3848-9 Rymer (1677, p. 28; apud Vickers, 1974, 1: 190): “The truth is, the Poets were to move pitty; and this pitty was to be mov’d for the living, who remain’d and not for the dead.”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Steevens (ed. 1773) : “Let us review for a moment the behavior of Hamlet, on the strength of which Horatio founds this eulogy, and recommends him to the patronage of angels.

“Hamlet, at the command of his father’s ghost, undertakes with seeming alacrity to revenge the murder; and declares he will banish all other thoughts from his mind. He makes, however, but one effort to keep his word; and on another occasion, defers his purpose till he can find an opportunity of taking the murderer when he is least prepared for death, that he may insure damnation to his soul. Though he may be said to have assassinated Polonius by accident, yet he deliberately procures the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who appear to have been unacquainted with the treacherous purposes of the mandate which they were employed to carry. Their death (as he declares in a subsequent conversation with Horatio) gives him no concern, for they obtruded themselves into the service, and he thought he had a right to destroy them. He is not less accountable for the distraction and death of Ophelia. He comes to interrupt the funeral designed in honour of this lady, at which both the king and queen were present; and, by such an outrage to decency, renders it still more necessary for the usurper to lay a second stratagem for his life, though the first had proved abortive. He comes to insult the brother of the dead, and to boast of an affection for his sister, which, before, he had denied to her face; and yet at this very time must be considered as desirous of supporting the character of a madman, so that the openness of his confession must not be imputed to him as a virtue. He apologizes to Horatio afterwards for the absurdity of this behaviour, to which, he says, he was provoked by that nobleness of fraternal grief, which, indeed, he ought rather to have applauded than condemned. Dr. Johnson has observed, that to bring about a reconciliation with Laertes, he has availed himself of a dishonest fallacy; and to conclude, it is obvious to the most careless spectator or reader, that he kills the king at last to revenge himself, and not his father.

“Hamlet cannot be said to have pursued his ends by very warrantable means; and if the poet, when he sacrificed him at last, meant to have enforced such a moral, it is not the worst that can be deduced from the play.

“I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because Hamlet seems to have been hitherto regarded as a hero, not undeserving the pity of the audience, and because no writer on Shakespeare has taken the pains to point out the immoral tendency of his character.”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Steevens (ed. 1778) : “for, as Maximus, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Valentinian, says, ‘Although his justice were as white as truth, His way was crooked to it; that condemns him.’ The late Dr. Akinside once observed to me, that the conduct of Hamlet was every way unnatural and indefensible, unless he were to be regarded as a young man whose intellects were in some degree impaired by his own misfortunes; by the death of his father, the loss of expected sovereignty, and a sense of shame resulting from the hasty and incestuous marriage of his mother. . .”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Robertson (Trans. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh, 1790, II: 252-3): “And when Hamlet dies, Horatio pronounces this eulogium: [cites 3848-50]

“Shakespeare, in these passages, not only refers to the particular part which Hamlet had acted, with respect to the usurper, (which he calls Hamlet’s cause) and which, upon being explained, would vindicate what he had done. He plainly intimates by the mouth of Horatio, his own idea of Hamlet’s charcter, in all other respects; as not only heroic and splendid, but perfectly consistent, amiable and just; and further, from the danger that Hamlet himself, as well as his cause, might be exposed to the censure of the unsatisfied, he seems strongly to insinuate, that the character could not be comprehended, unless an enlarged view were taken of it, and of the different situations in which it had been placed.

“Hamlet’s conduct in having put the king to death, was, in a great measure, already justified, in the very hearing of the lords, and other attendants upon the court, who were witnesses to it. The queen who had just expired in their fight, had said she was ‘poisoned.’ Hamlet had called out ‘villany!’ Even Laertes, the treacherous opponent of Hamlet, had declared, ‘the king, the king’s to blame—It is a poison tempered by himself.’ And Hamlet, upon stabbing the king, had expressly charged him with ‘murder.’ All this passed in the presence of the court, who would hence be led to view the king as guilty of having poisoned the queen, and therefore as </p. 252> <p. 253> justly put to death by her son. It is true indeed, the king had intended to poison, not the queen, but Hamlet; but neither the court, nor Hamlet himself, knew this; none but Laertes was privy to it; and as he immediately expired without saying more, the secret was to last for ever.

