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Page 28
HAMLET
ACT II. SCENE ii. (II. i. 114-17.)
It is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. This is not the remark of a weak man. The vice
of age is too much suspicion. Men long accustomed to the wiles
of life "cast" commonly "beyond themselves", let their cunning go
further than reason can attend it. This is always the fault of a
little mind, made artful by long commerce with the world.
ACT II. SCENE iv. (II. ii.)
Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business, stored with
observation, confident of his knowledge, proud of his eloquence,
and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly represented
as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of prefaces
that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed rather
than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the rest
is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows
that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become
weak. Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the
particular application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant
in foresight. While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from
his repositories of knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and
gives useful counsel; but as the mind in its enfeebled state cannot
be kept long busy and intent, the old man is subject to sudden
dereliction of his faculties, he loses the order of his ideas, and
entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he recovers the leading
principle, and falls again into his former train. This idea of
dotage encroaching upon wisdom, will solve all the phenomena of
the character of Polonius.
If the dramas of Shakespeare were to be characterised, each by the
particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must
allow to the tragedy of HAMLET the praise of variety. The incidents
are so numerous, that the argument of the play would make a long
tale. The scenes are interchangeably diversified with merriment and
solemnity; with merriment that includes judicious and instructive
observations, and solemnity, not strained by poetical violence above
the natural sentiments of man. New characters appear from time to
time in continual succession, exhibiting various forms of life and
particular modes of conversation. The pretended madness of HAMLET
causes much mirth, the mournful distraction of OPHELIA fills the
heart with tenderness, and every personage produces the effect
intended, from the apparition that in the first act chills the
blood with horror, to the fop in the last that exposes affectation
to just contempt.
The conduct is perhaps not wholly secure against objections. The
action is indeed for the most part in continual progression, but
there are some scenes which neither forward nor retard it. Of the
feigned madness of Hamlet there appears no adequate cause, for he
does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of
sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so
much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty.
Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an
agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the
King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last
effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.
The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of
weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art.
A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the
dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.
The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice,
and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability.
The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the
revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him
that was required to take it; and the gratification which would
arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated
by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the
harmless, and the pious.
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