on this subject DisraeK 
 found in a manuscript note transcribed from some of 
 Aubrey's papers, which singularly elucidates a phrase which 
 has been the subject of some "perverse ingenuity" among 
 the critics — " Poor Tom, thy horn is dry !" 
 
 " Tin the breaking out of the civil wars, Toms of Bedlam, 
 did travel about the country ; they had been poor, distracted 
 men, that had been put into Bedlam, where, recovering some 
 soberness, they were licentiated to go a begging, i. e., they 
 had on their left arm an armiUa, or iron ring for the arm, 
 about four inches long, as printed in some works ; they could 
 not get it off. They wore about their necks a great horn of 
 an ox, in a string or bawdry, which, when they came to a 
 house they did wind ; and they put the drink given them into 
 this horn, whereto they put a stopple. Since the wars I do 
 not remember to have seen any one of them." 
 
 The whole description of these Toms o' Bedlam and their 
 counterfeits — " the progging Abram men," as they are given 
 by Disraeli, from Decker and other old authors — affords 
 a curious illustration of the fidehty of Shakespeare's dehnea- 
 tion of character, even when most grotesque and apparently 
 unnatural. The assumed character of Edgar bears the most 
 exact resemblance to the description of these beings, as it 
 has been dug out of the past by the researches of the 
 literary antiquarian. 
 
 "The wild ditties of these itinerate lunatics gave rise," 
 says this author, "to a class of poetry once fashionable 
 among the ' wits,' composed in the character of a Tom o' 
 Bedlam." Purcel has set one of them to very fine 
 music. Percy has preserved sis of these mad songs, 
 some of which, however, Disraeli pronounces of too modern 
 a date to have seen actual service ; but he adds a fine 
 one from a miscellany published in 1661, and that not 
 the first edition. It concludes with the following stanza 
 of wild imagery : 
 
168. KING LEAR. 
 
 " With a host of furious fancies, 
 Whereof I am commander : 
 
 With a burning spear, 
 
 And a horse of air, 
 To the mldeniess I wander ; 
 With a knight of ghosts and shadows. 
 Summoned am I to toumay : 
 
 Ten leagues beyond 
 
 The wide world's end ; 
 Methiriks it is no journey !" 
 
 What can be said of the Fool? What can be thought 
 of him ? Fool he was not, in the sense of lack of wisdom 
 or of knowledge. He is as individuahzed and unique as 
 any character in Shakespeare. He is Jacques with a cap 
 and beUs, and a gay affectionate temper. He is a spiritua- 
 lized and poetical Sancho Panza, and, like him, adds to 
 the sadness of the tale by the introduction of ridiculous 
 images : for of Lear it may be said, as Byron said of 
 Don Quixote : 
 
 " Of aU tales 't is the saddest — and more sad 
 Because it makes us laugh." 
 
 Shakespeare represents his other fools as mere orna- 
 ments and appendages to the tale, the grinning gurgoUs 
 of his structure : but the fool in Lear is an important 
 character, a buttress of the tale. It is through him that 
 Lear first gets into trouble with his dog-hearted daughter. 
 Lear loves him, and he loves CordeKa, and thujs there 
 is a bond of affection which knits him to the two as 
 part of the family. His reckless and all-licensed speeches 
 serve the part of the Greek chorus in explaining many 
 things which would not otherwise be so readily intelligible. 
 Altogether, his child-Hke affection to Cordeha, his devoted 
 attachment to the king, his daring contempt for the bad 
 daughters, his profound insight into the motives of human 
 action cynical yet tempered by love, render him a most 
 charming character, and give him an easy pre-eminence 
 
KING LEAE. 169 
 
 over all others who have philosophized in motley. Al- 
 though called a boy, his great knowledge of the heart 
 in(^cates his age to have been at least adult. So far 
 from being in any degree imbecile, his native powers of 
 intellect are of the finest order. His wayward rambling of 
 thought may be partly natural, partly the residt of his 
 professed oflSce, an office then held in no light esteem. 
 In physique he is small and weak. His suffering from 
 exposure to the inclement night ezcites Lear's tender 
 compassion, even in his wildest mood, and it does in 
 effect extinguish his frail life. A waif of wayward un- 
 muscular intellect in an age of iron. An admirable union 
 of faithful affection with daring universal cynicism ; he also 
 illustrates the truth of the opinion, that the scoffer and 
 the hater are different beiags. The " comic sublime" of this 
 character forms a grotesque countei-part and contrast to that 
 of the king, and heightens the effect while it reHeves the 
 pain of the tragic development. 
 
 Ulrici has some excellent remarks on the supreme art 
 of this contrast : 
 
 " Nowhere has Shakespeare pushed the comic into so close 
 and direct proximity with the tragic, and with no one else has 
 the great hazard of doing so, succeeded as with him. Instead 
 of thereby for one moment injuring the tragic effect, he has 
 known how, by this means, wonderfully to exalt and strengthen 
 it; not only does the wisdom of the Fool make, by contrast, the 
 folly of the king and its tragic meaning more conspicuous ; 
 not only does he thus, on all occasions, hold up a mirror to 
 the thoughts and acts of others, and through its reflex greatly 
 strengthen the light of truth ; but yet more, in the profound 
 humour of the Fool a depth of intelligence conceals itself, 
 upon which the tragic view of the world (Weltanschauung) 
 generally rests. To this humour, the tragic art, as it were, 
 allies itself, in order to place her deepest innermost centre 
 nearer to the Hght. This genuine humour of the Fool plays, 
 as it were, witli the tragic ; to him pleasure and pain, fortune 
 and misfortune are synonymous; he jeers on the griping 
 
170 KING LEAR. 
 
 suffering and fate of earthly existence ; death and annihilation 
 are a jest to him. On this account he stands above the 
 earthly existence and its tragic side ; and he has already at- 
 tained the aim of the tragic art, the elevation of the human 
 spirit over the mere hfe of this world, with its sufferings and 
 doings ; this appears in him, as it were, personified. His very 
 humour is in its conception, the comic sublime. Wonder has 
 been expressed that the poet should confer such magnanimity 
 and intelligence on one who has degraded himself to the posi- 
 tion of a mere jester. I can only admire therein the profound 
 wisdom of the master ; for when life itself is nothing to a 
 man, his own position in hfe will be nothing to him ; and the 
 lowHest lot will be preferred and selected, because it expresses 
 most clearly our real elevation." 
 
 In Lear's next appearance a change has taken place both 
 
 in his circumstances and in his state. He has arrived at 
 
 Dover, and he 
 
 " Sometimes, in his better tune, remembers 
 What we are come about, and by no means 
 Will yield to see his daughter." 
 
 The memory of his own harsh, and cruel conduct to this 
 dear daughter, and the burning shame he feels, detain 
 him from her. It appears from his subsequent interview 
 with her, that apprehension of Cordelia's hatred affords 
 another motive. " I know you do not love me." His 
 old love for her indeed has returned, and he will take 
 poison from her hands if she wiUs it ; but the poor 
 vexed mind cannot perceive that Cordelia differs from 
 her sisters ; differs so much as to lead Kent to declare 
 that human disposition is the sport of fate, and not the 
 result of law ; that injuries cannot weaken her love, even 
 as unbounded benefits could not secure theirs. Lear is 
 no longer surrounded by the sympathizing but grotesque 
 companionship of his first maniacal hours. The dearly 
 loved fool has strangely disappeared ; his frail existence 
 ceases, without sign or comment. Edgar is transformed from 
 mad Tom into the peasant guide of his bHnd father. Some 
 
KING LEAR. 171 
 
 dear cause must also wrap Kent in concealment until the 
 catastrophe arrives ; he leaves an un-named gentleman to 
 attend his master, and the poor madman escapes from 
 the stranger's watch and guard, and roams in the fields 
 alone, as Cordelia so touchingly describes : 
 
 " Gor. Alack, 'tis he ; why he was met even now 
 As mad as the vex'd sea : singing aloud ; 
 Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds. 
 With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, 
 Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow 
 In our sustaining corn. — A century send forth ; 
 Search every acre in the high-grown field, 
 And bring him to our eye. [Exit am, Officer. 
 
 What can man's wisdom do 
 In the restoring his bereaved sense? 
 He that helps him, take all my outward worth. 
 
 Phys. There is means, madam : 
 Our foster-nurse of nature is repose, . 
 The which he lacks ; that to provoke in him, 
 Are many simples operative, whose power 
 Win close the eye of anguish. 
 
 Gor. All bless'd secrets, 
 
 All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth. 
 Spring with my tears ! be aidant, and remediate. 
 In the good man's distress ! — Seek, seek for him ; 
 Lest his ungovem'd rage dissolve the life 
 That wants the means to lead it." 
 
 The word rage seems here used not to designate passion, 
 but the frenzy of maniacal excitement ; iat this time it 
 is not passionate, but tending rather to gaiety. The first 
 phase of mania was emphasized by the memory of recent 
 injury ; and although even then the passioiiate indigna- 
 tion was subdued from the intense bitterness which the 
 first sense of hia daughters' conduct occasioned, the emotional 
 state was that of anger and sorrow. After the interval which 
 has elapsed between the sudden flight from the neighbour- 
 hood of these daughters who were plotting against his Ufe, 
 and his re-appearance at Dover with Cordelia's blessed 
 
172 KING LEAR. 
 
 succour nigh, the emotional state has changed into one 
 less painful, yet indicating more profound disease. The 
 proud and passionate king is now wild and gay, singing 
 aloud, crowned with wild flowers ; his incoherence is some- 
 times complete, and no idea, rests in his mind with sufficient 
 tenacity to be called a delusion. This new phase of mania 
 is as wonderfully and exactly true to nature as the one 
 which it follows in consistent development. The more 
 perfect incoherence is now dissociated from formal delusion. 
 The emotional disposition natural to the man, and hitherto 
 exaggerated by the wrongs he has suffered, is now com- 
 pletely lost and perverted by the progress of disease. Though 
 he forgets that he is no longer a king, the regal deportment is 
 altogether lost ; though he does not forget his daughter's 
 injuries, and can compare their conduct with that of 
 Gloster's bastard, the fierceness of anger is quenched. The 
 state of mind in which a delusion is suggested by a casual 
 circumstance, just as a dream is suggested by casual sensa- 
 tions, in which the false idea thus originating is dwelt 
 upon and examined in its various bearings as if it were 
 the representative of truth in a sane mind ; this intel- 
 lectual state has given way to the one of more profound 
 injury called incoherence, in which false mental associa^ 
 tions and false ideas arise and fade too easily, too transiently 
 to be called delusions. A dozen false ideas chase each 
 other in half as many minutes. Strictly speaking, perhaps 
 each of the false idea-images of incoherence deserves the 
 name of delusion, although it is not usually given. The simple 
 and important fact may be stated with regard to Lear thus : 
 that in the first phase of his mania the false ideas were few 
 and had some consistency and duration ; in the present phase 
 they are numerous, disjointed, and transitory. 
 
 " Edg. The safer sense will ne'er accommodate 
 His master thus. 
 
KING LEAB. 173 
 
 Lear. No, they cannot touch me for coining ; I am the 
 King himself. 
 
 Edg. O thou side-piercing sight ! 
 
 Lear. Nature 's above art ia that respect. — There 's your 
 press-money. That fellow handles his bow like a crow- 
 keeper : draw me a clothier's yard. — Look, look, a mouse ! 
 Peace, peace ; — this piece of toasted cheese will do 't. — There's 
 my gauntlet : I '11 prove it on a giant. — Bring up the brown 
 bills. — O, well flown bird ! — ^i'the clout, i'the clout : hewgh ! — 
 Give the word. 
 
 Edg. Sweet marjoram. 
 
 Lear. Pass. 
 
 Glo. I know that voice. 
 
 Lear. Ha ! GonerU !— with a white beard ! — They flattered 
 me like a dog ; and told me I had white hairs in my beard, 
 ere the black ones were there. To say ay, and no, to every 
 thing I said ! — Ay and no too was no good divinity. When 
 the rain came to wet me once." * * 
 
 The withering denunciation of incontinency, "The wren 
 goes to 't," &c., and the grander one of injustice, " Thou rascal 
 beadle," &c., are too consecutively reasoned for the king's 
 state of mind at this period. The apparent iaconsistency is 
 only to be accounted for by Lear's inherent grandeur of 
 thought and natural eloquence, which even in frenzy -rolls 
 forth its magnificent volume, like nothing else I know of 
 in poetry. It is not common to see incoherence alter- 
 nating with the precise expression of complex thought, but 
 I have sometimes observed the phenomenon when the com- 
 plex thoughts, so expressed, have formed a part of the hoarded 
 treasures of the mind. And so it must be with Lear ; the 
 eloquence of his madness is partly the result of an imagination 
 always vivid and now stimiflated to excess, and of an 
 involuntary display of oratorical power, native to the man, 
 and partly of profound knowledge of human nature, ac- 
 quired during an age of practical kingship. He speaks, as the 
 bird sings, from inborn force, which neither anger, nor grief, 
 nor madness, nor the pangs of approaching death, can subdue. 
 
174 KING LEAE. 
 
 Blind Gloster's reflection upon the ruin of such intellect is 
 truly grand ; for what is the inert world that it should outlast 
 the spirit wluch dwelleth therein ? What is the beauty of nature 
 without eyes to behold it, or its harmony without mind to 
 rejoice in it ? 
 
 " Glo. O ruined piece of nature ! This great world 
 Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know me ? 
 
 Lear. I remember thine eyes well enough — 
 Dost thou squiny at me ? 
 No, do thy worst, blind cupid, I 'U not love. — 
 Read thou this challenge ; mark but the penning of it." 
 
 Stark madness again, iastantly following reasoning elo- 
 quence ; the eyeless orbits of an old friend but the 
 occasion of an incoherent jest. The thoughts are now the 
 mere sport of the suggestive faculty. Any slight circumstance 
 may give rise to the most earnest, any impressive object or 
 terrible incident may give rise to the most trivial or wayward 
 notions. His old friend's great calamity is lost in his own, 
 and does but suggest absurd comparisons and empty quibbles. 
 
 The quibble on seeing without eyes induces the comments 
 on the justice and thief, and the dog in office, beginning 
 prosaically, rising into the grand poetic cUmax, and then 
 ending in mere incoherence. 
 
 " None does offend, none, I say, none ; I'll able 'em : 
 
 Take that of me, my friend, who have the power 
 
 To seal the accuser's Hps. Get thee glass eyes ; 
 
 And, like a scurvy politician, seem 
 
 To see the things thou dost not. — ^Now, now, now, now : 
 
 PuU off my boots : — harder, harder ; so. 
 
 Edg. O, matter and impertinency mix'd ! 
 Reason in madness ! 
 
 Lear. If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes. 
 I know thee well enough ; thy name is Gloster : 
 Thou must be patient ; we came crying hither. 
 Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air, 
 We wawl, and cry : — I will preach to thee ; mark. 
 
 Olo. Alack, alack the day ! 
 
KING LEAE. 175 
 
 Lm/r. When we are bom, we cry, that we are come 
 
 To this great stage of fools ; This a good block ! — 
 
 It were a delicate stratagem, to shoe 
 A troop of horse with felt : I'll put it in proof ; 
 And when I have stolen upon these sons-in-law, 
 Then, kill, kiU, kiU, kiU, kiU, kill." 
 
 Here is the inexpugnable notion of kingly power ; then the 
 rambling "pull off my boots ;" then tardy pity for Gloster, 
 and consolation in. the spirit of the doctrine that we are bom 
 to trouble ; then the strange idea chain, that consolation shall 
 be given in the form of a rehgious discourse, which brings 
 the hat under observation, " a good block ;" this the silent 
 cavalry and the stolen revenge. A more perfect representation 
 of wandering intellect it is impossible to conceive. Even his 
 own pitiful recognition of his state assumes a form of expres- 
 sion, half incoherent, half poetical. He no longer distingidshes 
 friends from foes, and with other changed feelings, he has 
 become susceptible of fear. "When this is removed, he per- 
 ceives clearly enough that his personal liberty is not secure 
 even from his friends, and away he decamps, poor old king, 
 a veritable type of gay, incoherent mania. Incoherency, the 
 characteristic of rapid and irregular ideaJization, is so far 
 from being a definite quality, like a clear-cut delusion, that its 
 degree may vary from the slight fault in the sequence and 
 order of ideas which may be observed in the earliest stages 
 of excitement from wine, to that ceaseless and utterly unin- 
 telligible babble, which is observed in some chronic lunatics. 
 Extreme degrees of incoherency are invariably associated 
 with advanced decay of the mental powers. Perception and 
 memory are greatly enfeebled ; the power of comparison is 
 clean gone. A ceaseless flow of shallow images ripples over 
 the mind, and continues ever after. All power of attention to 
 new objects is lost ; in some cases the babble of words appears 
 to be continued, even after the mind has ceased to reflect the 
 pale spectres of thought which they once represented. In 
 
176 KING LEAR. 
 
 Lear, incoherence, although the characteristic feature of his 
 madness at this phase, has not attained this advanced degree. 
 The force of the perceptions is uncertain, but they are not 
 always weak: the memory still gives light, although it flickers: 
 and the power of comparison is vigorous, although its exercise 
 is vagrant. The incoherence arises more from the irregu- 
 larity and strangeness of idea suggestion than from its want of 
 power. The links of the chain of thought lie tumbled and 
 confused, but are not broken. And what links they are ! 
 Some of gold, some of iron, some of earth ! The finest 
 poetry, the noblest sentiment, the strongest sense, held to- 
 gether by absurdity and grossness ! 
 
 The ruins of this mind are grand and beauteous, even in 
 their fragments. Breadth of imagination and loftiness of 
 diction have never attained fuller development than in his 
 burning words. Wide as the scope of human nature in his 
 passions, in his love and in his hate, in his sympathy and in his 
 censure ; he is a man to be dreaded, even in his faUen state, 
 by such creatures as Goneril and Regan ; a man to be loved 
 unto death by aU good natures, however diverse from each 
 other, by the blunt Kent, the rash Gloster, the witty fool, the 
 firm, self-contained, yet devoted and gentle Cordelia. We 
 see all his greatness reflected in the feelings he inspires. 
 
 The scene of Lear's restoration, touching and beautiful as it 
 is, does not quite follow the probable course of mental change, 
 with the same exact and wondrous knowledge of insanity as 
 that hitherto displayed. A long and profound sleep has been 
 induced by the physician ; this it is thought needful to inter- 
 rupt, and_, in order that the sensations on awaking may form 
 a striking contrast to those which had preceded sleep, the pa- 
 tient must be awoke by music, and the first object on 
 recovering consciousness must be that of his dear child : 
 
 " Phys. So please your majesty. 
 
 That we may wake the king ? he hath slept long. 
 
KmG LEAR. 177 
 
 Vm. Be govern'd by yotu' knowledge, and proceed 
 I' the sway of your own wiH. Is he array'd ? 
 
 G&nt. Ay, madam ; in the heaviness of sleep. 
 We put fresh garments on him. 
 
 PhJys. Be by, good madam, when we do awake him ; 
 I doubt not of his temperance. 
 
 Gor. Very well. 
 
 Phys. Please you, draw near. — Loiider the music there." 
 
 This seems a bold experiment, and one not unfraught 
 with danger. The idea that the insane mind is beneficially 
 influenced by music is, indeed, a very ancient and uni- 
 versal one ; but that the medicated sleep of insanity should 
 be interrupted by it, and that the first object presented 
 to the consciousness should be the very person most likely 
 to excite profound emotion, appear to be expedients little 
 calcxilated to promote that tranquUlity of the mental functions, 
 which is, undoubtedly, the safest state to induce, after the 
 excitement of mania. A suspicion of this may have cros^p^ 
 Shakespeare's mind, for he represents Lear in imminent dan,- 
 ger of passing into a new form of delusion. The employment 
 of music in the treatment of the insane would form aa 
 interesting chapter in the history of ancient and moderia 
 psychology. The earliest note of it is in Holy Writ : " And 
 it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Sau'^j 
 that David took an harp and played with his hand, so Saul 
 was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed irorq. 
 him" (1 Sam. xvi.) In EUsha it produced inspiration : h§ 
 called for a minstrel, and "when the minstrel played, th^ 
 hand of the Lord came upon him" (2 Kings iii.) Asclepiadef 
 effected many cures of insane persons by this means ; and 
 Galen reports that ^sculapius did the same. " Jason Pra^ 
 tensis (cap. De mania) hath many examples how Clinias anc} 
 Empedocles cured some desperately melancholy, and som^ 
 mad, by this, our music." — Burton. But there is dailger in 
 its Tise, "for there are some whom;" saith Plutarch, " musica 
 
 N 
 
178 KING LEAK. 
 
 magis dementat quam vinun." In modem times, the great- 
 est advocate for music in the treatment of insanity has been 
 Dr. Mason Cox, who employed it systematically, and, as he 
 relates, with the best effect. Frank also employed it, and 
 he relates the instance of a young person affected with peri- 
 odical insanity, who, every time he heard the sound of music, 
 was seized with a furious paroxysm of mam'a. Dr. Knight 
 had seen its tranquilizing and beneficial effects in numerous 
 cases, and had never seen it do harm ; but yet he could not 
 think its employment safe in excited and recent cases. Guis- 
 lain distinguishes its use — 1st, as exercising the mind of the 
 patient who execiites ; and, 2nd, when played by others, as 
 producing effects upon the nervous system through the emo- 
 tions. In the first of these modes, its employment is, un- 
 doubtedly, beneficial as a means of recreation ; but modem 
 physicians appear to have Kttle faith in its effects when simply 
 listened- to. Either the nerves are less delicately strung than 
 formerly, or the quality of music has deteriorated, or the power 
 of medical faith has decayed ; of which explanations the 
 latter is, probably, the true one. Still, credence is given to its 
 power in certain conditions ; for instance, the national melo- 
 dies of mountain countries are said to possess a most- wonder- 
 ful influence on the neiwes. The ranz des vaches causes 
 melancholy in the Switzer ; and Locheil, in the shrill screams 
 of the bagpipe, is said to produce the occasional effect of 
 making the Scotchman desire to return to his own country. 
 Shakespeare records another remarkable consequence of lis- 
 tening to the Highland music. A physiological explana- 
 tion, however, may be offered of Shylock's assertion, that 
 some men, " when the bagpipe sings in the nose, cannot 
 contain their urine," namely, that the musical performance 
 described merely meant a violent fit of sneezing ; which 
 might easily, in nervous persons, occasion the pectdiar effect 
 attributed to it. It may be the forcing strain of interrupted 
 
KING LEAR. 179 
 
 respiration, and not the exciting strain of the pibroch, which 
 is meant. The argument that the fact is inexplicable, and 
 the reference tu the "woollen bag" are, however, adverse to 
 this view. 
 