“Hamlet, therefore, could have but little cause to fear that he should leave a wounded name behind him for thus revenging his mother’s death. What troubled him, was the thought that posterity would condemn him for not having, before that time, revenged the murder of his father.”</p. 253>

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Anon. (The Mirror, no. 99 [18 April 1780]; rpt. 1781, 3:232-3): <p. 232> “The Orestes of the Greek poet, who, at his first appearance, lays down a plan of vengeance which he resolutely pursues, interests us for the acomplishment of his purpose; </p. 232> <p. 233> “but of him we think only as the instrument of that justice which we wish to overtake the murderers of Agamemmon. We feel with Orestes, (or rather with Sophocles, for in such passages we always hear the poet in his hero), that ‘it is fit that such gross infringements of the moral law should be punished with death, in order to render wickedness less frequent;’ but when Horatio exclaims on the death of his friend, ‘Now crack’d a noble heart!’ we forget the murder of the King, the villany of Claudius, the guilt of Gertrude,our recollection dwells only on the memory of that ‘sweet prince,’ the delicacy of whose feelings a milder planet should have ruled, whose gentle virtues should have bloomed through a life of felicity and of usefulness.” </p. 233>

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Malone (1783, p. 60) : <p. 60> “So, in Pericles , Prince of Tyre, 1609: ‘If thou liv’st, Pericles, thou hast a heart , That even cracks for woe.” </p. 60>

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Ritson (1783, pp. 215-24) : <p. 215>“Mr. Steevenses note on this passage is so interesting and extraordinary that it becomes necessary to insert it here at large, lest it might be thought to be partially or unfairly represented in the remarks which it has occasioned. [<p. 215>cites v1778 note </p. 217>]

“There are very few, it is believed, at all acquainted with this inimitable author, who would not be surprised, nay astonished, at such a severe and unexpected attack upon his principal and most favourite character: a character every one has been hitherto led to admire and esteem, not more by universal and long established opinion, than by the sentiments and feelings of his own mind. To find the amiable, the injured, the distracted, and unfortunate Hamlet represented as a worthless and immoral being, totally undeserving of the least pity from those almost numberless audiences whom the united force of Nature, Shakspeare, and Garrick has compelled to weep for his misfortunes; and whose compassion would not be less in the closet than in the theatre, seems the most extraordinary and irreconcilable proceeding ina writer of genius and learning that can be well imagined. However, as the heavy charges which are here brought against him will, upon the slightest examination, appear to be groundless, unwarrantable, and unjust, there is little reason to fear that the confidence and ingenuity with which they are advanced and supported will answer the purpose of the learned objector.

“Hamlet, the onely child of the late king, upon whose death he became lawfully intitled to the crown, had, it seems, ever since that event, been in a state of melancholy, owing to excessive grief for the suddenness with which it had taken place, and an indignant horror at his mothers speedy and incestuous marriage. The spirit of the king his father appears, and makes hima acquainted with the circumstances of his un-</p. 217><p. 218>timely fate, which he excites him to revenge: this Hamlet engaged to do: an engagement it does not appear he ever forgot. It behoved him, howeve, to conduct hisself with the greatest prudence. The usurper was powerful, and had Hamlet carryed his design into immediate execution, it could not but have been attended with the worst consequences to his own life and fame. No one knew what the ghost had imparted to him; till he afterwards made Horatio acquainted with it: and though his interview with the spirit gave him certain proof and satisfactory reason to know and detest the usurper, it would scarcely, in the eye of the people, have justifyed his killing their king. To conceal, and, at a convenient time, to effect, his purpose, he counterfeits madness, and, for his greater assurance, puts the spirits evidence and the usurpers guilt to the test of a play, by which the truth of each is manifested. He soon after espies the usurper at prayers, but resolves, and with great justice resolves, not to kill him in the very moment when he might be making his peace with heaven: inasmuch as a death so timed would have been rather a happpyness than a punishment, and, by no means, a proper revenge for his fathers murder. We next find him in the queens apartment, endeavouring to make her sensible of the state of vice and horror into which her unnatural connection with the usurper had plunged her. At the beginning of this conference he mistakes Polonius, who was behind the arras, and about to alarm the household, for the usurper, and, under that apprehension, stabs him. The spirit appears (not very necessaryly, perhaps) ‘to whet his almost blunted purpose.’ He is, immediately, sent off to England: and, in his passage, discovers the treacherous and fatal purpose of the commission with which his companion and pretended friends were charged. These men, he </p. 218> <p. 219>knew, had eagerly solicited and even thrust theirselves upon this employment; and he had, of course, sufficient eason to conclude that they were well acquainted with the nature and purport of their fatal packet. That Shakspeare meant to charge them with this knowledge, and to represent them as participes criminis, is evident from the old black letter Hystorie which furnished him with the subject, where they are not only made privy to, but actually devise the scheme to take Hamlets life. His own safety depended on their removal; and, at such a time, and under such circumstances, he would have been fully justifyed in using any means to procure it.

