Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736)

ACT II.

_Polo­nius_ and _Reynol­do_, and af­ter­wards _Ophe­lia_.

_Polo­nius's_ Dis­course to _Reynol­do_ is of a good moral Tenour, and thus far it is use­ful to the Au­di­ence. His for­get­ting what he was say­ing, (p. 260) as is usu­al with old Men, is ex­treme­ly nat­ural, and much in Char­ac­ter for him.

_Ophe­lia's_ De­scrip­tion of _Ham­let's_ Mad­ness, does as much Hon­our to our Po­et as any Pas­sage in the whole Play, (p. 261, and 262.) It is ex­cel­lent­ly good in the _Pic­toresque_ Part of Po­et­ry, and ren­ders the Thing al­most present to us.

Now I am come to men­tion _Ham­let's_ Mad­ness, I must speak my Opin­ion of our Po­et's Con­duct in this Par­tic­ular. To con­form to the Ground-​work of his Plot, _Shake­speare_ makes the young Prince feign him­self mad. I can­not but think this to be in­ju­di­cious; for so far from Se­cur­ing him­self from any Vi­olence which fear'd from the Usurp­er, which was his De­sign in so do­ing, it seems to have been the most like­ly Way of get­ting him­self con­fin'd, and con­se­quent­ly, de­barr'd from an Op­por­tu­ni­ty of Re­veng­ing his Fa­ther's Death, which now seem'd to be his on­ly Aim; and ac­cord­ing­ly it was the Oc­ca­sion of his be­ing sent away to _Eng­land_. Which De­sign, had it tak­en ef­fect up­on his Life, he nev­er could have re­venged his Fa­ther's Mur­der. To speak Truth, our Po­et, by keep­ing too close to the Ground-​work of his Plot, has fall­en in­to an Ab­sur­di­ty; for there ap­pears no Rea­son at all in Na­ture, why the young Prince did not put the Usurp­er to Death as soon as pos­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly as _Ham­let_ is rep­re­sent­ed as a Youth so brave, and so care­less of his own Life.

The Case in­deed is this: Had _Ham­let_ gone nat­ural­ly to work, as we could sup­pose such a Prince to do in par­al­lel Cir­cum­stances, there would have been an End of our Play. The Po­et there­fore was obliged to de­lay his Hero's Re­venge; but then he should have con­trived some good Rea­son for it.

His Be­gin­ning his Scenes of Mad­ness by his Be­haviour to _Ophe­lia_ was ju­di­cious, be­cause by this Means he might be thought to be mad for her, and not that his Brain was dis­turb'd about State Af­fairs, which would have been dan­ger­ous.

Page 263.

_En­ter King, Queen_, Ros­in­crantz, Guilden­stern, &c.

The King in this Scene, seems to be but half per­swad­ed that _Ham­let_ is re­al­ly mad; had he thor­ough­ly be­lieved it, it was to no Pur­pose to en­deav­our to sound his Mind; and the short­est and best Way, and what, me­thinks, the King ought most to have wished for, was to have had him con­fin'd; and this was an ex­cel­lent Rea­son to give the Peo­ple for so do­ing.

The Queen seems to have no De­sign or Ar­ti­fice in re­la­tion to her Son, but mere Af­fec­tion; which, con­sid­er­ing all Things, one would lit­tle ex­pect from her.

The Ac­count of the Em­bassy to _Nor­way_, was nec­es­sary to­wards the In­tro­duc­tion of _Fort­in­brass_, in the Se­quel, whose com­ing in at the Close of the Play winds up all very nat­ural­ly.

_Polo­nius's_ Char­ac­ter, (p. 267, 268.) is ad­mirably well kept up in that Scene, where he pre­tends to have dis­cov­ered the Cause of the Prince's Mad­ness, and would much de­serve Ap­plause, were such a Char­ac­ter al­low­able in such a Piece as this.

_Ham­let's_ Let­ter to _Ophe­lia_, which _Polo­nius_ reads, is none of the best Parts of this play, and is, I think, too Comick for this Piece. The whole Con­duct of _Ham­let's_ Mad­ness is, in my Opin­ion, too lu­di­crous for his Char­ac­ter, and for the sit­ua­tion his Mind was then re­al­ly in. I must con­fess, noth­ing is more dif­fi­cult than to draw a re­al Mad­ness well, much more a feign'd one; for here the Po­et in _Ham­let's_ Case, was to paint such a Species of Mad­ness as should not give cause of Sus­pi­cion of the re­al Grief which had tak­en Pos­ses­sion of the Prince's Mind. His Be­haviour to those two Courtiers, whom the Usurp­er had sent to dive in­to his Se­cret, is very nat­ural and just, be­cause his chief Busi­ness was to baf­fle their En­quiries, as he does al­so in an­oth­er Scene, (p. 304.) where his falling in­to a sort of a Pun up­on bring­ing in the Pipe, is a great Fault, for it is too low and mean for Tragedy. But our Au­thor in this (as in all his Pieces) is glad of any Op­por­tu­ni­ty of falling in with the pre­vail­ing Hu­mour of the Times, which ran in­to false Wit, and a con­stant en­deav­our to pro­duce af­fect­ed Moral Sen­tences.

He was very ca­pa­ble of draw­ing _Ham­let_ in Mad­ness with much more Dig­ni­ty, and with­out any Thing of the Comick; al­though it is dif­fi­cult, as I said, to de­scribe a feign'd Mad­ness in a Tragedy, which is not to touch on the re­al Cause of Grief.

Page 277.

The Scene of the Play­ers is con­ducive to the whole Scheme of this Tragedy, and is man­aged with great Beau­ty. We are to ob­serve, that the Speech­es spo­ken by the Prince, and one of the Play­ers, are dis­mal Bom­bast, and in­tend­ed, no doubt, to ridicule some Tragedy of those Days.

The Po­et's step­ping out of his Sub­ject to lash the Cus­tom of Plays be­ing act­ed by the Chil­dren of the Chapel, is not al­low­able in Tragedy, which is nev­er to be a Satire up­on any mod­ern par­tic­ular _Foible_ or Vice that pre­vails, but is to be se­vere up­on Crimes and Im­moral­ities of all Ages, and of all Coun­tries.

Ham­let's Speech, (p. 281.) af­ter his Con­ver­sa­tion with the Play­ers, is good; and by it we see that the Po­et him­self seems sen­si­ble of the Fault in his Plot. But that avails not, un­less he had found Means to help it, which cer­tain­ly might have been.

The Prince's De­sign of con­firm­ing by the Play, the Truth of what the Ghost told him, is cer­tain­ly well ima­gin'd; but as the com­ing of these Play­ers is sup­posed to be ac­ci­den­tal, it could not be a Rea­son for his De­lay.