 Esquirol attributes a considerable amount of power both 
 for good and evil to the influence of music on the insane. 
 
 " I have often employed music but have very rarely obtained 
 any success thereby. It calms and composes the mind, but 
 does not cure. I have seen insane persons whom music ren- 
 dered furious : — one was so, because all the notes appeared 
 false : — another, because he thought it frightful that the 
 peo23le should amuse themselves in the presence of so miserable 
 a being. I beheve the ancients exaggerated the effects of 
 music, while the facts recorded by modern writers are not 
 sufficiently numerous to determine under what circumstances 
 it possibly may be of benefit. This means of treatment, 
 however, is precious, especially in convalescence, and ought 
 not to be neglected, however indeterminate may be the 
 principles of its application, and however uncertain may be 
 its efficacy." 
 
 When Lear awakes with the loud music ringing in his ears, 
 and finds himself once more in royal state and ajjparel, and 
 with Cordeha at his feet, fancy flashes upon him the idea that 
 he has passed the dread bourne of life. Remembrance fails, 
 and even personal identity needs verification. 
 
 Lea/r. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave : — 
 Thou art a soul in bliss ; but I am bound 
 Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears 
 Do scald like molten lead. 
 
 Cor. Sir, do you know me 1 
 
 Lea/r. You are a spirit, I know ; Wlien did you die? 
 
 Cor. Still, still, far wide ! 
 
 Phys, He's scarce awake ; let him alone awhile. 
 
 Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? — Fair day-light ?~ 
 r am mightily abus'd. — I should even die with pity, 
 To see another thus. — ^I know not what to say. — 
 I will not swear these are my hands : — ^let's see ; 
 I feel this pin prick. ' Would I were assur'd 
 Of my condition. 
 
180 KING LEAR. 
 
 Cor. 0, look upon me, sir, 
 
 And hold your hand in benediction o'er me : — 
 No, sir, you must not kneel. 
 
 Lear. Pray ^^ iiot mock me : 
 
 I am a very foolish fond old man. 
 Fourscore and upward ; not an hour more nor less ; 
 And, to deal plainly, 
 I fear I am not in my perfect mind. 
 Methinks, I should know you, and know this man ; 
 Yet I am doubtful : for I am manaly ignorant 
 What place this is : and all the skill I have 
 Remembers not these garments ; nor I know not 
 Where I did lodge last night ; Do not laugh at me ; 
 For, as I am a man, I think this lady 
 To he my child Cordelia. 
 
 (Jor. And so I am, I am. 
 
 Lear. Be your tears wet ? Yes, 'faith. I pray, weep not 
 If you have poison for me I will drink it. 
 I know you do not love me ; for your sisters 
 Have, as I do remember, done me wrong : 
 You have some cause, they have not." 
 
 " Phys. Be comforted, good madam : the great rage 
 You see, is kill'd in him : and yet it is danger 
 To make him even o'er the time he has lost. 
 Desire him to go in : trouble him no more, 
 Till further setthng. 
 
 Cor. Will't please your highness walk ? 
 
 Lear. You must bear with me : 
 
 Pray you now, forget and forgive ; I am old and foolish." 
 
 The idea that death is past is half a delusion, half a dream, 
 in which the objects of sense are visible while the judgment is 
 not sufficiently alert to interpret them. When he does awake, 
 the mind, suffering from the weakness which follows fierce ex- 
 citement, cannot comprehend the new circumstances which 
 surround him — the unknown place and the royal robes. But, 
 first of all, the poor patient would assure himself that he is 
 a living sentient being, and not a soul in torture, as the fear- 
 ful dream has represented. The half-timid enquiries into his 
 state and surroundings, represent both exhaustion and calm- 
 
KING LEAR. 181 
 
 ness. This self-examination and interrogation is a common 
 feature in convalescence from insanitj-- ; although, it must be 
 admitted, that the transactions here rejiresented, and as the 
 exigences of tlie drama perhaps require that they should be 
 represented, are more sudden and distinct than the real opera- 
 tions of nature. Lear's timid consciousness of infirmity of 
 mind, " I fear I am not in my perfect mind," is in fine con- 
 trast to the energetic assertion of his frantic state : " Let 
 me have surgeons, I am cut to the brains." The state- 
 ment of his age affords a delicate touch of that intellec- 
 tual weakness which accompanies the state of repose and 
 exhaustion. He does not see that four-score and upward 
 is not an exact, but an inexact statement. " Be your tears 
 wet," seems a return to the half-dream, half-delusion ; he 
 still doubts the personality of Cordelia, and when he at- 
 tains conviction on the point, the idea that she will avenge 
 her wrongs upon him does not at once forsake him ; and yet it 
 lasts not long, and he desires her to forget and forgive. The 
 physician wisely ajjprehends danger from the weak mind 
 throwing itself back upon the memory of its injuries and 
 sufferings, and interrupts the colloquy. The high honour and 
 worth with which Shakespeare invests the physician here and 
 elsewhere, deserves notice. In Macbeth, although the angry 
 king rejects an agency which cannot work social and political 
 cures, the physician is represented as a wise and dignified 
 person. In this play of Lear the character is still more 
 exalted ; and it would be easy to prove that throughout Shake- 
 speare's writings, there is no character held in more honour 
 than that of the medical man. Even the starved apothecary 
 in Eomeo and Juliet, is gifted with a conscience. Shake- 
 speare, in this respect, presents a remarkable contrast to 
 Molifere, with whom the physician of his day was the favourite 
 butt of ridicule ; but Shakespeare's esteem for physic was 
 founded upon knowledge, while Molifere's contempt of it was 
 
182 KING LEAR. 
 
 founded upon ignorance; for while the latter sets up the 
 manners and pretensions of the medical pedant as the butt of 
 his ridicule, there is not a passage in his writings which 
 indicates the slightest knowledge of the art or science of the 
 profession which he so assiduously covers with contempt. 
 The gibberish of dog-latin pretended prescriptions is his 
 nearest approach to it. Shakespeare, on the other hand, evinces 
 so surprising and minute a knowledge of both, that it would 
 be no difficult task to prove from his wi-itings that he had 
 been a diligent student of the heahng art, and thence it might 
 be inferred that he had been a doctor's apprentice, with a pro- 
 bability not much below that which has been so ingeniously 
 developed by the Lord Chief Justice, to prove that he was 
 an attorney's clerk. I yield, indeed, to Mr. Payne Collier's 
 theory as argued by Lord Campbell, the precedence of pro- 
 babihty, inasmuch as Shakespeare's knowledge of law is 
 technical, while his knowledge of medicine is general, and 
 such as he might have more readily acquired outside the 
 professional hmits. His knowledge of law is that which a 
 clerk might possess ; his knowledge of medicine is evidently 
 the acquirement of a riper age, capable of resolving obser- 
 vation into principle ; a very different thing to the inventory 
 of an apothecary's shop, which Lord Campbell justly scouts as 
 evidence of more than casual remark and faithful memory. 
 The more modest and probable conclusion, however, would 
 seem to be, not that which the lawyer may compliment him- 
 self with, nor that which the doctor or the sailor might respec- 
 tively arrive at, in consequence of the poet's knowledge of 
 medical and nautical affairs ; but simply, that in Shakespeare 
 the world possessed a man, who, Uke Aristotle, was endowed 
 with aU the knowledge of his time, combined with the divine 
 gift which the Greek did not possess, of making it available 
 in the most gorgeous employment of fancy and language. 
 He was a naturalist in the widest sense, and a poet in the 
 
KING LEAE. 183 
 
 highest. Infinitely more than Goethe he merited the title of 
 the Allaided One. 
 
 Let us conclude this somewhat professional digression by 
 expressing the opinion, that Shakespeare's prescription for 
 Gloster's empty and bleeding orbits, " flax and the whites of 
 eggs," is good domestic surgery. 
 
 When Lear ne^jft appears a prisoner with Cordelia, his 
 mental state has again undergone great change. The weak- 
 ness of exhaustion has disappeared, and the delusion and 
 incoherency of the preceding excitement has yielded to the 
 good influences with which this daughter, thrice blessed in her 
 devoted afiection, has balmed the wounded soul. Lear has 
 returned as nearly as possible to his state of mind before the 
 storm, and the shock of physical suffering and exposure. 
 Medical treatment and physical comfort, and the blessed 
 influences of affection have soothed his intellectual frenzy. 
 But the moral disturbance remains, with this notable diffe- 
 rence, however, that he now gives vent to passionate love, as 
 he formerly did to passionate anger and hate. There is no 
 measure or reason in his love for CordeUa, as there was none 
 in his hatred of Goneril. He forgets his age in one as in the 
 other. In priison he wiU wear out sects of great ones ; his 
 enemies shall die and rot before he wUl part with Cordelia, or 
 weep at sorrow which has lost its sting now she is with him. 
 
 "Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, 
 The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee ? 
 He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, 
 And fire us hence, like foxes. Wipe thine eyes ; 
 The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell, 
 Ere they shall make us weep : we'll see them starve first." 
 
 This is not mania, but neither is it sound mind. It is the 
 emotional excitability often seen in extreme age, as it is de- 
 picted in the early scenes of the drama, and it is precisely true 
 to the probabilities of the mind history, that this should be 
 
184 KING LEAR. 
 
 the phase of iufimiity displaying itself at this moment. Any 
 other dramatist than Shakes23eare would have represented the 
 poor old king quite restored to the balance and control of his 
 faculties. The complete efficiency of filial love would have 
 been made to triumph over the laws of mental function. But 
 Shakespeai-e has represented the exact degree of improvement 
 which was probable under the circumstanpes, namely, resto- 
 ration from the intellectual mania which resulted from the 
 combined influence of physical and moral shock, with per- 
 sistence of the emotional excitement and disturbance which is 
 the incurable and unalterable result of passion exaggerated by 
 long habitude and by the malign influence of extreme age. 
 
 The last scene, in which Lear's tou.gh heart at length 
 breaks over the murdered body of his dear child, is one of 
 those masterpieces of tragic art, before which we are disposed 
 to stand silent in awed admiration. The indurated sympathies 
 of science, however, may examine even the death scene. The 
 first thing to remark is, that there is no insanity in it, that 
 Lear might have spoken and acted thus if his mind had never 
 wandered. He has found Edmund's mercenary murderer 
 hanging Cordelia, so &s " to lay the blame upon her own 
 despair." He kills the slave, and with the last remnant of 
 strength carries the dear body into the midst of that heart- 
 struck conclave, where the sisters, who "desperately are dead," 
 already lie. At first he is under the excitement of mental 
 agony, expressing it=;elf in the wild wail : 
 
 " Howl, howl, howl 1 0, you are men of stones ; 
 Had I your tongues and eyes I'd use them so, 
 That heaven's vault should crack : — She's gone for ever '" 
 
 Then follows the intense cruel anxiety of false hope, followed 
 by quick resolve and reasonable action : the demand for the 
 looking glass : the trial of the feather, to ascertain if any 
 faint imperceptible breath remains. Then, the su.staining but 
 fatal excitement over, leaden grief settles upon the heart, and 
 
KING LEAR. 185 
 
 benumbs the feelings to every sense, save one. Noble Kent 
 comes too late with the prepared surprise of his discovery. 
 The wreck of kinghood sits in the midst, with no eyes, no 
 thoughts for living friend or dead foe, for no object save one, 
 the voided temple of his love, now a limp carcase in his 
 nerveless lap. What a group for a sculptor, Lear and Cordelia, 
 types of manly grandeur and female grace, with but half a 
 life between the two ! The feather test has failed, and the 
 sweet breath refuses to mist or stain the clear surface of the 
 stone ; conviction arrives that " now she's gone for ever," and 
 there is no fire left in the once ardent heart for one more angry 
 word, no thought except the passing one of satisfied revenge. 
 She's gone for ever — doubt of the stem fact is past, and death 
 presses on his own heart ; feeling is mercifully blunted and 
 thought obscured ; imagination is the last to congeal ; desire, 
 father to the thought, makes the dear lips move, and the soft 
 voice invite to follow : 
 
 " Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha ! 
 What is't thou say'st ? — Her voice was ever soft. 
 Gentle, and low ; an excellent thing in woman :" — 
 
 The loyal friends around, Albany and Kent and Edgar, strive 
 to arouse his attention from the gathering stupor, which they 
 do not yet recognize as that of death ; and in banished Kent, 
 now reinstated in the appurtenances and lendings of his rank, 
 an object bound to stimulate attention and curiosity is at 
 hand. But he has put off the revelation of his faithful service, 
 until it is too late to be understood. The king recognizes his 
 person, indeed, even through the gathering mists of death, 
 which beginning at the heart, weakens the circulation through 
 the brain and dims the sight. How constantly does the dying 
 man complain that the room is dark, or that he cannot see. 
 "Where is your servant Caius?" brings a mechanical thought, 
 trifling as it seems, but in true place. The unreflecting move- 
 ment of the mind, the excito-motory action of the brain, as 
 
186 KING LEAR. 
 
 some would call it, a thought of simple suggestion, which, is 
 the last kind of thought the dying brain can entertain, just 
 as involuntary muscular action endures after voluntary power 
 of movement is lost. The new idea, that Caius and Kent are 
 one, cannot be entertained : this requires comparison and a 
 greater power of cerebration than the feeble tide of blood, 
 which is now percolating the brain can provide for. 
 
 " Lear. I am old now, 
 
 And these same crosses spoil me. — Who are you ? 
 Mine eyes are not o' the best : — I'll tell you straight. 
 
 Kent. If fortune brag of two she lov'd and hated, 
 One: of them we behold. 
 
 Lear. This is a dull sight : Are you not Kent ? 
 
 Kent. The same ; - 
 
 Your servant Kent : Where is your servant Caius ? 
 
 Lear. He's a good fellow, I can tell you that ; 
 He'll strike, and quickly too : He's dead and rotten. 
 
 Kent. No, my good lord ; I am the very man ;— 
 
 Lear. I'll see that straight. 
 
 Kent. That, from your first of difference and decay, 
 Have foUow'd your sad steps. 
 
 Lear. You are welcome hither. 
 
 Kent. Nor no man else ;. all's cheerless, dark, and deadly. — 
 Your eldest daughters have fore-done themselves, 
 And desperately are dead. 
 
 Lear. Ay, so I think. 
 
 Alb. He knows not what he says ; and vain it is 
 That we present us to him. 
 
 ^dg. Very bootless." 
 
 Very bootless — and yet stupified by dire mischance, they are 
 bhnd to the near approach of the "veiled shadow with the keys," 
 who is at hand to release this loved and hated one of fortune 
 from his eminence of care. Albany proceeds to make state 
 arrangements, to promise the wages of virtue and the cup of 
 deservings to friends and foes, and to resign lais own 
 absolute power to the old majesty, whose heart is beating 
 slower and fainter, whose face is blanching, and whose 
 features are pinching as the Hfe current passes on its way 
 
KING LEAR. 187 
 
 iu ever slower and smaller waves, until at length the change 
 of aspect suddenly strikes the dull Duke, and he exclaims, 
 " O ! see, see ! " and then one flicker more of reflecting 
 thought, one gentle request, " Pray you undo this button ;" 
 expressing the physical feeling of want of air ; one yearning 
 look on her who 'U. " come no more," and the silver thread is 
 loosed, the golden howl for ever broken. 
 
 " Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd ! No, no, no life ; 
 A\rhy should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life. 
 And thou no breath at all ? Thou'lt come no more. 
 Never, never, never, never, never ! — 
 Pray you undo this button : Thank you, sir. — 
 Do you see this ? Look on her, — ^look, — ^her Hps, — 
 Look there, look there ! — \He dies. 
 
 Edg. He faints ! — My lord, my lord, — 
 
 Kent. Break, heart ; I prithee, break ! 
 
 Edg. Look up, my lord. 
 
 Kent. Vex not his ghost : O, let him pass ! he hates him 
 That would upon the rack of this rough world 
 Stretch him out longer." 
 
 Note. The folly of trusting treacherous memory has led to a misquotation at 
 page 132 of this Essay. Gray wrote, " moody madness, laughing wild " not 
 moping madness. If moodiness may to some degree appear inconsistent with 
 wild laughter, it certainly is not so with madness. Indeed, moody and mad 
 are conjoined by Shakespeare himself in the line, 
 
 " But rather moody, mad, and desperate stags," 
 
188 TiiroN OF athp:ns. 
 
 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 "I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." 
 
 Tlie remarkable difference between Timon and all the 
 other dramas, both in construction and general idea, has 
 been a subject of much difficulty with the hterary critics. 
 It has been generally supposed to be one of Shakespeare's 
 latest works transmitted to us in an unfinished state ; but the 
 explanation of Mr. Knight appears far more probable, that it 
 was originally produced by an inferior artist, and that Shake- 
 speare remodeled it, and substituted entire scenes of hi.s own ; 
 this substitution being almost wholly confined to the character 
 of Timon. That of Apemantus, however, bears unmistakable 
 impressions of the same die. 
 
 It certainly is not like the sepia sketch of a great master, 
 perfect so far as it goes ; nor yet like an unfinished picture 
 which shews the basis of the artist's work ; nor yet like those 
 paintings of the old masters, in which the accessories were 
 filled in by the 'prentice hands of their pupils, whUe the 
 design and prominent figures indicated the taste and skill 
 of high genius. It is rather an old painting, retouched perhaps 
 in aU its parts, and the prominent figures entirely remodeled 
 by the hand of the great master, but designed and originally 
 completed by a stranger. 
 
 Of the origin of Timon's character there can be no doubt. 
 He is unmistakeably of the family of Hamlet and Lear. The 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 189 
 
 resemblance to Lear especially is close ; like him at first, full 
 of unreasoning confidence ; like Hm at last, fuU of unreasoning 
 hate. In Lear's circumstances, Timon might have followed 
 closely in his steps. The conditions of rank and age and 
 nation, do indeed direct the course of the two in paths wide 
 apart, but in actual development of character they are not 
 far from being parallel. 
 
 Timon is very far from being a copy from Plutarch's sketch, 
 " a viper, and malicious man unto mankind." He is essen- 
 tially high-minded and unselfish. His prodigality is unsoiled 
 with profligacy ; indeed, it takes to a great degree the form of 
 humane and virtuous generosity, satisfied with the pleasure of 
 doing good, the luxury of giving, without view of recompense. 
 Even his profuse feasting is represented as noble and dignified 
 hospitality, alloyed by no grossness. His temper is sweet and 
 serene ; even Apemantus cannot ruffle it. 
 
 With all this goodness of heart he is no fool ; his remarks 
 on all occasions shew refined and educated intellect He has 
 sense on all points except two, namely, in the ability to 
 appreciate character, and the knowledge of the relation of 
 things, as represented by the counters which transfer them. 
 He has all kind of sense except that which is current — 
 common sense. How such a character could be produced in 
 the out-of-door life of Athens, where every citizen had his 
 wits sharpened by contact with those of his neighbours, it 
 would be difficult indeed to conjecture ; but the character of 
 Lord Timon in his prosperity is one which may any day be 
 found in the ranks of the English aristocracy. A young man 
 is born to a great name and estate ; he inherits a generous 
 disposition and an ardent temper ; he is brought up as a 
 little prince, and is never allowed to feel the wholesome pain 
 of an ungratified wish. Can it be matter of wonder that in 
 such a hotbed the growth of mind should be luxuriant and 
 weak. Fortunately for our golden youth they generally 
 
190 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 undergo the rough discipline of public school and college ; 
 their sensibilities are indurated, and their wits sharpened, in 
 societies where, if they find sycophant spirits, they also find 
 independent and even tyrannical ones. But young Croesus, 
 brought up at home, what must be his destiny in these latter 
 days ? When the twenty-first birthday emancipates him from 
 mamma and the mild tutor, well for him if reckless hospitahty 
 be his worst offence against prudence ; well for him if that 
 old man of the woods, the land steward does not suffocate 
 him in his tenacious embrace ; well for him if the turf and 
 the card-table do not attract his green state of social initiation, 
 devour wealth and destroy morality. Men who most need 
 knowledge of the selfishness of their fellow men, have too often 
 the least of it. Bred up on the sunny parterres of life, they 
 have no experience of the difficulties and dangers of the rough 
 thicket. The human pigeon has not even the resource of fear 
 and swift flight to save him from the accipitres of his race. 
 The fascination of false confidence lends him a willing victim 
 to their talons, and under the chloroform of self-esteem he does 
 not even feel being rent and devoured. So it is with Timon, 
 with intelligence quick enough on all other matters, he is ut- 
 terly incapable of seeing his relation to men and theii's to him, 
 of apiDreciating the real value of deed and motive. The kind of 
 knowledge most imperatively needed to guide our conduct is 
 that of relation. It is the first to which the mind opens. The 
 child under ever recurring penalties is compelled to acquaint 
 himself with the relation existing between his person and the 
 physical world ; he burns himself, and thereafter dreads the 
 fire. The man under penalties more sharp and lasting, must 
 discover his moral relations in this world, must learn to 
 estimate himself and those around him, according to the 
 actualities of motive. As the child ascertains that fire and 
 blows cause pain, so the man must learn that flattery is not 
 friendship, that imprudence exacts regret, that the prevalent 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS, 191 
 
 philosophy of this selfish world is that taught hy Lear's 
 unselfish fool, " Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs 
 down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following ; but the 
 great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after ;" or by 
 Timon's poet, who laboriously conveys the same idea that 
 flashes from the fool : 
 
 " When fortune, in her shift and change of mood, 
 Spurns down her late belov'd, aU his dependents, 
 Which laboured after him to the moimtain's top, 
 Even on their hands and knees, let him slip down, 
 Not one accompanying his declining foot." 
 