“That he is ‘accountable for the distraction and death of Ophelia’ is a most strange charge indeed. he had, to be sure, accidentally killer her father, whom he took for his betters. This causes her distraction; and her distraction causes her death. A most lamentable train of circumstances: and with which the moral character of Hamlet is as little concerned at that of the ingenious, though uncandid, commentator.

“That ‘he comes to interrupt the funneral designed in honour of this lady,’ is an assertion which has nothing but the credit of the asserter to support it. Walking with his friend Horatio through a churchyard, he enters into converesation with a grave-digger; but, presently, observing the approach of a funeral procession, he says to Horatio, to whom he was then speaking: ‘Soft, soft, aside. Here comes the king. The queen, the courtiers: Who is this they follow? And with such maimed rites? This doth btoken The corse they follow, did with desperate hand </p. 219><p. 220>Fordo its own life. ‘Twas of some estate. Couch we a while, and mark.’ Does it appear from hence that he knew, or had the least reason to suspect this to be the funeral of Ophelia; or even that he was apprised of her distraction or unfortunate death? The contrary is most certain. He left the kingdom before her insanity broke out, and does not return till after she is dead: he ha seen no one, except Horatio, who was certainly unacquainted with the latter circumstance, so that it is next to an impossibility that he could have known what had happened to her. But to proceed: Laertes asking what ceremony else? Hamlet observes to Horatio, That is Laertes; a very noble youth. Laertes concluding his expostulation about the further honours with the following beautyful lines: ‘—lay her i’the earth; And fro her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring!—I tell thee, churlish priest, A ministring angel shall my sister be, When thou liest howling;’ Hamlet exclaims: What! the fair Ophelia? His surprise and astonishment on hearing Laertes name his sister are manifestly apparent, and may serve to convince learned critic, and every one who has been misled by his ill-founded accusations, that Hamlet does NOT cometo interrupt the funeral, and is guilty of NO outrage whatever. He as little ‘comes to insult the brother of the dead,’ or ‘to boast of an affection for his sister, which before he had [in a wild and careless manner when he was under the necessity of counterfeiting madness] denied to her face.’ Laertes bids ‘—Treble woe Fall tent imes treble on that cursed head, </p. 220><p. 221>Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense Depriv’d thee of;’ an execration Hamlet cannot but perceive to be pointed at hisself. Having uttered this curse, Laertes, hastyly, and in direct violation of all decorum, jumps into the grave, where he ‘rants and mouths it’ like a player. This outrageous proceeding seems to infect Hamlet; who, forgetting hiself, as he afterward, with sorrow, owns to Horatio, and, by the ‘bravery’ of the others grief being worked up ‘in a towering passion,’ leaps in after him: and he who thinks Hamlets madness or sincerity counterfeit here does not appear to know so much of Shakspere or of human nature as every one who reads this play ought to do.

“The affection Hamlet now boasts for Ophelia was genuine and violent; we find him with the very same sentiments in the beginning of the play, and he has never once disowned it, except on a single occasion, when the sacrifice was required by his assumed character; a circumstance which cannot, at least ought not to, be imputed to him as a crime.

“The behaviour and language of Laertes is more ranting and unnatural, than noble and pathetic, and, with his execration upon Hamlet previously to his leaping into the grave, and the violent shock which Hamlet might feel on learning the corse to be Ophelias, might easyly work up to, and apologise for [errata: “and apologise for”], a higher pitch of extravagance, a stronger and more composed mind than that of which Hamlet appears to have been then master.