 Timon, however, takes a widely different view of Hfe. To 
 him society is a disinterested brotherhood in which to possess 
 largely is but to have the greater scope for the luxury of 
 giving, and in which want itself may be but a means to try 
 one's friends, and to learn their sterling value. His first act 
 of bounty, not less noble than reasonable, is to pay the debt 
 on which his friend Ventidius is imprisoned. It is done with 
 graceful freedom, and his liberated friend is invited to him for 
 further help in the fine sentiment, that 
 
 " 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up. 
 But to support him after." 
 
 The dowry of the servant Lucilius, to satisfy the greed of 
 the old miser whose daughter he courts, is more lavish and 
 less reasonable. Timon Avill counterpoise with his fortune, 
 what the old man will give with his daughter, though he feels 
 the burthen of the task. 
 
 " To build his fortune, I would strain a little. 
 For 'tis a bond in men." 
 
 His inquiries are of the shortest. He has no hesitation, no 
 suspicion, but gives away fortunes as if his means were ex- 
 haustless, and his discrimination infallible. He acts in fervent 
 disbelief of his opinion immediately afterwards expressed, 
 that since 
 
192 TIMON OP ATHENS. 
 
 " Dishonour traffics ■with man's nature, 
 He is but outside." 
 
 Timon conducts himself as if all men on the contrary were 
 true to the core like himself, deriving enjoyment from the 
 happiness of others. Life to him is a poet's dream of good- 
 ness and beauty. All men are deserving of his bounty, even 
 as he is deserving of the love and gratitude of all. 
 
 But there is more than this reasoning bounty acting upon 
 a false estimate of man's goodness. Timon gives for the very 
 love of giving ; he scatters without motive, fxirther than the 
 pleasure of doing so affords. 
 
 " He outgoes the very heart of kindness. 
 He pours it out. Plutus the god of gold 
 Is but his steward, no meed but he repaj^s 
 Seven fold above itself" 
 
 He scatters jewels, and horses, and wealthy gifts among the 
 rich, even as he distributes fortunes among the needy. He 
 will have nothing back. Ventidius succeeds to the wealth of 
 his father, and seeks to return the talents which freed him 
 from prison, but Timou wiU have none of the gold. 
 
 " I gave it freely ever ; and there's none 
 Can truly say he gives if he receives." 
 
 This squandering disposition would appear to be the converse 
 of what phrenologists denote acquisitiveness. To coin a word, 
 it is disquisitiveness, and in some men would seem to be an 
 innate bias of the disposition. It is to give, for the pleasure 
 of giving ; to spend, for the pleasure of spending, without 
 esteem for the things procured in retiirn. Probably like the 
 opposite desire of accumulating, it is a secondary mental 
 growth. The love of gold in itself would be as absurd as the 
 love of iron ; but after having been first esteemed for its 
 attributes, its ability to confer pleasure and power, it becomes 
 valued for itself, and the mere love of hoarding, without the 
 
TMON OF ATHENS. ] 93 
 
 slightest reference to the employment of the hoard, takes 
 possession of the mind. So in the opposite mental state, the 
 first pleasures of distributing wealth are, no dotabt, derived 
 from the gratification it affords in various ways ; in contri- 
 buting to the happiness of others ; in purchasing esteem or the 
 semblance of it for one's self; in apparently raising one's self 
 above the level of those on whom the benefits are conferred, 
 and thus gratifying vanity ; or in the more direct gratifica- 
 tion of the senses. The pleasure of enjoyment from these 
 sources is at length unconsciously transferred to the mere 
 act of distribution. To give and to spend for the mere plea- 
 sure of doing so, combined with the love of change, are the 
 attributes of many a prodigal who is no profligate, of many 
 a man who, in a stricter sense than that usually applied to 
 the saying, is no one's enemy but his own — ^very strictly this 
 can never be said, for in civilized society no man can be his 
 own enemy without injuring others. 
 
 Such a man is Timon represented. He appears to have had 
 no strong attachment either to men or things. The jewel 
 recklessly purchased, is lavishly thrown to the first friend he 
 meets. His fortune is at every one's command, not only of 
 the old friend in prison, and of the old servant aspiring to 
 fortune, but at that of the flatterers of his own rank, empty 
 in head and heart, who have no real wants or claims. 
 
 Timon has indeed a noble theory of friendship, but there 
 wants in it all those hearthghts which prove the reality of 
 the thing, as it existed between Hamlet and Horatio, or Celia 
 and Kosalind in the other sex. There is, however, a noble 
 freedom of welcome in his introduction to his first feast : — 
 
 " Titn. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis'd at first 
 To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, 
 Recanting goodness, sorry ere 't is shown ; 
 But where there is true friendship, there needs none. 
 Pray sit ; more welcome are ye to my fortunes. 
 Than my fortunes to me." 
 o 
 
194 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 In his table speech, his explanation of his own profuseness, 
 and his reliance upon a return in kind from his friends, is 
 almost communist in the expression of the idea, that the 
 fortunes of all should be at the service of each : — 
 
 " Why, I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come 
 nearer to you. We are bom to do benefits : and what better 
 or properer can we call our own than the riches of our friends 1 
 0, what a precious comfort 't is to have so many, like brothers, 
 commanding one another's fortunes ! O joy, e'en made away 
 ere it can be bom ! Mine eyes caimot hold out water, me- 
 thinks ; to forget their faults, I drink to you." 
 
 He gives more entertainment, distributes more jewels, showers 
 presents on those who bring them and on those who do not, 
 and, without knowing it, aU " out of an empty coffer." What 
 he speaks is aU in debt, he owes for every word. Honest 
 Flavins seeks to apprise him, but since "its a word which 
 concerns him near," he will not Hsten. Even Apemantus, 
 who seems to entertain a surly liking for him, and who seeks 
 to inspire in him some suspicion that friendship has its dregs, 
 tenders advice which this time is not quite railing. He admits 
 him to be honest though a fool. 
 
 " Thus honest fools lay out their wealth in courtesies." 
 He'U not be bribed lest that should shut his mouth, and 
 Timon would then sin the faster ; Timon wiU give so long 
 that soon he will give himself away in paper ; but Timon will 
 have none of his warning, it is raUing on society ; and Ape- 
 mantus rebuffed at the only moment when he is tolerable, 
 turns on his heel with his rejected advice : 
 
 " that men's ears should be 
 To counsel deaf, but not to flattery." 
 
 Timon's profuseness is pourtrayed in the steward's terse ac- 
 _count of his debts, and the ever motion of his raging waste ; 
 but the desire which prompts it, is best given in his own 
 words of fareweE to his guests. 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 195 
 
 " I take all and your several visitations 
 So kind to heart ; 't is not enough to give ; 
 Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends, 
 And ne'er be weary." 
 
 But now the time of reckoning approaches in which it is pro- 
 phesied that, 
 
 " Wlien every feather sticks in his own wing, 
 Lord Timon will be left a naked gull, 
 Which flashes now a phcBnix." 
 
 He is beset with the clamorous demands of creditors, and turns 
 with reproachful enquiry to the one honest man who has been 
 seeking so long to check the ebb of his estate, and this great 
 flow of debts ; and when he at length gives ear to the 
 importunity that can no longer be avoided, his debts double 
 his means, and all his vast lands are engaged or forfeited. No 
 estate could support his senseless prodigality, 
 
 " The world is but a word. 
 Were it aU yours to give it in a breath 
 How quickly were it gone ? " 
 
 Flavins, like Apemantus refers the motive of Timon's pro- 
 fusion to vanity and the love of compliment. 
 
 " Who is not Timon's ? 
 What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is lord Timon's ? 
 Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon ! 
 Ah ! when the means are gone that buy this praise. 
 The breath is gone whereof this praise is made : 
 Feast-won, fast-lost : one cloud of winter showers. 
 These flies are couch'd." 
 
 This however is not quite the whole truth. There is doubt- 
 less much vanity in Timon's ostentation, but there is also a 
 magnanimous disregard of self, and a false judgment of 
 others founded upon it. His bounty, 
 
 " Being free itself, it thinks all other so." 
 Now comes the real trial, the test of man's value. Riches are 
 
I 96 TlMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 gone, but the noble heart is "wealthy in his friends ;" it were 
 lack of conscience to think otherwise. 
 
 " Tim. Come, sermon me no further : 
 
 No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart ; 
 Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given. 
 Why dost thou weep ? Canst thou the conscience lack 
 To think I shall lack friends 1 Secure thy heart ; 
 If I would broach the vessels of my love, 
 And try the argument of hearts by borrowing, 
 Men, and men's fortunes, can I frankly use. 
 As I can bid thee speak." 
 
 The trial is made, the bubble bursts ; one after another the 
 friends find characteristic and ingenious excuses. To one, 
 bare friendship without security is nothing; another is in 
 despair that he hath not furnished himself against so good a 
 time ; another puts on the semblance of anger that he was 
 not sent to first, and pretending that his honour hath thus 
 been abated, he refuses his coin. 
 
 The world turns dark with Timon, he is struck down by his 
 friends' desertion. 
 
 " Thy lord leans wonder ously to discontent, his comfortable 
 temper has forsook him ; he is much out of health and keeps 
 his chamber." 
 
 The period of depression which would naturally intervene 
 between that of confidence and emraged defiance is concealed 
 from view, and only alluded to in the above sentence. Here, 
 as in Lear and Constance, the poet takes care to mark the 
 concurrence of physical with moral causes of insanity. Mere 
 bodily disease is no subject for dramatic representation ; and 
 the fact of its existence is lightly enough indicated, but it is 
 indicated, and that is sufficient to preserve the exact natural 
 verisimilitude of the diseased mind's history. When Timon 
 re-appears, the re-action of furious indignation possesses him. 
 He rushes wildly forth from the house in which his loving 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 197 
 
 servants have sought to retain him. Must his very house also 
 
 be his enemy, his gaol ? 
 
 " The place where I have feasted, does it now, 
 Like all mankind, shew me an iron heart ? " 
 
 At the door he is beset with a crowd of dunning creditors, 
 adding fuel to the flame of his rage. 
 
 "Phi. AllourbiUs. 
 
 TiTn. Knock me down with 'em : cleave me to the girdle. 
 
 Liu;. Serv. Alas ! my lord, — 
 
 Tim. Cut my heart in sums. 
 
 Tit. Mine, fifty talents. 
 
 Tim. Tell out my blood. 
 
 Luc. Serv. Five thousand crowns, my lord. 
 
 Tim. Five thousand drops pays that. 
 "What yours ? — and yours ? 
 
 Tim,. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you ! 
 
 Hor. 'Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps 
 at their money ; these debts may well be called desperate 
 ones, for a madman owes 'em. 
 
 [Timon drives them, out and re-enters. 
 
 Tim. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves : 
 Creditors ? — devils." 
 
 He gives orders for his farewell feast, although Flavius 
 reminds him of his absolute want of means, and says that 
 in doing so 
 
 " You only speak from your distracted soul." 
 
 However Timon and the cook will provide. The feast is 
 toward. The expression of rage is controlled, and the infinite 
 sarcasm of the inverted benediction is pronounced before the 
 guests know what it means. The ambiguity of the language is of 
 course intended to conceal for a moment its true meaning — that 
 men are aU villains and women no better ; that even their 
 piety is selfishness, so that if the Gods gave aU, even they would 
 be despised like Timon ; but all being ^miss, let all be suitable 
 for destruction. )■ 
 
 The dishes uncovered are full of warm water, which Timon 
 thrown into the faces of his mock friends, whose perfect nature 
 
198 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 " is but smoke aad lukewarm water." He overwhelms them 
 with a torrent of curses by no means hikewarm, throws the 
 dishes at them, and driving them from the hall, takes his own 
 farewell of house and home, bursting with rage and general 
 hate. 
 
 " Burn house, sink Athens ! henceforth hated be. 
 Of Timon, man, and all humanity." 
 
 The conclusion of the " smiling, smooth, detested parasites," 
 is the same as that already arrived at by the servants, namely 
 
 " Lord Timon' s mad." 
 
 Nothing indeed is less safe than to adopt the opinion of 
 some of Shakespeare's characters upon others. He makes 
 them speak of each other according to their own Hght, which 
 is often partial and perverted, obscured by ignorance, or 
 blinded bj' prejudice. The spectator sees the whole field, 
 and experiences difficulty of judgment, not from narrowness 
 of vision, but from its extent. In Timon, as in the early 
 parts of Lear, the psychological opinion is embarrassed by the 
 very circumstance which constitutes the difficulty in actual 
 cases of dubious insanity, namely, that the operations of 
 diseased mind are not retrograde to those of normal function, 
 but merely divergent from them, in the same direction. 
 
 Timon' s eloquent declamations against his kind, are iden- 
 tical in spirit with those of ' Lear.' They are, indeed, inter- 
 rupted by no vagrancy of thought, but are always true to the 
 passion which now absorbs him, namely, intense hatred of the 
 human race in whom he believes baseness and wickedness 
 inherent. Here lies the great intellectual error which may 
 indeed be called delusion ; that, because some few men have 
 been base and thankless parasites, the whole race is steeped 
 in infamy. His emotional being is absorbed by indignation, 
 and this re-acting on the intellect, represents hiiman 
 nature in the darkest colours of treachery and villainy. 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 199 
 
 It is not clearly made out to what degree Timon is in- 
 fluenced by spite. In the imprecation upon Athens, " Let 
 me look back upon thee," &c., he invokes social disorder of 
 every kind as the punishment for his own treatment, and 
 does not represent it as actually existing, and as the cause 
 of his fierce anger. There is, some uncertainty ia this 
 passage, some confusion of thought between the depraved 
 state of Athens which merits dire punishment, and the social 
 disorders which in themselves constitute such punishment. 
 The wall of Athens is thought to gu-dle in a mere troop 
 of human wolves. To avenge his own injuries, he prays 
 that the matrons may turn incontinent, that obedience may 
 fail in children, and so forth, recognising that the contrary 
 has existed, and that social disorder is invoked as the 
 punishment of demerit towards himself. He acknowledges 
 that "degrees, observances, customs, and laws," have held 
 their place, and that their " confounding contraries " would be 
 a new state of things due to that human baseness which is 
 now obvious to his distempered vision through the medium of 
 his own wrongs. In the following scene, where he apos- 
 trophises " the blessed breeding sun/' in vehement declama- 
 tion, he does not so much invoke curses upon man, as describe 
 his actual state as in itself a curse ; moral depravity he 
 depicts in its existing colors, 
 
 " Tim. blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth 
 Eotten humidity ; below thy sister's orb 
 Infect the air ! Twinn'd brothers of one womb, — 
 Whose procreation, residence, and birth. 
 Scarce is dividant, — touch them with several fortunes, 
 The greater scorns the lesser : Not nature. 
 To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune. 
 But by contempt of nature : 
 Kaise me this beggar, and deny 't that lord. 
 The senator shall bear contempt hereditary. 
 The beggar native honour : 
 It is the pasture lards the rother's sides. 
 
200 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares, 
 
 In purity of manhood stand upright. 
 
 And say, " This man's a flatterer ? " If one be. 
 
 So are they all ; for every grize of fortune 
 
 Is smooth'd by that below : the learned pate 
 
 Ducks to the golden fool : All is oblique ; 
 
 There's nothing level in our ciirsed natures, 
 
 But direct villainy. Therefore, be abhorr'd 
 
 All feasts, societies, and throngs of nien ! 
 
 His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdaias : 
 
 Destruction fang mankind ! — Earth, yield me roots ! " 
 
 Instead of roots he finds gold, yellow, glittering, precious 
 gold, and he comments upon it in terms which still further 
 prove that the social curses he invokes upon the detestable 
 town he has quitted, are those which he believes to exist. 
 ''There is no honesty, no nobility in man, proof against this 
 yellow slave, this damned earth which wiU " knit and break 
 religions, bless the accursed, make the hoar leprosy adored, 
 place thieves and give them titled approbation." This belief 
 in the existence of man's utter unworthiness is of prime 
 importance in estimating Tim on' s character. It is needful to 
 vindicate his misanthropy from being that of miserable 
 spite. There is no doubt a mixture of personal resentment 
 in his feeling, but his deep rooted disparagement and con- 
 tempt of man, is founded upon a fixed belief in his utter 
 worthlessness. If men were noble and good, or if Timon 
 could believe them so, he would not hate them ; but they are 
 all to his distempered mind either base in themselves, or base 
 in their subserviency to baseness. " Timon Atheniensis 
 dictus interrogatus cur omnes homines odio prosequeretur : 
 Malos, inquit, merito odi ; cceteros ob id odi, quod malos 
 non oderint." — Urasmus. This is not to hate man as he 
 ought to be, nor even as he is, but as he appears in the false 
 colours of mental derangement. 
 
 The character of Apemantus is skilfully managed to elicit 
 the less selfish nature of Timon's misanthropy. In the one 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 201 
 
 it is the result of a bad heart, in the other that of a per- 
 verted reason. If all men were true and good, they would 
 be the more offensive to the churlish disposition of Ape- 
 mantus, who is an ingrained misanthrope, and as such is 
 recognized and abhorred by Timon himself. He seeks Timon 
 to vex him — " always a villain's office, or a fool's ;" he attri- 
 butes Timon' s conduct to the meanest motives, — a. madman 
 before, he is now a fool ; 
 
 " This is in thee a nature but infected, 
 A poor unmanly melancholy sprung 
 From change of fortune." 
 
 He recommends Timon to play the part he was undone by — 
 a base flatterer ; and that he should turn rascal to have his 
 wealth again, that he might again distribute it to rascals. 
 He accuses him of being an imitator — " Thou dost affect my 
 manners ;" of putting on the sour cold habit of his nakedness 
 and melancholy from mere want, and of the capacity to be a 
 courtier, were he not a beggar. Thnon estimates the currish 
 spirit which thus attacks him, at its true value. "Why 
 should'st thou hate men? they never flattered thee?" He 
 replies, 
 
 " If thou had'st not been bom the worst of men 
 Thou hadst been a knave and a flatterer." 
 
 Apemantus, indeed, is a real misanthrope, who judges of 
 man by his own bad heart. It was necessary to the drama 
 that he should speak his thoughts, but naturally such a man 
 would only express his antagonism to mankind in his actions. 
 Such misanthropes are too common ; every malevolent villain 
 being, in fact, one of them, although selfishness in league 
 with badness may counsel hypocrisy. BoUeau recognises 
 this in his lines on the malignant hypocrite of society : 
 
 " En vain ce misanthrope, aux yeux tristes et sorabres, 
 Veut, par un air riant, en ^claircir les ombres : 
 
202 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 Le ris sur son visage est en mauvaise humeur ; 
 L' agr^ment fait ses traits, ses caresses font peur ; 
 Ses mots les plus flatteurs paroissent des rudesses, 
 Et la vanity brille en toutes ses bassesses." 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, in the Characteristics, takes a view of 
 misanthropy, which strictly accords with the character of 
 Apemantus. He places it among " those horrid, monstrous, 
 and unnatural affections, to have which, is to be miserable in 
 the highest degree." He writes : 
 
 " There is also among these a sort of hatred of mankind 
 and society ; a passion which has been known perfectly 
 reigning among some men, and has had a peculiar name 
 given to it, misanthropy. A large share of this belongs to 
 those who have habitually indulged themselves in a habitual 
 moroseness, or who by force of ill natm-e and ill breeding, 
 have contracted such a reverse of affability, and civil manners, 
 that to see or meet a stranger is offensive. The very aspect 
 of mankind is a disturbance to 'em, and they are sure 
 always to hate at first sight." 
 
 Timon's contempt of the treasure of gold, which he dis- 
 covers in his naked and houseless misery, marks his changed 
 nature less than his entire disregard of the invitation of the 
 senators to rank and power, and to be captain of Athens. 
 Kiches, for their own sake, he always placed at the lowest 
 value. He now distributes them as moral poison. To 
 Alcibiades, whom, following Plutarch's hint, he hates less 
 than others, he gives it to whet the sword which threatens his 
 country. To the courtezans he gives it, because they are the 
 infecting curses of man. 
 
 " There's more gold 
 So you damn others, and let this damn you. 
 And ditches grave you all !" 
 
 To Flavins he gives it tempting him to misanthropy ; to 
 the contemptible poet and painter, because they are villains ; 
 to the thieves, that in the poison of wine it may destroy 
 them. 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 203 
 
 " Here's gold ; go suck the subtle blood of the grape, 
 'Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth, 
 And so 'scape hanging." 
 
 Gold, which has been his own curse, has become in his eyes 
 the curse of all. It is " the common whore of mankind." His 
 contemptuous distribution of the " yeUow slave," the "damned 
 earth," the "strong thief," with blows and maledictions to 
 the mean wretches who seek it from him, is the keenest sa- 
 tire upon the state of society, which for want of it has thrown 
 him from its bosom. 
 
 It has been said both by Schlegel and Hazlitt, that Timon 
 is more a satire than a drama. This idea may have been 
 derived from the little development of character which it ex- 
 hibits. Each character is placed clear and definitely formed 
 in the page, and remains so. Timon's alone undergoes one 
 radical change, of which we see the effect, rather than the 
 transition. During the fourth and fifth acts, the movements 
 of the drama are solely devised with the intention of bringing 
 the several personages under Timon's withering denunciation. 
 
 There are, however, some passages which hint of change, 
 and are more important than the more prominent and elo- 
 quent ones in affording an estimate of Timon's mental state. 
 By the other personages he is evidently regarded as mad. 
 Alcibiades thus excuses his anathemas on the ladies of 
 pleasure. 
 
 " Pardon him, sweet Timandra ; for his wits 
 Are drowned and lost in his calamities." 
 
 The good steward expresses wondering grief at the change in 
 his appearance, the pregnant sign of the mind's disease. 
 
 " Flav. 0, you gods ! 
 
 Is yon despis'd and ruinous man my lord 1 
 Full of decay and failing ? 0, monument 
 And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd ! 
 What an alteration of honour has 
 Desperate want made ! 
 
204 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 What viler thing upon the earth, than friends, 
 Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends : " 
 
 Even before this, life- weariness has suggested the intention 
 of suicide ; the hfe weariness of true mental disease, which is 
 distinct from misanthropy, and has reference only to the 
 individual. Misanthropy of opinion may be robust, egotis- 
 tical, resisting, full of life. The misanthropy of melancholia 
 is despairing and suicidal. 
 
 " I am sick of this false world ; and will love nought 
 But even the mere necessities upon 't. 
 Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave ; 
 Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat 
 Thy grave-stone daily : make thine epitaph, 
 That death in me at others' lives may laugh. 
 
 It is, however, not certain whether Timon dies directly by 
 his own hand, or indirectly by the misery which he inflicts 
 upon himself. The exposure described in. such noble poetry 
 by Apemantus, out of place as it seems in his churlish mouth, 
 " What, think' st that the bleak air thy boisterous chamber- 
 laia," &c., is iu itself a kind of suicide, which has many a time 
 and oft been resorted to by the insane. Indeed, of all forms 
 of voluntary death, that of starvation is the most frequently 
 attempted by them. Timon, however, does not actually 
 refuse food ; he digs for roots and eats them, whUe he regrets 
 the necessity, 
 
 " That nature being sick of man's unkindness 
 Should yet be hungry " — 
 
 Although his exposure to "desperate want," which hath made 
 him almost unrecognizable to the loving eyes of his faithful 
 steward, may from the first have been adopted for a suicidal 
 purpose, it is more probable that the manner of his death 
 was still more voluntary ; for however sensibly he might feel 
 his failing health drawing to a close, it is not likely that on 
 the day when he supported the animated dialogue with the 
 
TIMON OP ATHENS. 205 
 
 senators, he should be able positively to foretell his death 
 
 from exhaustion on the morrow. 
 
 " Why, I was writiug of my epitaph ; 
 It will be seen to-morrow ; my long sickness 
 Of health, and living, now begins to mend, 
 And nothing brings me all things." 
 
 After mocking the senators with the pretented patriotism of 
 a pubUc benefit, copied from the short notice to be found in 
 Plutarch, the invitation forsooth to the Athenian citizens to 
 stop their afflictions by hanging themselves upon his tree, 
 TimoD takes his farewell of men and their deeds, in words 
 pointing to a voluntary death, in a prepurposed time and place. 
 
 " Tim. Come not to me again : but say to Athens, 
 Timon hath made his everlasting mansion 
 Upon the beached verge of the salt flood ; 
 Whom once a day with his embossed froth 
 The turbulent surge shall cover ; thither come, 
 And let my grave-stone be your oracle. — 
 Lips, let sour words go by, and language end : 
 What is amiss, plague and infection mend ! 
 Graves only be men's works ; and death their gain ! 
 Sun, hide thy beams ! Timon hath done his reign. 
 
 Suicide had not that place of honour among the Greeks, which 
 it afterwards obtained among the Romans, and at the present 
 day, has among that remote and strange people the Japanese. 
 Yet the duty of living and bearing one's burden manfuUy 
 was not fully recognised until a better religious faith instructed 
 us, that this life is but a state of preparation for another. 
 The suicide of Timon, whether it is effected by exposure 
 and want, or by more direct means, has no motive recognised 
 by the ancients as an excuse, and can only be attributed to 
 the suggestions of a diseased mind. 
 
 Whether Shakespeare intended in Timon to describe the ca- 
 reer of a madman is a question on which it is difficult, perhaps 
 impossible, to come to a definite conchision. The chief objection 
 to the affirmative would be, that all satire upon the hoUowness 
 
206 . TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 of the world would lose much of its point if it came from the 
 lips of an undoubted lunatic. This objection, however, loses 
 somewhat of its validity, when it is remembered that in Lear, 
 Shakespeare actually has put such satire in the mouth of the 
 maddest of his characters, during the height of the disease ; 
 and that in his devotion to the truth of nature he would 
 certainly have represented such misanthropy, as a monstroiis 
 growth of the mind, if it were so. 
 
 Is it possible even in a state of disease? is it actually 
 met with ? Undoubtedly, yes. Making allowance for the 
 difference between the adorned descriptions of poetry and 
 plain matter of fact, putting on one side the power of eloquent 
 declamation, which belongs indeed not to the character, but 
 to the author, the professed misanthrope in word and in 
 deed is met with among the insane, and, as I think, among 
 the insane only. This malignant and inhuman passion, for 
 such it is, takes divers forms. Sometimes it is mere motive- 
 less dislike ; every one is obnoxious with or without cause, 
 like Dr. Fell, in the adage. This is the malignity of Apemantus 
 expressing itself in conduct, rather than in frank confession. 
 The explanation of it is best given by Timon himself that, 
 
 "Ira brevis furor est, 
 But this man 's always angiy." 
 
 If anger be identical with madness, except in its duration, this 
 exception is here excepted, and this form of madness may be 
 said to be a life-long and universal anger. Another form of in- 
 sanity, not uncommon in and out of lunatic asylums, approaches 
 more nearly to the misanthropy of Timon ; namely, that form 
 of chronic mental disease, I know not whether to call it mania 
 or melanchoha, which constantly torments itself and others 
 by attributing evil motives, not like Timon's to all ranks and 
 classes of society, but to every individual with whom the 
 unhappy being comes in contact. The poetical misanthropy 
 of Timon is generalised, and cannot be said to point at any 
 
TIMON OF ATHENS. 207 
 
 individual, unless it be Apemantus. The misanthropy of 
 reahty is individualized ; it points to aU persons in turn, 
 but to one only at a time. 
 
 This form of misanthropy may, and indeed often does exist, 
 with none of the attributes of Insanity, but as the expression of 
 that misleading influence, which evU dispositions exercise over 
 the judgment. In not unfrequent instances, however, it passes 
 the hmits of sanity, and presents aU the features of mental 
 disease. Hate and suspicion become constant and uncontrol- 
 able emotions ; behef in the misconduct of others develops 
 into delusions, representing the commission of actual crimes ; 
 and with these mental symptoms the physical indications of 
 brain disease are not wanting. No task of psychological 
 diagnosis, however, is so arduous as that of determining the 
 point at which exaggerated natural disposition of any kind 
 becomes actual disease ; but as the boundaries of sane mind 
 are left behind, difficulty and doubt vanish. 
 
 When sane malignity has developed into insane misan- 
 thropy, a remarkable change is sometimes seen in the habits 
 of the man, resembling the self-inflicted miseries of Timon. 
 I once knew a gentleman whose educated and acute in- 
 tellect occupied itself solely in the invention of calumnies 
 against every person with whom he was brought into contact. 
 This habit of miad was associated with utter negligence of the 
 proprieties of life, and indeed of personal decency, so that it 
 became absolutely requisite for his own sake, that he should 
 receive the protection of an asylum. A more close approxi- 
 mation to the misanthropy represented by the dramatist, 
 because more general and uninfluenced by malign feehng, was, 
 however, presented in the case of a poor creature in whose 
 expulsion from that which served for his Timon's cave, I 
 took some part. For several years I had frequently passed 
 by a desolate-looking house, which I believed to be uninhabi- 
 ted. Any strange thing, accompanied by change, strikes one's 
 
208 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 attention, but stranger things, not so accompanied, pass by 
 unnoticed. So it was that this house remained in this state 
 for years, without anyone asking why it was so. At length in- 
 formation was received that an insane person was incarcerated 
 within its desolate looking walls. In company with a Justice 
 of the Peace and others, I obtained admission into the house, 
 and, by forcing a door, into the chamber of the anchorite. Here 
 in gloomy mistrust and dislike of all mankind he had secluded 
 himself for five years. Little of his history was known, except 
 that he had travelled in all parts of the world, had returned to 
 find great domestic affliction, and from that time had shut 
 himself in one room ; the bare necessaries of life being sup- 
 pHed to him by relatives who connived at his eccentricity, one 
 of whom scarcely more sane than himself, also occupied a room 
 in this strange home. It is astonishing that with a penurious 
 diet, and absence of aU comfort, and an absolute want of fresh 
 air and exercise, he retained health for so long a time. Had it 
 not been for this self-inflicted misery and incarceration, it 
 would have been difficult to certify that this poor man was 
 insane. He disliked his feUow men, and shut himself up 
 from them ; that was all. Although not a rich man, he had 
 property ; and while it was under contemplation how he 
 could be rescued from his voluntary misery, some relations 
 took him under their kind protection. Had this man possessed 
 the passionate eloquence of Timon, and been exposed to 
 severe incitements to its use, by irritating invasions on his 
 misanthropic privacy, he might have declaimed as Timon did ; 
 if Timon indeed did declaim; if silence indeed is not the 
 natural state of misanthropy, and all the eloquence of this 
 drama that of the author, rather than of the character. 
 
 The character which Shakespeare has delineated in 
 Timon, is remarkably enough the subject of the chef 
 d'osuvre of French comedy. The Misanthrope of Molifere, 
 however, is in many respects, a very distinct personage from 
 
TIMOX OF ATHENS. 209 
 
 that of Shakespeare. So far from being susceptible to flattery 
 and to the blandishments of prosperity, more than half of hisi 
 quarrel with society is founded upon his abhorrence of this 
 social falsehood. Although he loudly condemns general vices, 
 and thus accounts for his retirement from the world, 
 
 " La raison, pour mon bien, veut que je me retire ; 
 Je n'ai point sur ma langue un assez grand empire," 
 
 yet he detests private scandal, and reproaches his mistress 
 for indulging in it. The dishonest praise and blame of indi- 
 viduals are equally hateful to his ears. The reason he as- 
 signs for his misanthropy, and its extent, are identical with 
 those which Erasmus attributed to Timon ; in his anger, he 
 says, that his aversion to man admits of no exception ; 
 
 " Non, eUe est gendrale, et je hais tous les honimes ; 
 Les uns, parcequ'Us sont m^chants et malfaisants, 
 Et les autres, pour ^tre aux mdchants complaisants." 
 
 He hates aU mankind, because they all come under the ca- 
 tegory of rogues or flatterers. He is, however, elevated above 
 Timon in this, that the personal injuries he himself receives 
 are not the cause of this hatred ; on the contrary, he treats 
 them with a noble indifference. The character of Alceste is, 
 on the whole, that of a magnanimous, truth-loving, truth- 
 speaking man, misplaced in a court where servility and cor- 
 ruption are triumphant. His very defects, his anger at vice 
 and duplicity, and his promptness to express it, are those of 
 a noble soul. 
 
 EiOusseau has taken this view of the character in a severe cri- 
 ticism, to which he has exposed Molifere for degrading the dra- 
 matic art, to pander to the corrupt morals of his age, in covering 
 virtue with ridicule, and vice with false attractions. Other 
 French writers have generally dissented from this condemnation, 
 but Rousseau's letter toD'Alembert is a fine example of analytic 
 criticism, not to be set aside by the sneering assertion, that 
 
 V 
 
210 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 he identified himself with this noble character, and felt his 
 own vanity wounded in its unworthy treatment. Rousseau's 
 estimate of it is irrefragibly just and logical. If he has erred 
 at all, it is in the opinion of the impression which the character 
 of Alceste is calculated to make. His imprudent magnanimity 
 may have been a subject of ridicule to the parterre of Molifere's 
 time, and doubtless was so ; but this view of the character was 
 less due to the manner in which it is delineated, than to the 
 corrupt morals and taste of that age. In better times it would 
 be difficult to throw ridicule upon that which is intrinsically 
 and morally excellent. An interesting anecdote, related by St. 
 Simon, attests that this view of the character was even taken 
 in Moliere's own time by the person most interested in 
 estimating it justly. The Due de Montausier was generally 
 recognized to be the original of the misanthrope, and was 
 so indignant at the supposed insult that he threatened to 
 have MoHfere beaten to death for it. When the king went 
 to see the play, M. le Due was compelled to go with 
 him as his governor. After the performance the Duke 
 sent for Molifere, who was with difficulty brought to him, 
 trembling from head to foot, expecting nothing less than 
 death. M. Montausier, however, gave him a very different 
 reception from that which he expected ; he embraced him 
 again and again, overwhelmed him with praises and thanks, 
 for " if he had thought of him in drawing the character of 
 the misanthrope, which was that of the most perfectly honest 
 man possible, he had done him an honor which was only too 
 great, and which he should never forget.'' 
 
 Rousseau positively asserts not only that Alceste was not 
 a misanthi-ope in the proper sense of the word, but that no 
 sane man can be such. 
 
 " One may say that the author has not ridiculed virtue in 
 Alceste, but a true fault ; that is to say, hatred of mankind. 
 I reply, that it is not true that he has endowed his character 
 
TIMON OP ATHENS. 211 
 
 With this hatred. The mere name of misanthrope must not be 
 understood to imply that he who bears it is the enemy of the 
 human race. A hatred of this kind would not be a defect, 
 but a depravity of nature, and the greatest of all vices, since 
 aU the social virtues are connected with benevolence, and 
 nothing is so directly contrary to them as inhumanity. The 
 true misanthrope, if his existence were possible, would be a 
 monster who would not make us laugh ; he would excite our 
 horror." 
 
 The true misanthrope, in fact, is such a character as lago, a 
 malevolent devil, without belief in any human goodness, without 
 human sympathies, one who has said in his heart, "evil, be thou 
 my good." But the very nature of such inhuman hatred would 
 impose not only silence as to evil thoughts, but hypocritical 
 expression of humane sentiment. The honest wide-mouthed 
 misanthropy of Timon is wholly explicable on neither of these 
 theories. It is neither the rough garb of sincerity and virtue,- 
 as in Alceste, nor inhuman hatred as in lago. It is 
 a medium between the two, inconsistent with sane mind, 
 and expHcable alone as a depravation and perversion of 
 nature arising from disease. It is a form of insanity. 
 
 Aretaeus, describing the conduct of maniacs " in the height 
 of the disease," remarks, " some flee the haunts of men, and 
 going into the -wilderness live by themselves." 
 
 In Gains Cassius there is a fine psychological delineation 
 of another character, who estimates man and his motives 
 depreciatingly. Cassius is robustly sane and self-possessed, 
 and therefore has little in common with Timon. He would 
 approximate more closely to Jaques did not the strong 
 intermixture of spleen pickle him as it were from the 
 contagion of melancholy. In Caesar's unfriendly but graphic 
 description, he figures as the type of cynicism, except that the 
 envy of ambition is attributed to him which the true cynic 
 would despise. Shakespeare's only true cynics are his fools 
 and his madmen. 
 
212 TIMON OF ATHENS. 
 
 " Gees. Let me have men about me that are fat ; 
 Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o'nights : 
 Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look ; 
 He thinks too much : such men are dangerous. 
 
 Ant. Fear him not, Caesar, he's not dangerous ; 
 He is a noble Roman, and well given. 
 
 Gees. 'Would he were fatter : — But I fear him not : . 
 Yet if my name were liable to fear, 
 I do not know the man I should avoid 
 So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much ; 
 He is a great observer, and he looks 
 Quite through the deeds of men : he loves no plays. 
 As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no musick : 
 Seldom he smUes ; or smiles in such a sort 
 As if he mock'd himself, and scom'd his spirit 
 That could be mov'd to smile at any thing. 
 Such men as he be never at heart's ease, 
 Whiles they behold a greater than themselves ; 
 And therefore are they very dangerous." 
 
 However true the dangerous nature of such men may be, 
 in times when despotic power can only be attacked by con- 
 spiracy, it can scarcely be so when eloquence is the most 
 formidable assailant of established authority. Sleep o' nights 
 is needful to sustain the energy of the day, and a fat body is 
 often associated with a well-nourished brain of best quality. 
 The greatest orators and some of the greatest demagogues 
 have at least indicated a proclivity to Falstaffian proportions ; 
 witness Danton, Fox, O'Connell, John Bright, and the Bishop 
 of Oxford. Falstafif, indeed, himself says, "Give me spare 
 men and spare me great ones," but this was only for soldiers. 
 
CONSTANCE. 213 
 
 CONSTANCE. 
 
 Constance is delineated with Greek simplicity. The 
 grandeur of one great passion is weakened by no sub- 
 ordinate parts of character on which the mind can rest 
 and feel relief All is simple and clear, like the one thrilling 
 note of a trumpet, rising higher or falling lower, but never 
 alteriag its tone. The wondrous eloquence in which the 
 passion clothes itself does but display its force. Its unity and 
 direction of purpose remain unchanging and unchangeable. 
 Passion is not seen except when transformed into action. 
 Like a great wind, it would be voiceless except for opposi- 
 tion ; it would be viewless except for its effects. There may 
 be a few tossed leaves, or , a whirling cloud-rack, or the 
 crash of forests. The invisible force remains the same, 
 measured most imperfectly by the casualties of resistance. 
 
 But this passion itself, single in its onward force, is not 
 altogether so in its nature and origin. It wears the garb of 
 maternal affection, of the strong love a widowed mother bears 
 to her only child ; but as in Queen Margaret, the fury of 
 ambition is added : ambition for herself, as much as for her 
 son, which Elinor perceives, and with wounding truth ex- 
 presses : 
 
 " Out insolent ! thy bastard shall be king, 
 That thou may'st be a queen and check the world." 
 
 This fierce desire of power and place, which is but coldly 
 expressed in the word ambition, is as undeniable in Con- 
 
214 CONSTANCE. 
 
 stance as her mother's love. Had she no child she would 
 be ambitious for herself. Having one, she is more vehe- 
 mently ambitious for him, and indirectly for herself. The 
 tenderness of love alone would have led her to shun conten- 
 tion and to withdraw her child from danger ; as Andromache 
 sought to withhold her husband from the field of honour 
 with unalloyed womanly apprehension. But love influenced by 
 ambition, and ambition stimulated by love, produced that 
 compound passion which incurred all risks, braved all dangers. 
 Combined passions are weak or strong, according to their 
 perfection of union, and singleness of purpose. If con- 
 current desires are but half of one mind, they pull diverse 
 ways, and give rise to the weakness of inconsistency ; but if 
 they are thoroughly of one accord, chemically combined as it 
 were, the product acquires new and irresistible strength. 
 This force of compound emotion is finely developed in Con- 
 stance, in contrast with the other female characters of the 
 drama. Ambitious without love, she would have possessed 
 the hard vigour of Elinor ; loving without ambition, she 
 would have been tenderly devoted like Blanch. Under the 
 lash of the combined passion she is a fury, whom her bound- 
 less love and her deep woe barely suffice to redeem from our 
 horror. 
 
 The first words of Constance are those of prudent advice, 
 the suggestion of a strong vehement nature against the first 
 move in the dread game of war. They contrast well with the 
 ready boasts of coward Austria and feeble France : 
 
 " Stay for an answer to your embassy, 
 Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood." 
 
 It is the only tranquil speech which the poor woman is 
 permitted to utter. The scolding match into which she 
 immediately precipitates herself with Queen Elinor develops 
 the irritabiUty and vehemence of her temper. To Elinor's 
 taunt of unchastity she repUes with acrid tu quoque invective. 
 
CONSTANCE. 215 
 
 She [fairly overwhelms the queen-mother with vituperation, 
 and does her best to merit the contemptuous entreaty of 
 John, " Bedlam, have done !" and at length the expostula- 
 tions of her own friend. 
 
 " EU. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce 
 A will, that bars the title of thy son. 
 
 Const. A.J, who doubts that ? a wiU ! a wicked will ! 
 A woman's will ! a canker'd graudame's wiU ! 
 
 K. Phi. Peace, lady ; pause, or be more temperate : 
 It ill beseems this presence, to cry aim 
 To these ill-tuned repetitions." 
 
 She has already incurred the remonstrance of her gentle son. 
 