“Hamlets conversation with Laertes, immediately before the fencing scene, was at the queens earnest intreaty, and though dr. Johnson be pleased to give it the harsh name of ‘a dishonest fallacy,’ there are better, because more natural, judges who consider it as a most gentle and pathetic </p. 221><p. 222>address; and cannot perceive it to be either dishonest or fallacious: for, certainly, Hamlet did not intend the death of Polonius; of consequence, unwittingly, and by mere accident, injured Laertes, who, after declaring that he was ‘satisfyed in nature,’ and that he onely delayed his perfect reconcilement till his honour were satisfyed by elder masters, whom, at the same time, (for he has the instrument of death in his hand) he never meant to consult, says, ‘—Till that time,I do receive your offer’d LOVE LIKE LOVE, And WILL NOT WRONG IT.’ On which the truely virtuous, innocent, and unsuspecting Hamlet replies, ‘—I embrace it freely And will this BROTHERS wager frankly play.’

Let the conduct and sentiments of Laertes, in this interview, and in his conversation with the usurper, together with his villainous design against the life of Hamlet, be examined and tryed by any rules of gentility, honour, or humanity, natural or artificial, he must be considered as a treacherous, cowardly, diabolical wretch. Is such a character to rise on the fall of the generous Hamlet?

“Things are sometimes obvious to very careless spectators or readers, which are not discerned by those who play closer attention to the scene. Hamlet, in a trial of skill with Laertes, receives an unexpected, a treacherous, and mortal wound. Immediately before the company enter, he appears to be much troubled in mind; his spirits foreboding what was to happen: ‘If it be now,’ says he, ‘’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the radyness is all.’</p. 222> <p. 223>He does not appear to have suspected Laertes of any unfair practice (he did not know so much of him as we do), but he had every reason to expect treachery and murder from the usurper; he might too have heared something of his secret juggling with Laertes; and, doubtless, intended to revenge the death of his father. Being thus wounded, and on the threshold of futurity, if he had not killed the usurper immediately, the villain would have escaped unpunished. But he does not stab him for his treachery toward hisself,—he upbraids him with his crimes of INCEST and MURDER,—and consigns him to the infernal regions, ‘With all his “rank offences” thick upon him.’ So tht he sufficiently revenges his father, his mother (who, by the way, dyes, if not deservedly, at least unpityed), and hisself. As to his own fall, every reader or spectator must sympathise with Horatio, for the untimely loss of a youthful prince possessed of such grat and amiable qualities, rendered miserable by such unparalleled misfortunes; ‘—For he was likely, had he been put on, To have prov’d most royally;’ and who falls a sacrifice to the most base and infernal machinations. His death, however, is not to be looked upon s a punishment; the most innocent, as Shakspeare well knew, are frequently confounded with the most guilty; and the virtues of Hamlet were to be rewarded among those angels which his friend Horatio invokes to escort him to everlasting rest.

“Dr. [Mark] Akenside [1721-1770, poet and physician] was a very ingenious, sensible, and worthy man: but enough has been said to satisfy those who doubt, that the conduct of Hamlet is neither unnatural nor indefensible. That his intellects were really impaired by the circumstances enumerated by the above lerned physician, </p. 223><p. 224>is very probable; and, indeed, Hamlet hisself, more than once, plainly insinuates it. See, in particular, the latter part of his soliloquy at the end of the second act.

“The opposing and refuting of general charges by proof and circumstance commonly requires much more time and space than the making of them. The writer is sensible that the arguments here adduced are neither arranged so judiciously, nor expressed so well, as the objections of the earned commentator; but fromwhat has been said, and as it is said, it will appear, that is has not been without strong and sufficient reasons that Hamlet has ‘been hitherto regarded as a hero not undeserving the pity of the audience;’ and the ingenious critic will not, perhaps, have much cause to congratulate hisself, on being the onely person who has taken pains to point out the immoral tendency of as noble, as virtuous, and as interesting a character, ‘As e’er “imagination” cop’d withall.’”</p. 224>

[Ed HLA:While I put Ritson’s entire note here, within which he responds to STEEVENS’s long commentary on Hamlet’s character, so much of RITSON here are references to various areas of the play, that we should decide if we want to insert TLN #s to indicate the various points he’s referencing.]