 " Arth. Good my mother, peace ! 
 
 I would that I were low laid in my grave ; 
 I am not worth this coU that 's made for me." 
 
 Her veiy tenderness to her child is fierce, hke that of some 
 she-beast of prey. Had there been no motive in the mother's 
 heart but that of love, this appeal might well have checked 
 not only the unbridled use of speech, but the dangerous 
 course of action into which Constance throws herself. But at 
 this period, ambition is stronger than love, and it would be 
 hard to say to what extent ambition for herself was not mixed 
 up with that for her son. The scene affords clear insight into 
 the natural character of Constance, as a proud ambitious 
 woman, of irritable and ungoverned temper. The flight of 
 her imagination, like that of her passion, is yet comparatively 
 low. She weU scolds her opponents indeed, but not until 
 later is her unrivaled power of invective fuUy developed. 
 
 In nothing is Shakespeare's master-hand more evident than 
 in the manner in which he lays a true and consistent foun- 
 dation for his characters. To have built such an one as that 
 of Constance, on the basis of the common female virtues, 
 would have been monstrous. Constance, in whom fierce 
 passion is not the result, but the cause of madness, could 
 only have been from the beginning, what she is plainly 
 
216 CONSTANCE. 
 
 shewn to have been, a haughty, ii'a&cible woman, whose 
 tongue and temper were dreaded by friend and foe. 
 
 Although accurate history has little to do with dramatic 
 representation of character, it is worthy of remark, that the 
 imperious claim of Constance to the crown of England for her 
 son, was not founded upon that indefeasible right which 
 would have been recognized at a later period. Mr. Foster in 
 his Historical Essays remarks that, 
 
 " In England, while some might have thought Arthur's 
 hereditary claim superior to his uncle's, there was hardly a 
 man of influence, who at this period would have drawn the 
 sword for him, on any such principle as that the crown of 
 England was heritable property. The genius of the country 
 had been repugnant to any such notion. The Anglo-Saxon 
 Sovereignty was elective, that people never sanctioning a 
 custom by which the then personal and most arduous'duties 
 of sovereignty, both in peace and war, might pass of right to 
 an infant or imbecile prince ; and to the strength of this 
 feeling in the country of their conquest, the Normans here- 
 tofore had been obliged to defer." 
 
 When the alliance between John and Philip has been 
 determined, the latter enquires for her, and the Dauphin 
 replies, 
 
 " She is sad and passionate in your fiighness' tent." 
 Philip thinks the peace " will give her sadness very httle 
 cure," and in real apprehension asks his brother of England, 
 " how we may content this widow lady ?" John proposes to 
 give up Bretagne and other dignities and powers to Arthur, and 
 trusts in this manner to appease if not to satisfy her ambition, 
 and avert hex vituperation : 
 
 " I trust we shall, 
 If not fill up the measure of her will. 
 Yet in some measure satisfy her so. 
 That we shall stop her exclamation." 
 
 John, however, had reckoned without his host ; the ladys 
 will was not to be so readily satisfied, nor her passionate 
 
CONSTANCE. 217 
 
 exclamation so easily stopped. When Salisbury bears tocher 
 the message of the kings, and the information of their new com- 
 pact, her rage knows no bounds, and the expression of it is 
 as vehemently eloquent as that of her passionate grief when 
 she has really lost all. Those, who in deference to the sacred 
 virtues of womanhood attribute all the language and conduct 
 of Constance to the aU-sanctifying motive of maternal love, 
 will do well to remark that this passionate scene takes place 
 while her son is with her and free from danger, except that 
 which her own ambition prepares for him. Her rage arises 
 from the thought that Blanch shall have those provinces 
 instead of her son : 
 
 " Const. Gone to be married ! gone to swear a peace ! 
 False blood to false blood join'd ! Gone to be friends ! 
 Shall Lewis have Blanch 1 and Blanch those provinces ? 
 It is not so ; thou hast misspoke, misheard ; 
 Be well advis'd, teU o'er thy tale again : 
 It cannot be ; thou dost but say, 't is so : 
 I trust I may not trust thee ; for thy word 
 Is but the vain breath of a common man. 
 BeUeve me, I do not believe thee, man ; 
 I have a king's oath to the contrary. 
 Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me, 
 For I am sick, and capable of fears ; 
 Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears ; 
 A widow, husbandless, subject to fears ; 
 A woman, naturally born to fears ; 
 And though thou now confess thou didst but jest. 
 With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce. 
 But they will quake and tremble all this day." 
 
 " O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow, 
 
 Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die ; 
 
 And let belief and hfe encounter so. 
 
 As doth the fury of two desperate men. 
 
 Which in the very meeting fall, and die. — 
 
 Lewis marry Blanch ! O, boy, then where art thou ? 
 
 France friend with England ! What becomes of me 1— 
 
 Fellow, be gone : I cannot brook thy sight'; 
 
 This news hath made thee a most ugly man." 
 
218 CONSTANCE. 
 
 In this violent language the spirit of disappointed ambition is 
 paramount : ambition not only for Arthur but for herself, 
 " What becomes of me ?" The attack on Salisbury, the 
 innocent messenger, so unworthy of a lady and a princess, 
 can only be excused on the supposition that she is beside 
 herself with fruitless rage, and vents it on any one within 
 reach. It wants but Httle that she should turn her tongue or 
 her hands even upon Arthur. When, alarmed by her fury, 
 he interposes, " I do beseech you, madam, be content." She 
 replies with a strange sophistry, which a true mother's heart 
 would never employ, that if he were "grim, ugly, and slan- 
 d'rous to his mother's womb," &c. : 
 
 " I would not care, I then would be content ; 
 For then I should not love thee ; no, nor thou 
 Become thy great birth, and deserve a crown." 
 
 When was true mother's love ever measured by the 
 
 beauty of her child. ? When did it not rather increase with 
 
 the child's imperfections? Sacred miracle of nature, a 
 
 mother's love hangs not on such casual gifts as form and 
 
 beauty. The cretin idiot, hideous and half human, claims 
 
 and receives more than its share. Even moral deformities 
 
 cannot exhaust this unselfish all-enduring fount of love ; as 
 
 the reprobate son, the outcast of the family, knows fuU well, 
 
 feeling that there is a bond holding him to one pure heart 
 
 which can never loosen. But the love of Constance is alloyed 
 
 with pride, and ambition, and selfishness. Not simply because 
 
 Arthur is her son is he dear to her, but also because he is 
 
 rightful heir to a crown, and becaiise his beauty fiatters her 
 
 pride : 
 
 " Of nature's gifts thou may'st with lilies boast. 
 And with the half-blown rose." 
 
 With the true selfishness of intense pride, she attributes the 
 sufferance of aU Arthur's injuries to herself. She alone feels 
 and must under-bear the woes of disappointed ambition. She 
 
CONSTANCE. 219 
 
 calls upon the peer whom she has so insolently and cause- 
 lessly abused, to assist in her vituperations : 
 
 " Tell me, thou fellow, is not France foresworn ? 
 Envenom him with words ; or get thee gone, 
 And leave those woes alone, which I alone 
 Am hound to under-bear." 
 
 She wiU not go with Salisbury to the Kiags. Did they know 
 her truly they would never send for her. She is in an ecstasy 
 of passion, which she miscalls grief and sorrow. The idea that 
 she win make the huge firm earth the throne of this great 
 emotion carries one beyond the earth in its grandeur. The 
 intensity of her passion is almost Satanic. Her humanity is 
 alone vindicated by her subjection to its powers. Such 
 passion in a questionable cause, moving a strong nature, 
 would excite only fear and abhorrence ; endured by a weak 
 one it excites our extremest pity. Insanity alone redeems 
 such passion to the kindred of womanhood, and is already 
 foreshadowed in that culminating point where the extremes of 
 pride and grief meet in the dust. 
 
 " I will instruct my sorrows to be proud : 
 For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop. 
 To me, and to the state of my great grief. 
 Let kings assemble ; for my grief's so great 
 That no supporter but the huge firm earth 
 Can hold it up : here I and sorrows sit ; 
 Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it." 
 
 There is one word in the above quotations which must not 
 pass without comment. Constance avows herself in iU health. 
 "For I am aich." This point of physical disturbance is 
 rarely omitted by Shakspeare, in the development of in- 
 sanity. It may be referred to in this instance in the most 
 casual and careless manner, for the drama can take httle 
 cognizance of the physical imperfections of our nature. Still, 
 however skilfully and imperceptible, the point is made. In 
 a sick frame, passion like that of Constance woxild have 
 
220 CONSTANCE. 
 
 fuller sway. The irritable nerves would act and re-act on 
 the irritated mind. Emotion would obtain more complete 
 and disastrous empire. 
 
 When Constance, unobserved before, rises from the ground 
 amidst the congratulating court, with the dignified and solem.n 
 denunciation of kingly treachery, one of the finest possible 
 dramatic efiects is produced with the siraplest means. Her 
 eloquence throughout this scene is magnificent. The interests 
 even of kingdoms seem below its lofty aim. The truth of 
 kings, and, as a minor term, the truth of all other men, is 
 counterfeit. The invocation to the Heavens, that they should 
 arm for her, and be husband to her, and set discord betwixt 
 these perjured kings, is the cKmax of eloquence. To Aus- 
 tria's entreaty, " Lady Constance, peace ;" she replies in utter 
 forgetfulness of all miseries except her own : 
 
 " War ! War ! War ! peace is to me a war." 
 No idea of the Pythoness, or of any woman inspired by good 
 or evil influences, ever represented a more extatic state of 
 eloquent emotion. Tlie poet's own representation of inspired 
 insanity, Cassandra in Troilus and Cressida, is tame and 
 indistinct, in comparison. 
 
 " Cry Trojans, cry ! Lend me ten thousand eyes 
 And I will fiU them with prophetic tears," &c. 
 
 Constance descends from this exalted strain, to wither Austria 
 with her unmatched powers of vituperation, in which she 
 does not even disdain a ridiculous image : 
 
 " Thou wear a lion's hide ! doff it, for shame. 
 And hang a calf-skin on those recreant Hmbs." i^ 
 
 The war she invo^s is near at hand in the " holy errand" of 
 the Legate. When this clerical despot pours the vials of the 
 church's wrath on the head of John, who "blasphemes" in 
 terms of EngUsh patriotism and protestantism, Constance 
 must vie with the curses of authority, for which there's "law 
 and warrant." 
 
CONSTANCE. 221 
 
 " Const. O, lawful let it be, 
 
 Tliat I have room with Rome to curse a while ! 
 Good father cardinal, cry thou, amen, 
 To my keen curses : for, without my wrong. 
 There is no tongue hath power to curse him right." 
 
 Afterwards she only contributes short sentences to the 
 dialogue, so pregnant with mighty interest ; but they are 
 artfuUy conceived to incline the wavering mind of King Philip 
 and Lewis to the warlike decision she so ardently desires, 
 and they are expressed with fierce unity of purpose. As 
 she has imprecated from heaven the bloody arbitrament of 
 battle, she invokes hell itself, to alarm the timid soul of 
 PhiHp: 
 
 " Look to that devil ! lest that France repent, 
 And by disjoining hands, hell lose a soul." 
 
 Lewis she taunts with his unfledged bride, and the coyness of 
 his honour. Her passion stimulates her lofty intellect, and 
 enables her to suggest in the strongest possible manner to 
 each person, the motive likely to weigh most. 
 
 She gains her purpose, and the issue of war is to decide 
 her rights. Blanch, with true woman's heart, laments for 
 the sake of those she loves simply and for themselves. To 
 her, 
 
 " The sun's o'ercast with blood." 
 
 But Constance, to whom peace is war, war is of all things 
 most welcome, as the means to the end of her ambition, her 
 fiendish ambition. May those who seek for war ever bear its 
 heaviest penalties. May the general murderer feel the truth 
 of Pandulph's assertion of the particular one : , 
 
 " For he that steeps his safety in true blood, 
 Shall find but bloody safety and untrue." 
 
 So it is with Constance. She loses her cause and her son, 
 and the passion of ambitious love now appears in the form of 
 grief, perhaps of remorse. 
 
222 CONSTANCE. 
 
 When all pui-pose of ambition is at an eud, and even the chief 
 
 object of it lost, its instigations are no longer predominent 
 
 in the poor woman's heart ; in the prostrating grief she now 
 
 endures there is no thought of the lost kingdom ; one monster 
 
 grief, Hke Aaron's rod, devours all smaller ones ; there is from 
 
 henceforth only one thought, one feeling, one mental object, 
 
 one fixed idea, — that her son is for ever lost. King PhOip 
 
 recognizes in her one already dead to the world : 
 
 " Look who comes here ? a grave unto a soul 
 Holding the eternal spirit 'gainst her will, 
 In the vile prison of afflicted breath." 
 
 Constance taunts him with his and her own calamities as the 
 result of his peace, whereas they were in reality the issue of 
 her war. This is the only point on which her quick intellect 
 ever trips. She shews no signs of bending, though her spirit 
 is wounded unto death. Her invincible pride rejects all 
 comfort, aU solace. The charnel-house ideas of her invo- 
 cation to death is poetic delirium, the frenzy of imagi- 
 nation. Juliet's imagination, embracing the same ideas, is 
 feeble and prosaic compared with this horror. 
 
 " No, I defy all counsel, all redress, 
 
 But that which ends all counsel, true redress. 
 
 Death, death, amiable lovely death ! 
 
 Thou odoriferous stench ! sound rottenness ! 
 
 Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, 
 
 Thou hate and terror to prosperity, 
 
 And I will kiss thy detestable bones ; 
 
 And put my eyeballs in thy vanity brows ; 
 
 And ring these fingers with thy household worms ; 
 
 And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, 
 
 And be a canion monster likp thyself : 
 
 Come, grin on me ; and I wiU think thou smil'st. 
 
 And buss thee as thy wife ! Misery's love, 
 
 O, come to me ! " 
 
 In her fierce, unconquerable pride, she would make death 
 itself obey her as a vassal, and would shake the world even 
 in leaving it. 
 
CONSTANCE. 223 
 
 " 0, that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth ! 
 Then with a passion would I shake the world ; 
 And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy." 
 
 Pandulph tells her plainly that she is mad, and rouses that 
 eloquent defence of her reason, in which she repeats the test 
 of madness which Lear applies to himself, the recognition of 
 personal identity, and in which she expresses the same idea of 
 madness as a refuge from sorrow, which Gloster does. 
 
 " Pwnd. Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow. 
 
 Const. Thou art not holy to beUe me so ; 
 I am not mad : this hair I tear, is mine ; 
 My name is Constance ; I was Geffrey's wife ; 
 Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost : 
 I am not mad : — I would to heaven, I were ! 
 For then, 'tis like, I should forget myself : 
 O, if I could, what grief should I forget ! — 
 Preach some philosophy to make me mad, 
 And thou shalt be canoniz'd, cardinal ; 
 For, being not mad, but sensible of grief, 
 My reasonable part produces reason. 
 How I may be deliver' d of these woes. 
 And teaches me to kiU or hang myself : 
 If I were mad, I should forget my son ; 
 Or madly think, a babe of clouts were he : 
 I am not mad : too well, too well I feel 
 The different plague of each calamity." 
 
 This supposed test of sanity, the preservation of the sense 
 of personal identity, is used in the same manner by Sebastian 
 ia Twelfth Night, to assure himself that in the strange en- 
 joyment of Olivia's favours, he is neither dreaming nor 
 doting. 
 
 " Seh. This is the air ; that is the glorious sun : 
 This pearl she gave me, I do feel 't, and see 't : 
 And though 't is wonder that enwraps me thus. 
 Yet 't is not madness. Where 's Antonio then 1 
 I could not find him at the Elephant ; 
 Yet there he was ; and there I found this credit, 
 That he did range the town to seek me out. 
 
224 CONSTANCE. 
 
 His counsel now might do me golden sei'vice : 
 
 For though my soul disputes well with my sense, 
 
 That this may be some error, but no madness, 
 
 Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune 
 
 So far exceed all instance, all discourse, 
 
 That I am ready to distrust mine eyes, 
 
 And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me 
 
 To any other trust, but that I am mad, 
 
 Or else the lady's mad ; and yet, if 't were so, 
 
 She could not sway her house, command her followers, 
 
 Take and give back affairs, and their despatch, 
 
 With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing, 
 
 As, I perceive, she does : there 's something in 't 
 
 That is deceivable." 
 
 It is however no better a test of madness than that 
 applied by Cassio, to prove his state of sobriety. 
 
 " Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk : this is my Ancient ; 
 This is my right hand, and this is my left." 
 
 Angrily as Constance rejects the idea of madness, yet she 
 is mad ; the very type of acute reasoning mania. In real life 
 the intellect would scarcely be so consistent and consecutive 
 in its operations ; but in real life neither sane nor insane 
 people talk blank verse, and express even their deepest 
 emotions in the magnificent imagery which great poets use. 
 The raving of maniacal frenzy, in which the emotions are 
 exclusively involved, would be represented by short and 
 broken sentences, in which every link in the idea-ohain would 
 not be expressed, and which would therefore represent, more 
 or less the features of incoherence. The poet fiUs up these 
 chasms in the sense, and clothes the whole in the glowing 
 language of excited intellectual power ; and thus we have in 
 Constance the representation of a frenzied woman, speaking 
 with more arrangement of ideas, than fren2y really permits- 
 King Philip bids her bind up her tresses, which she has 
 been madly tearing with her own >^hands to prove herself not 
 mad. These tresses, 
 
CONSTANCE. 225 
 
 " Where but by chance a silver drop hath fallen," 
 she will bind up as she is bid ; she wiU eren do this in 
 fanciftd reference to the one subject of aU thought, her son's 
 imprisonment. 
 
 " I tore them from their bonds ; and cried aloud, 
 
 that these hands could so redeem my son, 
 As they have given these hairs their Uberty ! 
 But now I envy at their liberty, 
 
 And will again commit them to their bonds. 
 Because my poor child is a prisoner." 
 
 The despairing cry of overwhelming misery, which can ap- 
 prehend no hope even in heaven, expresses itself in the fancy 
 that she can never again see her son even beyond the grave, 
 for canker sorrow will change him. 
 
 " And so he'll die ; and, rising so again, 
 When I shall meet him in the court of heaven 
 
 1 shall not know him : therefore never, never 
 Must I behold my pretty Arthur more." 
 
 Her last words indicate a state of hallucination. Grief 
 represents her son's voice and figure to her senses. Or 
 if this be not taken literally, it at least represents one 
 manner in which hallucination is produced. An absorbing 
 emotion constantly directs the attention to one idea-image. 
 This creation of ths mind at length becomes accepted by the 
 sense, and the hallucination of insanity exists. This differs 
 in its origin, and its significance, from hallucination arising 
 from some abnormal state of the nerves of sense merely, 
 which may exist, as it did in Ben Jonson and Nicolai, 
 without any deviation from a sound state of mental health. 
 If the lively representation of Arthur's presence be not 
 intended to convey the idea of actual hallucination, it at 
 least expresses the complete dominion which an absorbing 
 emotion attains over the attention and mental conception. 
 
 " K. Phi. You are as fond of grief as of your child. 
 Q 
 
226 CONSTANCE. 
 
 Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent child. 
 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
 Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form; 
 Then, have I reason to be fond of gi'ief. 
 Fare you well : had you such a loss as I, 
 I could give better comfort than you do. — 
 I will not keep this form upon my head, 
 When there is such disorder in my wit. 
 
 [Tearing off her head dress. 
 O lord ! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ! 
 My life, my joy, my food, my all the world ! 
 My widow-comfort, and my sorrow's cure ! 
 
 K. Phi. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her." 
 
 The frightful spectacle, of acute mania pursuing its course 
 to a fatal end, was no attractive subject for dramatic represen- 
 tation. Shakespeare exhibited the growing horror to the 
 extreme hmit which decent regard to human weakness 
 permitted, and then mercifully drew the veil. The spectacle 
 of sleepless nights and restless days, of fierce raving and 
 desperate outrage until exhausted nature sinks, this he could 
 not and would not exhibit to the public gaze. In one short 
 line alone he tells the end, 
 
 " The Lady Constance in a frenzy died." 
 This concealment of the horrors of furious mania, although 
 their existence is indicated, has its parallel in the treatment of 
 the death of the Queen in Cymbehne. The strong mind of 
 this bad woman, one who " bears down all with her brain," is 
 lost in maniacal frenzy, brought on by the disappointment of 
 her schemes. She lies " upon a desperate bed," with 
 
 " A fever from the absence of her son ; 
 Madness of which her life's in danger." 
 
 The horror of the desperate bed is withheld. Its termination 
 only is recorded with the frenzied confession of her wickedness. 
 In the flush of victory, the Bang is accosted by Cornelius, the 
 
CONSTANCE. 227 
 
 good and discreet physician, who had baffled the Queen's 
 intended poisonings. 
 
 " Hail great king ! 
 To sour your happiness I must report 
 The Queen is dead. 
 
 Cymbeline. Whom worse than a physician 
 Would this report become ? But I consider, 
 By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death 
 WiU seize the doctor too. How ended she ? 
 
 Cor. ^ With horror, madly dying like herself, 
 Who being cruel to the world, concluded 
 Most cruel to herseE" 
 
 The death of the noble minded wife of Brutus is a distant 
 terror like that of Constance. Impatience at the absence of 
 her husband, and grief at the growing power of his enemies, 
 induce the frenzy of despair and suicide. 
 
 " With this she fell distract, 
 And her attendants absent, swallowed fire." 
 
 In aU the deaths of all the plays, a long bill of mortality 
 indeed, there is only one instance in which aU the horrors of a 
 bad end are laid bare, namely, in that of the Cardinal Beau- 
 fort. In King John's death, physical anguish alone is ex- 
 pressed, and this with such beauty and force of language as to 
 veil the foul reality of death by a corrosive poison. 
 
 Constance even more than Lear establishes the fact that 
 Shakespeare held the origin and nature of insanity to be 
 emotional. Until the last there is no delusion, scarcely a 
 deviation from reason, and yet she is conducted through a 
 tempest of emotional disturbance into the very midst of 
 maniacal excitement. All the causes of disease are purely 
 emotional. The predisposing cause is her fiercely passionate 
 disposition. The exciting cause is grief Tlie symptoms are 
 the same as the causes, transformed into abnormal conditions 
 of degree. Disorder in the wit is felt, but scarcely exhibited. 
 Loss of control over the operation of the intellect is mani- 
 
228 CONSTANCE. 
 
 fested in the last sjDeech only, or perhaps also in the discon- 
 nected expression preceding, " To England if you will." 
 Nature is above art, as Lear says, and a truth now appreciated 
 by science needs not the support of opinion even from so great an 
 artist as Shakespeare. But perfect art is founded upon science, 
 the science of exact observation at least, and to such a test there 
 can be little doubt that this character was submitted in the 
 crucible of the poet's great brain, before it was moulded into 
 that form of fierce power and beauty, in which it excites our 
 admiration and awe. The wondrous eloquence of Constance 
 is second to that of no other character except Lear. It would 
 seem that Shakespeare revels in the free swing of fancy, in 
 the repudiation of all mental restraint which half madness 
 jiistifies. He uses these characters as the motley favourites 
 of old courts were often used, to speak bitter truth without 
 fear or favour, without hesitation or retention, without pru- 
 dential subtraction or self-seeking after thought." The mad- 
 men of Shakespeare are his broadest exponents of humanity. 
 
 In the development of the insanity of Constance, the power 
 of passion finds a potent ally in that of imagination. Imagi- 
 nation, that creative faculty which paints in the mind's eye 
 those images which in health may be dismissed at will, but 
 which in disease haunt the oppressed brain with their impor- 
 tunate presence. The faculty of forming sensational ideas 
 without the intervention of the external senses, is one which, if 
 not kept in subjection to a sober judgment, is more perilous to 
 mental health than ought else except unbridled passion. In 
 actual insanity this function runs riot, and the world of reality 
 is supplanted by that of fancy. This idea is most beautifully 
 expressed in Midsummer Night's Dream : 
 
 " 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of 
 The. More strange than true. I never may believe 
 These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. 
 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, 
 
CONSTANCE. 229 
 
 Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 
 
 More than cool reason ever comprehends. 
 
 The lunatick, the lover, and the poet, 
 
 Are of imagination all compact ; 
 
 One sees more devUs than vast hell can hold ; 
 
 That is, the madman : the lover, aU as frantick, 
 
 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt : 
 
 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling. 
 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
 
 And, as imagination bodies forth 
 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's peu 
 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 
 A local habitation, and a name. 
 
 Such tricks hath strong imagination ; 
 
 That, if it would but apprehend some joy, 
 
 It comprehends some bringer of that joy ; 
 
 Or, in the night, imagining some fear, 
 
 How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear f 
 
 The best commentary on this is again to be found in the 
 pages of that acute and original thinker, the author of the 
 " Characteristics,'' who directly traces the origin of insanity 
 to this very excess of the imaginative faculty uncorrected by 
 the judgment. 
 
 " This, indeed, is but too certain ; that as long as we enjoy 
 a mind, as long as we have appetites and sense, the fancy's 
 of aU kinds will be hard at work ; and whether we are in 
 company or alone, they must range stUl, and be active. They 
 must have their field. The question is, whether they shall 
 have it whoUy to themselves ; or whether they shall ac- 
 knowledge some controuler or manager. If none, 'tis this I 
 fear which leads to madness. 'Tis this, and nothing else 
 which can be caU'd madness, or loss of reason. For if fancy 
 be left judge of anything, she must be judge of all. Everjrthing 
 is right, if anything be so, because I fancy it. ' The house 
 turns round. The prospect turns. No, but my head turns 
 indeed, I have a giddiness ; that's all. Fancy would persuade 
 me thus and thus, but I know better.' 'Tis by means there- 
 fore of a controuler and corrector of fancy, that I am saved 
 from being mad. Otherwise, 'tis the house turns, when I am 
 giddy. 'Tis things which change (for so I mu.st suppose) 
 when my passion merely or temper changes. But I was out 
 
230 CONSTANCE. 
 
 of order. I dreamt. Who tells me this ? Who besides the 
 correctrice, by whose means I am in my wits, and without 
 whom I am no longer myself ? " 
 
 This distinction between the mind directed by fancy, under 
 the sway of the senses, and the appeal from thence to reason 
 is directly asserted in the Winter's Tale. 
 
 " Camillo. Be advised. 
 
 Florizel. I am, and by my fancy : if my reason 
 Will thereto be obedient, I have reason. 
 If not, my senses, better pleased with madness. 
 Do bid it welcome." 
 
 What is this corrector or controller of fancy ? It is some- 
 what begging the question to reply, that it is the reason ; for 
 reason is often held to include all the intellectual operations, 
 and among them the one to be controlled. The real umpire 
 appears to be the facility of comparison, by which the un- 
 reaUties of imagination, or the misrepresentations of perverted 
 sensation are contrasted with the knowledge derived from 
 experience. ShakesjJeare somewhere remarks, that after one 
 has looked fixedly at the sun, aU things appear green. If this 
 appearance continued, the mental preservative against behef 
 in the reality would be, the comparison of present impressions 
 with the memory of the past, the testimony of others, and a 
 grounded belief in the unchangeabihty of nature. 
 
 In the greater number of delusive appearances, one sense 
 corrects another ; but when all the senses and all the circum- 
 stances of time and place continue to afiirm the reality of 
 some transaction, it is difficult to see from whence the cor- 
 rective would come. If the sensations of dreaming were as 
 clear and consistent as those of the waking state, how would 
 men be able to distinguish the memory of their dreams from 
 those of their real actions ? There is a curious passage 
 bearing on this point in TroUus and Cressida. The young 
 lover has just witnessed the falsehood of his mistress. He 
 cannot at first believe the evidence of his senses, and argues 
 
CONSTANCE. 231 
 
 against his misery, by combating the testimony of his eyes 
 and ears with that of his affections. 
 
 " JJlyss. All's done, my lord. 
 
 Tto. It is. 
 
 Ulyss. Why stay we then ? 
 
 Tro. To make a recordation to my soul 
 Of every syllable that here was spoke. 
 But, if I tell how these two did co-act, 
 Shall I not lie in publishing the truth ? 
 Sith, yet there is a credence in my heart, 
 An esperance so obstinately strong, 
 That doth avert the attest of eyes and ears. 
 As if those organs had deceptions functions, 
 Created only to calumniate. 
 Was Cressid here ? 
 
 Ulyss. I cannot conjure, Trojan. 
 
 Tro. She was not, sure. 
 
 Ulyss. Most sure she was. 
 
 Tro. Why, my negation hath no taste of madness. 
 
 TJier. . WiU. he swagger himself out on's own eyes ? 
 
 Tro. This is not she. O madness of discourse, 
 That cause sets up with and against thyself ! 
 Bi-fold authority ! where reason can revolt 
 Without perdition, and loss assume all reason 
 Without revolt : this is, and is not, Cressid ! 
 Within my soul there doth conduce a fight 
 Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate 
 Divides more wider than the sky and earth ; 
 And yet the spacious breadth of this division 
 Admits no orifice for a point, as subtle 
 As Ariachne's broken woof, to enter." 
 
 The arguments of Macbeth against the unreal mockeries of 
 the phantom rest upon a Ulse foundation ; but somehow or 
 other, and despite of all the philosophy of Bishoj) Berkeley, 
 there is a vast difference between appearance and reality. 
 Hamlet, and Brutus, and Macbeth may have seen ghosts, 
 and believed in them more or less, but a hungry man never 
 disbelieves in the pudding he is eating ; unless, indeed, he is 
 absolutely insane, and then no limit can be set to the absur- 
 dities of belief or disbehef 
 
232 JAQUES. 
 
 JAQUES. 
 
 " And melancholy marked him for her own." 
 
 " The melancholy Jaques " is another phase of the Hamlet 
 character, contemplated under totally different circumstances. 
 There is the same contemplative cast of thought on the frail- 
 ties of man exercising itself in obedience to a depressed 
 state of emotion. In Jaques this has not been the result of 
 sudden revulsion of feeling, of some one great grief, which 
 has, as it were, overspread the heavens with a paU. It is of 
 more gradual and wholesome growth, the result of matured 
 intellect and exhausted desire. Jaques is an " old man," or 
 at least old enough to be called so by the rustic lass in her 
 anger of disappointment ; and he himself indirectly attributes 
 his melancholy to his wide knowledge of the world. 
 
 " It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many sim- 
 ples, extracted from many objects ; and, indeed, the sundry 
 contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination 
 wraps me in a most humourous sadness." "Yes, I have 
 gained my experience." 
 
 It is thus he hath gained knowledge, if not wisdom ; 
 unless wisdom be not truly described in that line of the 
 poet, which says that it enables us 
 
 " To see aU other's faults and feel our own." 
 
 He does indeed suffer from more than intellectual depreciation 
 of jnan's sensuahty. He has wallowed in it himself, and if 
 he suffers not the acute sting of remorse, he endures 
 
JAQUES. 233 
 
 the dull ache of exhaustion. To use a term now almost 
 naturalized among us, he is thoroughly blase with licentious 
 freedom. He has squandered his means and exhausted his 
 powers of enjoyment ; having been forgetful that moderation 
 is the true epicureanism of enjojrment, he will now rail upon 
 the pleasures of the world in the false stoicism of disgust. 
 Falstaff says that old men " measiire the heat of our livers 
 by the bitterness of their own galls ;" but in Jaques it is the 
 heat of his own liver which has embittered the gall of his 
 opinion. He says 
 
 " Invest me in my motley ; give me leave 
 
 To speak my mind, and I wUl through and through 
 
 Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, 
 
 If they wiU patiently receive my medicine. 
 
 Duke S. Fye on thee ! I can tell what thou wouldst do. 
 
 Jaq. What, for a counter, would I do, but good ? 
 
 Duke S. Most mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin : 
 For thou thyseK hast been a hbertine. 
 As sensual as the brutish sting itself ; 
 And an the embossed sores, and headed evils. 
 That thou with licence of free foot hast caught, 
 Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world." 
 
 The contrast of this philosophy with the nobler one of the 
 banished Duke, which leads him to discover the sweet uses of 
 adversity, and to find good in everything, is aU in favour of 
 the latter ; for the loving humanity of the Duke, as con- 
 templative in its way as the cynicism of the other, is felt to 
 be that of goodness, and nobleness, and truth ; while that of 
 Jaques is made to throw, not only on his thoughts, but on 
 himself, that tinge of ridicule which belongs to perverse 
 exaggeration. His general cynicism, however, is combined 
 with tenderness of heart ; he grieves even at the physical 
 pain endured by brutes ; and the moral evil of the world, which 
 he sees through and through, pains and distresses him. The 
 selfishness which makes worldlings bequeath wealth to the 
 rich, and which makes " misery pai-t the flux of company," 
 
23-i JAQUES. 
 
 and the prosperous to look with contempt upon the wretched, 
 is to him not a source of hatred, but of sorrow. 
 
 " Most invectively he pierceth thro' 
 The body of the country, city, court," — 
 
 but his invectives are half erased with tears. Jaques' 
 melancholy is no affectation, though he " loves it better than 
 laughing," " and can suck it out of a song, as a weazel sucks 
 eggs." Although his intimate knowledge of mankind, and 
 his sententious power of expression, and bis perverse ingenuity 
 in representing things awry, make his company an intellectual 
 feast, so that the Duke says, 
 
 " I love to cope him in these sullen fits. 
 For then he's full of matter," 
 
 he feels no vain pleasure in the display, and avoids the dispu- 
 tation and colhsion of wit which the Duke so much enjoys. 
 
 "Jaq. I have been out all this day to avoid him. He 
 is too disputable for my company ; I think of as many 
 matters as he, but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast 
 of them." 
 
 He is as far from being unsocial as he is from being really 
 misanthropic. He delights in the gay Amiens and his songs, 
 though he does suck melancholy from them. He fancies 
 Orlando, sees no faiilt in him, except " to be in love," and 
 invites his companionship "to rail against our mistress the 
 world and all our misery." He almost solicits friendship with 
 Rosalind ; but to Touchstone he cleaves as to a grotesque 
 image of his own thoughts. There is no trace in him of that 
 terrible selfishness which distinguishes melancholy when it has 
 become disease. The sensual sources of selfishness have been 
 dried up in him ; and the intellectual ones are frozen by his in- 
 grain cynicism. He is more disposed to solitude than disputa- 
 tion, to silence than intellectual display, seeing that "'tis good to 
 be sad and say nothing.'' The most subtle of aU vanities, 
 that of mental power, is absent, and the two or three long 
 
JAQUES. 235 
 
 speeches he makes are but the spontaneous expression of his 
 contemplation. If this contemplation paints itself in sad 
 colours, it is singularly free from personal animosity. This is 
 finely expressed in his reply to the accusation of the Duke, 
 that he would commit sin in chiding sin. 
 
 " Jaq. Why, who cries out on pride, 
 That can therein tax any private party 1 
 Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea. 
 Tin that the very weary means do ebb ? 
 What woman in the city do I name. 
 When that I say, The city-woman bears 
 The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders ?" — 
 
 The motive for this general censure of vice is, indeed, as 
 wide apart from that of individual slander, as benevolence is 
 from mahce. The tenderest love of which the world's history 
 bears record, denounced and unsparingly lashed all vice, but 
 the woman taken in adultery was told to "go and sin no 
 more." 
 
 Tlie Duke always appears unduly severe in his estimate of 
 Jaques' humour. He has accused him of "sullen fits," of 
 being " compact of jars," of deriving his disgust of Hfe from 
 used up libertinism ; and after Orlando's famishing appeal for 
 pity and sustenance, he does him the injustice to refer the 
 cause of his sadness to the feeling of personal misery. 
 
 " Duke S. Thou seest, we are not all alone unhappy : 
 This wide and universal theatre 
 Presents more woeful pageants than the scene 
 Wherein we play in." 
 
 Jaques replies in that epitome of life in twenty-eight lines, 
 describing the seven ages of man, the condensed wisdom of 
 which has become " familiar as household words." It affords 
 a complete, though indirect refutation to the Duke's implied 
 reproach, and distinctly lays the wide basis of his philosophy on 
 human life at large. It is to be remarked that there is 
 neither anger nor malice in this description of Hfe. It merely 
 
236 JAQUES. 
 
 represents the shady side of truth. The weakness of infancy, 
 the pains of education, the woes of love, the dangers of gloiy, 
 the pedantry of mature authority, the meanness of aged 
 frugality, and the wretchedness of decay, these are the 
 aspects of life given in brief sentences, each of which is like a 
 picture in outline from the pencil of Retzsch, But life has 
 another aspect : infancy has its pleasures of sense and its 
 beauty ; boyhood, its game and its fun ; love, its joys ; 
 war, its glory ; and age, its honourable worth. Only in the 
 last scene of aU, when decay and rottenness claim the yet 
 living ruins of mind and body, is there no redeeming 
 compensation ; 
 
 " Last scene of all 
 That ends the strange eventful history, 
 Is second childishness, and mere oblivion. 
 Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 
 
 But how few who start in life reach this melancholy jpart of 
 the course, more painful to behold perhaps than to endure. 
 Infancy mewling and pewking, or crowing with laughter, is 
 welcome and abundant as flowers in spring, but the living 
 decay of second childhood is a prodigy. 
 
 The delight which Jaques takes in the quaint humour of 
 Touchstone is partly owing to the attraction which that 
 singular compound of wit and foUy has, for one whose 
 curiosity to know aU varieties of character is as keen as that 
 of an antiquarian or a naturahst for some strange or new 
 thing, and partly to the satire on human life expressed in the 
 fool's sallies. Touchstone is second only in the aristocracy of 
 Shakespeare's fools, subordinate only to him, hight of Lear, 
 whose younger brother he might well be, more robust in health 
 and coarse in humour, but with the self-same faculty of turning 
 wisdom into foUy and foUy into wisdom, of levelling pretension 
 by ridicule, and exposing the naked absurdity of false honour. 
 The philosophy of folly is more broad, uncleanly, and rabe- 
 
JAQUES. 237 
 
 laisian in the expression which it receives from Touchstone, 
 than from the fool ia Lear, but it is the same in effect, and 
 as such is dehghtful to Jaques. He delights in him, a.nd 
 entreats the Duke to do so hkewise. " Good my Lord, 
 like this fellow." He goes out of his way to counsel him 
 against his false marriage and its effects, when the wood 
 so greenly put together will warp, warp. 
 
 Jaques indeed displays a greedy appetite for all knowledge of 
 human nature. He hunts after peculiarities and revels in the 
 chase ; as Shakespeare himself must have done, to have 
 acquired that wonderful collection of game and vermin, 
 which he has transmitted to us in the vast museum of his 
 dramas. That Jaques, with all his contempt of mankind in 
 general, really loves man in the particular, is proved by his 
 last speech, 
 
 " Jaq. Sir, by your patience ; If I heard you rightly. 
 The Duke hath put on a religious life. 
 And thrown into neglect the pompous court ? 
 
 Jaq de B. He hath. 
 
 Jaq. To him wiU I : out of these convertites 
 There is much matter to he heard and learn' d. — 
 You to your former honour I bequeath : [To Duke S. 
 
 Your patience, and your virtue, well deserves it : — 
 You \to Orlando] to a love, that your true faith doth merit: — 
 You to Oliver] to your land, and love, and great allies : — 
 You [to SUvius] to a long and well-deserved bed : — 
 And you [to Touchstone] to wrangling ; for thy loving voyage 
 Is but for two months victual'd : — So to your pleasures ; 
 I am for other than for dancing measures." 
 
 In this he does fuU justice to aU, even to poor Touchstone, 
 whose perverse match he has not been able to prevent. If he 
 is not for dancing measures, it is because the gay cloak of 
 ceremonious amusement would conceal that which he hungers 
 after, the heart of man ; because it would afford a less 
 fruitful field of observation than the words and works of 
 the Duke, so recently converted from the wicked enjoyment 
 
238 JAQUES. 
 
 of worldly power. Jaques himself has no want of belief in 
 human ffoodness, and in his own heart there is so much of it 
 that he is quite unable to support consistently, the part of 
 scoifer, much less that of misanthrope. 
 
 " With too much knowledge for the sceptic's side, 
 With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, 
 He hangs between ;" 
 
 between his general theory of man, painted in the sombre 
 colours of his own emotional sadness, and his love of indi- 
 vidual men. Instigated not less by his own goodness of heart 
 than by his profound knowledge of the strength and weak- 
 ness of men, their good and evil, their virtue and vice, 
 mixed human nature receives from him more pity than 
 contempt. 
 
 Jaques leaves upon my mind the impression, that he was 
 absolutely sane. In him judgment remained master of the 
 direction of thought, and the dilatation of feeling. It is true 
 he cherished his melancholy, but if he had thought fit to do 
 so, he retained the power to oppose, if not to repress it. 
 Herein appears to exist the psychical distinction between the 
 sane and the insane melancholist ; a distinction, which it 
 may often be very difficult, if not impossible to establish, but 
 the only one which can be safely propounded, and which must 
 be constantly borne in mind, and sought for, even when it 
 cannot be found. The still more essential difference, that in 
 one case there is cerebral disease, and in the other there is not, 
 can only be proved by the symptoms of disease, which are 
 often obscure or concealed. 
 
 But if Jaques was sane, it cannot also be said that he was 
 safe. The voluntary indulgence of melancholy is a perilous 
 experiment. Health may carry a man through it, as it will 
 carry one through the miasm of a marsh reeking with ague, 
 or through the pestilential breath of a fever ward. But if 
 under any change of circumstances health should fail, or the 
 
JAQUES. 239 
 
 virulence of the poison Be increased, the resistance -would in 
 one case, as in the other, be eventually overpowered. If 
 •Jaques had fallen on the bed of sickness, or under the dark 
 shadow of real grief, it is probable that his fantastic melan- 
 choly would have been converted into the melancholia of 
 disease, which, assimilating all things into itself, would first 
 have defied, and finallj'- have subjugated the reason, and have 
 given him cause to exclaim with Messala : 
 
 " Oh, hateful error, melancholy's child. 
 Why dost thou shew to the apt thoughts of men, 
 The things that are not." 
 
 There are few words which have been used both by Shake- 
 speare and others in such various and different senses as 
 melancholy. The history of words is the history' of thought, and 
 a complete account of the life and adventures of this word, from 
 its birth in Greek physics, its development through philo- 
 sophy and poetry, to its present state of adult vigour in the 
 prose of every-day life, would be an interesting exercitation, 
 but neither an easy nor a brief one. Originally employed to 
 express a medical theory of the ancients on the origin of 
 madness, it has singularly enough been used to denote the 
 most opposite emotional states. Choler signifies anger, a 
 meaning upon which Shakespeare frequently quibbles ; but 
 melancholer, black choler, means the opposite of anger, 
 namely, emotional depression. It has however only recently 
 settled into this signification. The learned Prichard asserts that 
 the ancient writers attached to it no idea of despondency, but 
 only that of madness in general. Dr. Daniel Tuke, however, 
 points out that in this opiuion, Prichard has not displayed his 
 usual accuracy. " Hippocrates, in one of his aphorisms says, 
 'If fear or distress continue for a long time, this is a symptom 
 of melancholy.' And in other places he distinguished melan- 
 choly from mania, by the absence of violence ; at other times, 
 however, he applies the word to madness in general. Modern 
 
240 JAQUES. 
 
 writers before Esquirol used the word melancholy, to convey 
 the idea of derangement on some particular point, whether 
 accompanied by gloom or mirth. Thus Cullen included under 
 melancholy ' hallucinations about the prosperous ' as well as 
 ' the dangerous condition of the body ;' and Dr. Good speaks 
 of 'a self-complacent melancholy.'" Other jsTriters appear 
 to have used the term in a non-medical sense, with equal 
 diversity of meaning. Thus Henry More makes melancholy 
 synonymous with enthusiasm. 
 
 " It is a strong temptation with a melanchohst when he feels a 
 storm of devotion and zeal come upon him like a mighty wind — 
 all that excess of zeal and affection, and fluency of words is most 
 palpably to be resolved into the power of melancholy, which 
 is a kind of natural inebriation" — " the vapour and fumes of 
 melancholy partake of the nature of wine." 
 
 Milton uses the word melancholy in the sense of contem- 
 plative thought, and invokes and deifies the emotion in 
 II Penseroso : 
 
 " But hail thou goddess, sage and holy. 
 Had divinest melancholy." 
 
 Since then the term has been gi-adually settling down into its 
 present meaning of emotional dejection. It is not however 
 properly used even now to signify a naorbid state, unless 
 periphrasis for that purpose be made use of ; and care should 
 be taken, which is not always done, to distinguish between 
 melancholy and melancholia, the latter being the proper 
 technical term applied to a form of mental disease. 
 
 Shakespeare uses the word melancholy with many modi- 
 fications in its meaning, but with far less of laxity than that 
 employed by other authors, and in a sense more approaching 
 that of melancholia. In " Love's Labour Lost," the grandi- 
 loquent Spaniard in his letters to the King uses the term in 
 its strictly medical sense : 
 
 " Besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend 
 
JAQUES. 241 
 
 the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic 
 of thy health giving air." 
 
 In the foUowing scene the question is actually mooted, 
 though Unfortunately not determined, of the difference 
 between sadness and melancholy. 
 
 " Arm. Boy, what sign is it, when a man of great spirit 
 grows melancholy ? 
 
 Moth. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad. 
 
 ArTfi. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp. 
 
 Moth. No, no ; lord, sir, no. 
 
 Arm. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my 
 tender ju venal ? 
 
 Moth. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my 
 tough senior." 
 
 King John, in that fine scene where he tempts Hubert to 
 the murder of his nephew says, 
 
 " Or if that surly spirit melancholy. 
 Had baked thy blood, and made it heavy-thick. 
 Which else runs trickling up and down the veins. 
 Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes. 
 And strain their cheeks to idle merriment." 
 
 In Twelfth Night it is supposed to perform another 
 culinary process. Fabian says, " If I lose a scruple of this 
 sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy." 
 
 In Taming the Shrew, the physicians are said to recommend 
 the pleasant comedy to Christopher Sly, on the grounds that, 
 
 " Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood, 
 And melancholy is the nurse of fren2y. 
 Therefore they thought it good you hear a play, 
 And frame your mind to mirth and merriment, 
 WTiich bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life." 
 
 In Viola's touchiag description of the effects of concealed 
 love, the black spirit is made to assume a new livery, in a 
 manner which proves Shakespeare to have been conversant 
 with the appearances at least of chlorosis or green sickness, 
 the fehris amatoria as it has also been called. 
 
 R 
 
242 JAQUES. 
 
 " She never told her love. 
 But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
 Feed on her damask cheek : she pin'd in thought, 
 And, with a green and yellow melancholy, 
 She sat, like patience on a momiment. 
 Smiling at grief." 
 
 The alUance, or rather the resemblance, existing between 
 
 pride and melancholy, is noted in Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 Speaking of AchiUes, the enquiry is made " Is he not sick ?" 
 
 Ajax replies : 
 
 " Yes, lion sick of a proud heart : You may call it melan- 
 choly, if you will favour the man ; but by my head it is 
 pride." 
 
 But the melancholy which approaches most nearly to that 
 of Jaqiies is that of Antonio, the merchant of Venice. In 
 his noble simplicity he does not parade it like Jaques, who 
 rather prides himself in the sable plumage of his disposition. 
 Antonio merely calls his depression sadness, and attempts not 
 to account for it. 
 
 " Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad ; 
 It wearies me ; you say, it wearies you ; 
 But how I caught it, found it, or came iDy it. 
 What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, 
 I am to learn ; 
 
 And such a want-wit sadness makes of me. 
 That I have much ado to know myself." 
 
 His friends endeavour to account for the emotional pheno- 
 menon in various ways, more or less unjust. His " mind is 
 tossing on the ocean," and " fear of misfortune makes him 
 sad," or he is in love. " Fie, fie !" that folly at least is not to 
 be imputed to the staid nobleness of his character. Then 
 it must be constitution and the work of nature ; he's sad 
 because he is not merry ; " Nature hath framed strange 
 fellows in her time ;" some will grin at anything, and others 
 will smile at nothing ; " Though Nestor swear the jest be 
 laughable." 
 
JAQUES. 243 
 
 Gratiano is still less complimentary, and attributes the 
 sadness of his friend to the desire to gain the world's opinion 
 for ■wisdom. The downright unreserved frankness of these 
 men to Antonio is, however, an indirect testimony to the 
 goodness of his heart, and the sweetness of his temper. 
 
 " Gra. You look not well, signior Antonio ; 
 You have too much respect upon the world : 
 They lose it, that do buy it with much care. 
 Beheve me, you are marvellously chang'd. 
 
 Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano ; 
 A stage, where every man must play a part. 
 And mine a sad one. 
 
 Gra. Let me play the Fool : 
 
 Why should a man, whose blood is warm within. 
 
 Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? 
 
 Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice 
 
 By being peevish ? 
 
 There are a sort of men, whose visages 
 
 Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond ; 
 
 And do a wilful stUlness entertain, 
 
 With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion 
 
 Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit ; 
 
 As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, 
 
 And, when I ope my lips, let no dog hark. 
 ***** 
 
 But fish not with this melancholy bait. 
 For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion." 
 
 A most unjust imputation, for there are few characters in 
 the dramas less self-seeking than that of this princely merchant. 
 The more probable cause of his unexplained melancholy would 
 seem to be that of ennui, arising from unruffled prosperity. 
 Man is not only born to trouble, but a certain amount of it is 
 good for his mental health. Without some motion of the ele- 
 ments, the waters of life stagnate. Antonio's melancholy has 
 its origin in his prosperity, his unselfish disposition, and sweet 
 temper. To have spat upon old Shylock's gaberdine was as 
 little indication of the contrary, as to have kicked a vicious 
 cur, when he was worrying helpless children. He delivered 
 
244 JAQtIES. 
 
 those who made plaint to him from the Jew's forfeitures, and 
 he despised and spat upon the wretched usurer. When real 
 trouble comes upon him, his melancholy disappears. He wiU 
 gladly release himself from the penalties of the bond. The 
 apparent submission to his fate, because he is "a tainted wetber 
 of the flock," and will by death avoid " the hollow eye and 
 rumpled brow, and age of poverty," aU this is spoken in the 
 magnanimous desire to relieve the wretchedness of his friends ; 
 but when the wealth, of which he was formerly so careless, 
 is regained, there is no expression of melancholy in its re- 
 ception. 
 
 " Sweet lady, ye have given me life and living." 
 
 Monotonous prosperity is the cause of his morbid sadness ; 
 a strong dose of adversity its cure. The more wholesome 
 condition is that of the middle state prayed for by the wise 
 Agur, " give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with 
 food convenient for me." 
 
 The melancholy of the Queen in King Richard the Second 
 bears a strong resemblance to that of Antonio. A new 
 element, however, is added, in the vague apprehension of 
 coming evil. The sadness of the Queen, like that of 
 Antonio, is partly constitutional, and arises in the 
 midst of prosperity ; but unlike it, it does not rest in the 
 present ; but throws its dark shadow into the future. This 
 union of sadness and fear is constantly met with among the 
 insane ; very frequently, indeed, groundless fear is the sole 
 apparent cause of melancholia, or rather its prominent feature. 
 In the following passage, the Queen's explanation of the 
 origin of sadness from fear, and Busby's rejoinder upon the 
 origin of fear from sadness, is a wonderful example of psycho- 
 logical acumen. It is remarkable that in Richard's Queen, 
 as in Antonio, the real stroke of adversity is described as 
 adverse to the melancholy which had free sway in prosperous 
 
JAQUES. 245 
 
 times, for when the King is led in humiliation through 
 London, the Queen's spirit is roused, and she encourages her 
 depressed Consort to lion-like resistance. 
 
 " Bufihy. Madam, your majesty is too much sad : 
 You promis'd, when you parted with the King, 
 To lay aside life-harming heaviness. 
 And entartain a cheerful disposition. 
 
 Queen. To please the King, I did ; to please myself, 
 I cannot do it ; yet I know no cause 
 Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, 
 Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest 
 As my sweet Richard : yet, again, methinks. 
 Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb, 
 Is coming towards me ; and my inward soul 
 With nothing trembles : at something it grieves 
 More than with parting from my lord the King. 
 
 Bushy. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows. 
 Which shew like grief itself, but are not so : 
 For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears. 
 Divides one thing entire to many objects. 
 Like perspectives, which rightly gaz'd upon 
 Distinguish proper form, — but eyed awry, 
 Shew nothing hut confusion, — So your majesty, 
 Looking awry upon your lord's departure. 
 Finds shapes of griefs more than himself to wail ; 
 Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows 
 Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen, 
 More than your lord's departure weep not ; more's not seen ; 
 Or if it be, 't is with false sorrow's eye. 
 Which, for things true, weeps things imaginary. 
 
 Queen. It may be so ; but yet my inward soul 
 Persuades me it is otherwise : Howe'er it be, 
 I cannot but be sad ; so heavy sad. 
 As — though, in thinking, on no thought I think — 
 Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink." 
 
 In the above quotation, I have ventured with diffidence to 
 alter the lines in italics from the original, in which, by some 
 accident of writing or printing, the sense appears to have been 
 perverted to the very contrary of that which it seems to me 
 evident that it was intended to convey. In the original, the 
 
2-1.6 JAQUES. 
 
 perspective or telescope when rightly gazed upon, is said to 
 shew confusion, and when eyed awry, to distinguish form 
 aright ; a statement opposed both to the context and to the fact. 
 The text in both Collier's and Knight's editions stands thus : 
 
 " Like perspectives, which rightly gazed upon, 
 Shew nothing but confusion, — eyed awry. 
 Distinguish form : so your sweet majesty," &c. 
 
 In the endeavour to restore that which appears to me the true 
 meaning, I have omitted one word and iQserted another, 
 which are needful to maintain the rythm, but are not essen- 
 tial to the sense. 
 
 The old authors commonly used the word ' perspective ' for 
 telescope, and by Bishop South, the word is not only used in 
 this sense, but is employed in a simile closely parallel to the 
 above ; disturbed position being substituted for disturbed 
 refraction. 
 
 " It being as impossible to keep the judging faculty steady 
 in such a case, as it would be to view a thing distinctly and 
 perfectly, through a perspective glass held by a shaking 
 paralytic hand." Vol. iii., sermon 2. 
 
 Thus, in different characters, Shakespeare has refered to 
 melancholy, as the cause, or the consequence, or the accom- 
 paniment of various and very different emotions. The 
 vUlain-melancholy described by John, the love-melancholy 
 by Viola, the melancholy of pride in Achilles, of prosperity 
 in Antonio, of constitution and timidity in the Queen of 
 Richard II., of contemplation in Jaques, have their several 
 anatomies opened to view with more skill, if less labour, than 
 that employed by the quaint and learned diligence of old 
 Burton, the professed dissector of the passion. In CymbeHne 
 this diversity of melancholy's habitation is positively though 
 poetically expressed : 
 
 " Oh, melancholy ! 
 Whoever yet could find thy bottom ? find 
 
JAQUES. 247 
 
 The ooze, to show what coast thy sluggish carack 
 Might eas'liest harbour in ?" 
 
 There is but one step from melanclioly to 'music. 
 There is but one step from delicacy of pleasure to that of 
 pain, and from that of pain to pleasure. Highly strung sen- 
 sibihty is the common term, or rather, the common condition 
 of both. Internal or external circumstance, the events or 
 humours of life, determine to which side the balance shall 
 temporarily or permanently incline. According to existing 
 state or bias, the same thing may cause or allay emotional 
 depression. This is most remarkable in the influence ex- 
 ercised by music upon persons of melancholic tendency. 
 Melancholia may be said to be the minor key of the soul, 
 and, in finely strung organisms, the internal vibration re- 
 sponds to the external concord of sweet sounds. It is only 
 the uncontemplative man of action, like Harry Hotspur, 
 who would 
 
 " rather be a kitten, and cry mew, 
 Than one of those same metre ballad-mongers." 
 
 Jaques, on the contrary, " can suck melancholy out of a 
 
 song, as a weazel sucks eggs," and finds as much enjoyment 
 
 in the process. His delight in music may be correlated with 
 
 many passages in the other dramas to the same effect. 
 
 The most obvious and beautiful of these perhaps are to 
 
 be found in the Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night. 
 
 In the former, not only is the sentiment expressed, but 
 
 the rea<<on for it is given. 
 
 " Jessica. I am never merry when I hear sweet music, 
 Lorenzo. The reason is, your spirits are attentive." 
 
 This reason is illustrated by the effect which a trumpet 
 sound produces upon a herd of wild colts, and the conclusion 
 is indicated that the melancholy moved by music is that of 
 sensibility, and is opposed to the darker melancholy which is 
 referred to by King John as that fit for a base action. 
 
24!8 JAQUES. 
 
 " The man that hath no music in himself, 
 Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet soimds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; 
 The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
 And his affections dark as Erebus : 
 Let no such man be trusted :" 
 
 In Twelfth Night, the Duke uses music with another psy- 
 chological purpose : 
 
 " If music be the food of love, play on. 
 Give me excess of it ; that surfeiting. 
 The appetite may sicken, and so die." 
 
 The same idea is expressed by Cleopatra, 
 
 " Give me some music, music moody food 
 Of us that trade in love." 
 
 It is invoked by Queen Catherine to dispel sadness : 
 
 " Take thy lute, wench ; my soul grows sad with troubles : 
 Sing and disperse them if thou canst." 
 
 In some sad moods, however, it cannot be endured, as 
 when in deep misery Richard II. exclaims, 
 
 " This music mads me, let it sound no more ; 
 For though it have help'd mad men to their wits. 
 In me it seems, it will make wise men mad." 
 
 But enough of this : it would be wearisome to quote all 
 Shakespeare's references to this most refined of sensual 
 pleasures, of which it cannot be doubted that he was passion- 
 ately fond. Collins' Ode, in wliich music is made to 
 express in turn the voice of all the passions, does not indicate 
 so sensitive an ear, and so true an appreciation of its influence 
 on the mind, as that which pervades the dramas of Shakes- 
 peare, 
 
MALVOLIO. 249 
 
 MALVOLIO. CHRISTOPHER SLY. COMEDY 
 OF ERRORS. 
 
 In the time wlien Shakespeare wrote, and of which he 
 wrote, there existed no " Imputed Lunatics' Society." At least 
 there are no records of its existence, and not even a tradition 
 thereof. Is it possible that one of the members may have im- 
 molated the Secretary on a funeral pyre' of the proceedings, 
 and thus converting the whole into the " baseless fabric of a 
 vision, left not a wreck behind." If so, the more's the pity; 
 for if the writings of Shakespeare may be taken as a guide, 
 it was more needed then than it is now ; inasmuch as the 
 false imputation of insanity appears at that time to have 
 been quite a common incident. 
 
 These characters of imputed insanity were needful to 
 bring Shakespeare's psychological delineations "full circle 
 round." The various phases of real and feigned insanity, 
 which he has depicted with such marvellous skill and 
 truthfulness, needed this one link to complete the chain. 
 In its way it is perfect, as representing not only a masterly 
 and most amusing sketch of the fabrication of imputed 
 lunacy, but also of the treatment thought to be suitable 
 for the insane in those days. Some incidental references to 
 the treatment of the insane are to be found in several of 
 the dramas. Thus Cominius says to Coriolanus, 
 
 " If, 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you 
 (Like one that means his proper harm) in manacles," 
 
 In Romeo and Juliet also is the following : 
 
250 MALVOLIO. 
 
 " Benvolio. Why Eomeo art thou mad 1 
 
 RoTiieo. Not mad, but bound more than a madman is : 
 
 Shut up in prison : kept without fSod, 
 
 Whipp'd and tormented." 
 
 In "As you like it," Eosalind incidently refers to the 
 treatment of insanity. 
 
 " Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as 
 well a dark house and a whip as madmen do : and the reason 
 why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy 
 is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too." 
 
 Malvolio only gets the half of Rosalind's recipe, which he 
 endures without exciting much commiseration ; a fact 
 which may lead to the reflection that the ill-treatm.ent of a 
 real madman is an offence of very different colour to a frolic, 
 however mischievous, with a vain egotistical coxcomb like 
 Malvolio, or a drunken humorist like Sly. A sane man who 
 has behaved himself like a madman, deserves some sort of 
 punishment ; the misfortune of real disease claims ever- 
 enduring forbearance and kindness ; from whence it results 
 that the interests of an insane person, who has really suffered 
 iU treatment, and those of a sane person who has brought 
 upon himself the imputation of insanity, are very far from 
 being identical. 
 
 In the frolic of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare prefaces his 
 character for the imputation of madness, with the same skill 
 he has elsewhere displayed in laying the ground plan for the 
 reality. The unalloyed egotism of the major-domo at 
 first vents itself in a querulous attack on the Fool, and on 
 those who laugh at his folly. He is one of those men to 
 whose self-important gravity every jest is an insult. Olivia" 
 gives the' key note of his disposition ; a testy temper mea- 
 suring all things by the rule of his narrow self-esteem. 
 
 " OU. 0, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with 
 a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free 
 
MALVOLIO. 251 
 
 disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts, that you 
 deem cannon-buUets." 
 
 Though he has right on his side iu objecting to Sir Toby's 
 saturnalia, the same priggish vanity is evident in the method 
 of reproof, bringing down upon him the pungent sarcasm of 
 that moist moralist : 
 
 " Art thou any more than a steward ? Dost thou think 
 because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and 
 ale?" 
 
 He offends Maria also with his Jack-in-office reproofs. Maria, 
 the "wittiest piece of Eve's flesh in all Illyria," instantly 
 forms the plan of consummate revenge, namely, to " guU him 
 into a nay-word, and make him a common recreation." She 
 has taken the exact guage of his self-esteem, and knows 
 every pebble in the hover of vanity where the great trout 
 Ues, which she wiU lure into her grasp with tickling false- 
 hoods. 
 
 " Mar. I win drop in his way some obscure epistles of love ; 
 wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the 
 manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and 
 complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated : 
 I can write very like my lady, your niece ; on a forgotten 
 matter we can hardly make distiuction of our hands. 
 
 Sir To. Excellent ! I smell a device. 
 
 Sir And. I have't in my nose too. 
 
 Sir To. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, 
 that they come from my niece, and that she is in love with 
 him." 
 
 Malvolio has made enemies on every side, by the tale- 
 bearing arts of upper-servant diplomacy, so that recruits 
 to the ambuscade of frolic are easy to find. Fabian wiU be 
 boiled to death with melancholy, " rather than lose a scruple 
 of the sport," and Sir Toby wiU " fool him black and blue." 
 The poor victim's proclivity to folly is carefully elaborated 
 before Maria's wicked device of the letter makes the cup brim 
 o'er. 
 
252 MALVOLIO. 
 
 " He has been yonder ia the sun practising behaviour to 
 his own shadow this half hour. Observe him for the love of 
 mockery, for I know that this letter will make a contem- 
 plative idiot of him." 
 
 Malvoho's egi-egious vanity expressed in his overheard 
 soliloquy is so preposterously flagrant, that it scarcely needed 
 the dish of poison dressed for him in the feigned letter from 
 the Countess, to bring it to a climax so closely resembling 
 madness, that Olivia should accept the fact, without further 
 proof than the absurd demeanour which the poor "baffled 
 fool " puts on before her : 
 
 " Mai. 'Tis but fortune ; all is fortune. Maria once told 
 me, she did affect me : and I have heard herself come thus 
 near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my com- 
 plexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect, 
 than any one else that follows her. What should I think 
 on't?" 
 
 The steward's conceit has not the common quahty of good 
 nature to redeem it. He is testy and quarrelsome among 
 his fellow servants, and a willing tell-tale of their failings, an 
 ill-disposed sheep-dog of the domestic flock, a " niggardly 
 rascally sheep-biter," as Sir Toby calls him. He is a man 
 who has no pity for others, having himself put into prison the 
 captain who rescued Viola, for some unspecified offence. His 
 adhesion to Olivia is founded upon selfishness alone. He not 
 only displays no real affection for her, not even that of a faithful 
 servant, but from the first he treats her with that off-handed 
 upper-servant want of respect, which seems to say that she is 
 honoured by his service. The foUy of his aspiration to her 
 hand has not therefore a breath of excuse or palliation. He 
 can love no one but himself, and the demeanour, which he 
 puts on in consequence of Maria's letter, is but the expression 
 of his own previous thoughts and aspirations. He dons 
 himself in yellow stockings, a colour which Olivia abhors, 
 cross garters himself, a fashion she detests, and presents 
 
MALVOLIO. 253 
 
 himself before — not the goddess of his idolatry, but the step- 
 ping-stone to his ambition, with the apish manners of an 
 underbred dandy. Maria having previously prepared her 
 mistress's mind for the most obvious explanation of his 
 absurdities. 
 
 " Mar. He's coming, madam ; 
 
 But in strange manner. He is sure possess' d. 
 
 Oli. Why, what's the matter ? does he rave 1 
 
 Mar. _ No, madam, 
 
 He does nothing but smile : your ladyship 
 Were best have guard about you, if he come ; 
 For, sure, the man is tainted in his wits. 
 
 Oli. Go call him hither. — I'm as mad as he, 
 If sad and merry madness equal be. — 
 How now, Malvolio ? 
 
 Mai. Sweet lady, ho, ho, [^Smiles fantastically. 
 
 Oli. Smil'stthou? 
 I sent for thee upon a sad occasion. 
 
 Mai. Sad, lady ? I could be sad : This does make some 
 obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering ; But what of 
 that, if it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very 
 true sonnet is : Please one, and please all. 
 
 Oli. Why, how dost thou man ? what is the matter with 
 thee? 
 
 Mai. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs : It 
 did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed. I 
 think, we do know the sweet Roman hand. 
 
 Oli. God comfort thee ! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss 
 thy hand so oft ? 
 
 Mar. How do you, Malvolio ? 
 
 Mai. At your request ? Yes ; Nightingales answer daws. 
 
 Ma/r. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before 
 my lady? 
 
 Mai. Be not afraid of greajtness. — 'twas well writ," &c. 
 
 " OU. Why, this is very midsummer madness." 
 In what midsummer madness is supposed to differ from that 
 of the rest of the year is not certain, unless it may be that the 
 heat of the weather is supposed to increase that of the brain, 
 and render its vagaries more rampant. Olivia's injunction to 
 Maria, to " let this fellow be looked to," and that the people 
 
254 MALVOLIO. 
 
 should have special care of hhn, though immediately following 
 the expression of her opinion that he is mad, has so Uttle the 
 effect of opening his eyes, dimmed with the scales of egotism, 
 that he draws from the half contemptuous expression a 
 perverse and flattering meaning. 
 
 " Let this fellow be looked to ; fellow ! not Malvolio, nor 
 after my degree, but fellow ! nothing that can be, can come 
 between me and the full prospect of my hopes." 
 
 Not even the direct accusations of the conspirators that he 
 is mad, can excite a suspicion of the foolery of which he is 
 both the agent and the butt. They are idle shallow things, 
 not of his element ; they wiU know more shortly, and have 
 reason to behave more respectfully. This bantering scene is 
 pregnant with comicality, and with reference to the old- 
 fashioned ideas of madness and disease. While Sir Toby and 
 Maria wickedly refer the cause of the supposed insanity to 
 demoniacal possession, Fabian hits the more sensible expla- 
 nation afforded by humoral pathology. 
 
 " Fah. Here he is, here he is : — How is't with you, sir ? 
 how is't with you, man ? 
 
 Mai. Go off; I discard you ; let me enjoy my private; 
 go off. 
 
 Mar. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him ! did 
 not I tell you 1 — Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care 
 of him. 
 
 Mai. Ah, ah ! does she so ? 
 
 Sir To. Go to, go to ; peace, peace, we must deal gently 
 with him ; let me alone. How do you, Malvoho ? how is't 
 with you ? "What, man ! defy the devil : consider, he's an 
 enemy to mankind. 
 
 Mai Do you know what you say ? 
 
 Mar. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes 
 it at heart ! Pray God, he be not bewitched ! 
 
 Fah. Carry his water to the wise woman. 
 
 Mar. Many, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I 
 live ! My lady would not lose him for more than I'll say. 
 
 Fah. No way but gentleness ; gently, gently ; the fiend is 
 rough, and will not be roughly used. 
 
MALVOLIO. 255 
 
 Sir To. Why, how now, my hawcock? how dost thou, 
 chuck ? 
 
 Mai. Sir? 
 
 Sir To. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man ! 'tis not 
 for gravity to play at cheny-pit with Satan : Hang him, foul 
 collier ! 
 
 Mar. Get him to say his prayers ; good gir Tolby, get him 
 to pray. 
 
 Mai. My prayers, minx ? 
 
 Mar. No, I warrant you, he wiU not hear of godliness. 
 
 Mai. Go, hang yourselves all ! you are idle shallow things : 
 I am not of your element : you shall know more hereafter." 
 
 The unscrupulous tormentors have some apprehension that 
 he may verily go mad, from the complete success of their 
 device. Sir Toby at first thinks that he may become actually 
 insane from disappointment, when he finds that the castle 
 building of his ambition is aU in the clouds. " Why, thou hast 
 put him in such a dream that when the image of it leaves 
 him, he must run mad." Now, however, they think that the 
 very excess of his morbid vanity wUl bring him to this 
 consummation. 
 
 " Fab. Why, we shall. make him mad, iudeed. 
 
 Mar. The house wiU be the quieter. 
 
 Sir To. Come, we'U have him in a dark-room, and bound. 
 My niece is already in the belief that he is mad ; we may 
 carry it thus, for our pleasure, and his penance, till our very 
 pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have mercy on 
 him ; at which time we wiU bring the device to the bar, and 
 crown thee for a finder of madmen." 
 
 He is put in the dark room and bound ; and to carry on 
 the riotous fun, an exorcist is provided in the Clown, repre- 
 senting Sir Topaz the Curate. 
 
 " Clo. What, hoa, I say, — Peace in this prison !• 
 Mai. [In an inner cJmnber.] Who calls, there ? 
 Clo. Sir Topaz, the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the 
 lunatic. 
 
 Mai. Sir Topaz, Sir Topaz, good Sir Topaz, go to my lady. 
 
256 MALVOLIO. 
 
 Clo. Out, hyperbolical fiend ! how vexest thou this man ? 
 talkest thou nothing but of ladies ? 
 
 Sir To. Well said, master parson. 
 
 Mai. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged : good sir 
 Topas, do not thiok I am mad ; they have laid me here ia 
 hideous darkness. 
 
 Clo. Fye, thou dishonest Sathan ! I call thee by the most 
 modest terms ; for I am one of those gentle ones, that wiU 
 use the devil himself with courtesy : Say'st thou, that house 
 is dark ? 
 
 Mai. As heU, sir Topas. 
 
 Clo. Why, it hath bay windows, transparent as barricadoes, 
 and the clear-stories towards the south and north are as 
 lustrous as ebony ; and yet complainest thou of obstruction 1 
 
 Mai. I am not mad, sir Topas ; I say to you, this house 
 is dark. 
 
 Clo. Madman, thou errest : I say, there is no darkness, 
 but ignorance ; in which thou art more puzzled, than the 
 Egyptians in their fog. 
 
 Mai. I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though 
 ignorance were as dark as heU ; and I say there was never 
 man thus abused : I am no more mad than you are ; make 
 the trial of it in any constant question. 
 
 Clo. What is the opinion of Pythagoras, concerning wild- 
 fowl ? 
 
 Mai. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a 
 bird. 
 
 Clo. What thinkest thou of his opinion 1 
 
 Mai. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his 
 opinion. 
 
 Clo. Fare thee well : Remain thou still in. darkness : thou 
 shalt hold the opinion of Pythagoras, ere I will aUow of thy 
 wits ; and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the 
 soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well." 
 
 ^— , This interview represents a caricature of the idea that 
 
 \ madness is occasioned by demoniacal possession, and is curable 
 
 j by priestly exorcism. The idea was not merely a vulgar one 
 
 I in Shakespeare's time, but was maintained long afterward by 
 
 the learned and the pious ; more than a trace of it, indeed, 
 
 remains to the present day in Canon LXXII. of the Church, 
 
 which provides, that no Minister without the license of the 
 
MALVOLIO. 257 
 
 Bishop of the Diocese shall "attempt, upon any pretence 
 ■whatsoever, either of possession or obsession, by fasting and 
 prayer, to cast out any devil or devils, under pain of the 
 imputation of imposture or cosenage, and deposition from 
 the ministry." 
 
 I have known more than one ceremonial of exorcism 
 performed -without this reference to episcopal authority, 
 which was doubtless intended to check injudicious zeal in the 
 employment of a superstitious rite. The exorcism of the false 
 Sir Topaz is supposed to be proceeded with in the proper 
 place, namely, the Church, and hence the reference to the 
 bay windows and to the clear-stories. This ceremonial must 
 have been of no uncommon occurrence in Shakespeare's 
 time. In Catholic countries it is stUl resorted to ; and in the 
 lunatic colony of Gheel, in Belgium, it appears to be the usual 
 active treatment to which recently admitted patients ai-e 
 subjected. 
 
 There is nothing new under the sun, at least, in human 
 nature ; to this conclusion, a careful study of Shakespeare 
 must inevitably lead, for either from contemplation or obser- 
 vation, he seems to have known all the absurdites, and all the 
 shades of man's intellectual weakness and pride. Could he 
 arise again, would he not find this century rather dull and 
 uninteresting, compared with his own? Material improve- 
 ments excepted, would he not find the world rather worse for 
 wear, more crowded and less merry, more pretentious and 
 less truthful, more knowing and less wise ; and would he not 
 find existing follies as numerous as old ones, only less 
 picturesque ? 
 
 If the old world system of exorcism is caricatured by the 
 false Sir Topaz, one of the modem tests of insanity is also 
 keenly quizzed. The idea of testing the existence of insanity, 
 by questions on the doctrine of transmigration, may find its 
 counterpart in more than one recent legal investigation, 
 s 
 
258 MALVOLIO. 
 
 in which it has been argued by very learned counsel, and 
 maintained by very eminent physicians, that, because an 
 educated gentleman retains some knowledge of his previous 
 acquirements, it is impossible that he can be insane. 
 
 It is noteworthy that Shakespeare does not introduce the 
 exorcist in the grave and tragic instances of insanity, but only 
 to cope with the comic instances of falsely imputed madness, 
 in Malvolio and the Antiphoh. 
 
 The Clown puts off the character of the reverend exorcist, 
 and appears in his own. He well advises Malvolio to " endea- 
 vour thyself to sleep and leave thy vain bibble babble ;" and 
 in the very acme of pretended good faith, he exhorts 
 the victim, " tell me true, are you mad indeed ? or do you but 
 counterfeit ? " and in reply to the strenuous denial of both, he 
 closes the argument with the assertion vyhich might have 
 prevented it, " nay, I'll never believe a madman 'till I see his 
 brains." 
 
 The Clown provides the poor dupe with materials and means 
 to write a letter, and undertakes to carry it to Ohvia, whom 
 Malvolio thinks the cause of his ill-usage. The Clown, how- 
 ever, does with the letter much as the letters of insane pa- 
 tients are too often treated at the present time. He detains it 
 until the writer comes in question respecting the imprisonment 
 of Viola's friend, the sea captain, and then presents it with 
 the remark that, " a madman's epistles are no gospels, so it 
 skills not much when they are dehvered." 
 
 The Duke rightly thinks that the letter " savours not much 
 of distraction." Malvolio comes into the presence, and gives a 
 temperate account of the treatment by which he has been 
 " made the most notorioiis geek and gull that e'er invention 
 played on." 
 
 It is to be feared, however, that if the steward's vanity is 
 diminished under treatment, the gall and malice of his dispo- 
 sition are increased. He takes leave with the threat, "I'll 
 
CHEISTOPHEE SLY. 259 
 
 be revenged ou the whole pack of you," foreshadowing a 
 criminal information for conspiracy, or at the very least 
 an action for assault and false imprisonment. 
 
 The theme of Christopher Sly's imputed madness in the 
 Induction of Taming the Shrew turns on the old point of indis- 
 tinguished identity. The frolic, to " practise on the drunken 
 man" by letting him awake from the insensibility of his 
 liquor, surrounded by the circumstances of a lord, at once 
 suggests the old question, 
 
 " Would not the beggar then forget himself?" 
 
 Sly, we' fear, is a sad rogue, though he denies it. " The 
 Sly's are no rogues. Look in the Chronicles, we came in 
 with the Conqueror." But descent barreth not bad qualities, 
 and a man's lineage may have " crept through scoundrels, ever 
 since the flood." He would almost barter his birthright for a 
 pot of small ale, and it is not therefore surprising that he 
 should readily enough give up his identity, when bribed with 
 aa atmosphere of sensual gratification. Consciousness and 
 conscientiousness are not merely allied in sound. There is 
 exquisite drollery, if there is also some inconsistency in 
 making Sly, who is sane, accept this oft repeated test of 
 alienation. Sly's readiness to submit to a change of identity, 
 IS proof positive, if other proofs were wanting, that this test 
 is not trustworthy. He is at first very positive. 
 
 " What, would you make me mad ? Am I not Christopher 
 Sly, old Sly's son of Burton-heath ; by birth, a pedlar, by 
 education a card-maker, by transmutation a bear-herd, and 
 now by pi'esent profession a tinker ? Ask Marian Hacket, 
 the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not : if she say I 
 am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up 
 for tbe lyingest knave in Christendom. What ! I am not 
 bestraught !" 
 
 Here is identification with circumstance : but, alas, the 
 tempter comes to prove all this is but a strange lunacy, and 
 
260 CHRISTOPHER SLY. 
 
 to proffer the delights of lordly luxury, and the sensualist 
 gives up his past existence to embrace that of the sybarite. 
 After all it is but a change of manner. 
 
 " Am I a lord ? and have I such a lady ? 
 Or do I dream, or have I dream' d till now ? 
 I do not sleep : I see, I hear, I speak ; 
 I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things : — 
 Upon my life, I am a lord, indeed ; 
 And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly. — 
 Well, bring our lady hither to our sight ; 
 And once again, a pot o' the smallest ale." 
 
 Self-identification is, indeed, no test of sanity or insanity. 
 An insane man, who fancies himself made of butter, or of 
 glass, is not convinced to the contrary by fire not melting 
 him, or blows not breaking him, and is not likely to be 
 convinced by the persistence of ordinary sensation in a sub- 
 stance which ought to be senseless. The power of the delusion 
 which overlooks the attributes of that which it believes to 
 exist, is not likely to succumb to the attributes of that which 
 it believes not to exist. Moreover sensation may be de- 
 fective or perverted, while emotion and intellect remain 
 sound. The prick of Lear's pin might be inflicted on a hmb 
 which had lost the sense of feeUng ; and if the organs of vision 
 had been affected, Sebastian might neither have seen 
 the glorious sun nor the pearl, or might have seen them 
 multiphed or distorted. 
 
 In the Comedy of Errors, madness is imputed to four of the 
 principal characters, namely, to the two pairs of twins. There 
 is more of fanciful incident than of delineation of character in 
 this piece. The idea of insanity first presents itself to the 
 mind of the courtesan to whom Antipholus of Ephesus denies 
 the ring he has had from her. The idea once suggested is 
 eagerly seized upon by his shrewish wife and her partisans, to 
 interpret the violent and absurd conduct of her lord. Mis- 
 taken identity is again the pivot of the imputed madness, but 
 
COMEDY OF ERRORS. 261 
 
 in this instance the mistake is not made by the subject of it, 
 but by the public. Adriana procures the assistance of a 
 conjuring exorcist, Pinch. The marks of anger are inter- 
 preted into the signs of madness. 
 
 " Alas, how fiery and how shai-p he looks !" 
 
 " Mark, how he trembles in his extasy !" 
 
 "Pinch. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse. 
 
 Ant. E. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear. 
 
 Pinch. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man, 
 To yield possession to my holy prayers, 
 And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight ; 
 I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven." 
 
 This of course adds fuel to the fire of the angry man's 
 excitement ; discussion leads to violence ; master and man over- 
 powered and bound together are put in a dark and dampish 
 vault. 
 
 Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse, the other halves of the 
 identity, as they may be called, take refuge from their 
 persecutions in the sanctuary of the cloister. The interview 
 of the Abbess with the zealous and jealous wife is the fine 
 passage of the play. Adriana must have drawn upon her 
 fancy for the account of the premonitory symptoms, or have 
 thus interpreted the ill-humour caused by her own shrewish 
 temper. The Abbess makes a wrong guess or two at the 
 cause, but her keen eye reads the only probable one in the 
 featui-e language of the wife. The manner in which she 
 inveigles the latter into self-accusation, and then describes 
 the distracting effect of domestic cark and worry is finely 
 graphic. 
 
 Abb. How long hath this posession held the man ? 
 
 Adr. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad. 
 And much, much different from the man he was ; 
 But, till this afternoon, his passion 
 Ne'er brake into extremity of rage. 
 
 Abb. Hath he not lost much wealth by wrack of, sea? 
 
262 COMEDY OF ERRORS. 
 
 Buried some dear friend ? Hath not else his eye 
 Stray d his affection in unlawful love ? 
 A sin prevailing much in youthful men, 
 Who give their eyes the hberty of gazing. 
 Which of these sorrows is he subject to 'i 
 
 Adr. To none of these, except it be the last ; 
 Namely, some love that drew him oft from home. 
 
 Abb. You shoiild for that have reprehended him. 
 
 Adr. Why, so I did. 
 
 Abb. Ay, but not rough enough. 
 
 Adr. As roughly, as my modesty would let me. 
 
 Abb. Haply, in private. 
 
 Adr. And in assembhes too. 
 
 Abb. Ay, but not enough. 
 
 Adr. It was the copy of our conference : 
 In bed, he slept not for my urging it : 
 At board, he fed not for my urging it : 
 Alone, it was the subject of my theme ; 
 In company, I have often glanced it ; 
 StiU did I tell him it was vUe and bad. 
 
 Abb. And thereof came it, that the man was mad : 
 The venom clamours of a jealous woman 
 Poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth. 
 It seems, his sleeps were hinder'd by thy railing ; 
 And therefore comes it, that his head is light. 
 Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings ; 
 Unquiet meals make ill digestions, 
 Thereof the raging fire of fever bred ; 
 And what's a fever but a fit of madness ? 
 Thou say'st, his sports were hinder'd by thy brawls ; 
 Sweet recreation^barr'd, what doth ensue, 
 But moody and d\iU melancholy. 
 Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ; 
 And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop 
 Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life ? 
 In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest 
 To be disturb' d, would mad or man, or beast : 
 The consequence is then, thy jealous fits 
 Have scar'd thy husband from the use of wits." 
 
 The imputation of disordered mind is cast upon many 
 other characters in these dramas, but in no other is there a 
 discussion, or so to say, an inquisition upon the truth of the 
 
ISABELLA. 263 
 
 fact, except in Measure for Measure, when Isabella throws 
 herself before the Duke, praying for justice upon his hypocrite 
 deputy, the saintly Angelo. The imputation of disordered 
 intellect is here made in all seriousness, to discredit the 
 accuser, and avert the punishment of crime. Angelo 
 replies to the maiden's denunciation. 
 
 " Angelo. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm. 
 She hath been a suitor to me for her brother 
 Cut off by cause of justice ! 
 
 Isabel. By cause of justice ! 
 
 Angelo. And she will speak most bitterly and strange. 
 
 Isabel. Most strange, and yet most truly will I speak." 
 
 The accusation is made, and the Duke answers in well- 
 assumed belief in Angelo's truth and Isabella's distractedness ; 
 thus eliciting from her that discrimination between the 
 impossible and the improbable, which ought never to be lost 
 sight of, in estimating dubious statements of suspected minds. 
 
 " Duke. Away Tvith her ; — Poor soul, 
 
 She speaks this in the infirmity of sense. 
 
 Isabel. prince I conjure thee, as thou believ'st. 
 There is another comfort than this world, 
 That thou neglect me not, with that opinion 
 That I am touched with madness ; make not impossible 
 That which but seems unlike." 
 
 The duke accepts the distinction, and applies the best 
 possible test to the reasonableness of the statement, namely, 
 the just consequence of one idea on another, the "dependency 
 of thing on thing." 
 
 " Duke. By mine honesty. 
 
 If she is mad as I believe no other. 
 Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense. 
 Such a dependency of thing on thing 
 As e'er I heard in madness. 
 
 Isabel. gracious duke. 
 
 Harp not on that ; nor do not banish reason 
 For inequality ; but let your reason serve 
 To make the truth appear where it seems hid." 
 
264 ISABELLA. 
 
 This imputation of insanity to smother truth is as old as 
 the time when it was repHed to by the great apostle of truth, 
 in the very spirit of Isabella's appeal : " I am not mad most 
 noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and sober- 
 ness." The test which the Duke applies is the only one valid in 
 regard to the reason, although it is opposed to Locke's theory, 
 that madmen reason right on wrong premises. But the 
 right statement of the premises is a great part of the reasoning 
 process : the dependency of one premise on another being duly 
 set forth, the conclusion follows as a matter of course. 
 Hence it follows, that although it may be needful to apply 
 other tests to ascertain the soundness of other fimctions of 
 the mind, that of the reason, strictly so called, must ever be 
 estimated by the due sequence of ideas, the "dependency 
 of thing on thing." 
 
 Wrr.T.IAM PllLLARD, NoRTH STREET, EXSTER.