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Davies (1784, p. 143-52) : <p. 143>“Hamlet is not a character for imitation; there are many features of it that are disagreeable. Notwithstanding his apparent blemishes, I do not think that he is so deformed as Mrs. Steevens has reprsented him. Aaron Hill had, above forty years ago, in a paper called the Prompter, observed, that, besides Hamlet’s assumed insanity, there was in him a melancholy, which bordered on madness, arising from his peculiar situation. But surely Hamlet did not come, as Mr. Steevens says, to disturb the funeral of Ophelia; for, till Laertes called the dead body his sister, he knew not whose grave was before him. Nor did he manifest the least sign of wrath, till Laertes bestowed a more than tenfold curse upon him. His jumping into the grave, when unexpectedly provoked, may be pardoned. Laertes seized him by the throat; and even then, instead of returning violence for violence, Hamlet begs him to desist. The madness of Ophelia is no farther to be charged to his account than as the unhappy consequence of a precipitant and mistaken action. </p. 143>

<p.144>“It is evident that Hamlet considered Rosencraus and Guildenstern as the king’s accomplices and instruments; nor indeed can be absolve them of that fuilt. They were the cabinet-counsellors of a villain and a murderer; and, though they were strangers to all his guilt, it is not improbable that they were acquainted with the secret of their commission. They were witnesses of the King’s anxiety at and after the play which was acted before him; and, when he told them, he liked him not, they saw no apparent reason for his saying so, except Hamlet’s behaviour at the play, which, however frolicsome it might be, was not surely wicked. Upon a mature inspection of their conduct through the play, they must be stigmatised with the brand of willing spies upon a prince, their quondam schoolfellow, whose undoubted title to the crown they well kew, and of whose wrongs they had not any feeling. In short to sum up their character in a few words, they were ready to comply with any </p. 144><p.145>command, provided they acquired, by their compliance, honour and advantage.” </p.145>

[Ed HLA:Davies’s commentary on 145-52 is very generic and deals wholly with the play as a whole and its performative features. We’ll have to see where all of this fits within the general commentary.]

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Reed (apud Steevens, ed. 1785) : “The author of The Remarks [RITSON] controverts the justice of these strictures on the character of Hamlet, which he undertakes to defend. The arguments he makes use of for this purpose are too long to be here inserted, and therefore, I shall content myself with referring to them. See REMARKS, p. 217, to 224. EDITOR” [REED]

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Reed (apud Annotations , 1787, p. 197) : <p. 197> “The author of The Remarks [RITSON] controverts the justice of these strictures on the character of Hamlet, which he undertakes to defend. The arguments he makes use of for this purpose are too long to be here inserted, and therefore, I shall content myself with referring to them. See REMARKS, p. 217, to 224, in opposition to these strictures. EDITOR” [REED]

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Malone (apud ed. 1790) : “So, in Pericles , Prince of Tyre, 1609: ‘If thou liv’st, Pericles, thou hast a heart , That even cracks for woe.”

“Hamlet had certainly been exhibited before the execution of that amiable nobleman; ut the words here given to Horatio might have been one of the many additions made to this play. As no copy of an earlier date than 1604 has yet been discovered, whether Lord Essex’s last words were in our authour’s thoughts, cannot now be ascertained. MALONE “

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Steevens (apud Malone, ed. 1790) : “Let us review for a moment the behavior of Hamlet, on the strength of which Horatio founds this eulogy, and recommends him to the patronage of angels.

“Hamlet, at the command of his father’s ghost, undertakes with seeming alacrity to revenge the murder; and declares he will banish all other thoughts from his mind. He makes, however, but one effort to keep his word; and on another occasion, defers his purpose till he can find an opportunity of taking the murderer when he is least prepared for death, that he may insure damnation to his soul. Though he may be said to have assassinated Polonius by accident, yet he deliberately procures the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who appear to have been unacquainted with the treacherous purposes of the mandate which they were employed to carry. Their death (as he declares in a subsequent conversation with Horatio) gives him no concern, for they obtruded themselves into the service, and he thought he had a right to destroy them. He is not less accountable for the distraction and death of Ophelia. He comes to interrupt the funeral designed in honour of this lady, at which both the king and queen were present; and, by such an outrage to decency, renders it still more necessary for the usurper to lay a second stratagem for his life, though the first hd proved abortive. He comes to insult the brother of the dead, and to boast of an affection for his sister, which, before, he had denied to her face; and yet at this very time must be considered as desirous of supporting the character of a madman, so that the openness of his confession must not be imputed to him as a virtue. He apologizes to Horatio afterwards for the absurdity of this behaviour, to which, he says, he was provoked by that nobleness of fraternal grief, which, indeed, he ought rather to have applauded than condemned. Dr. Johnson has observed, that to bring about a reconciliation with Laertes, he has availed himself of a dishonest fallacy; and to conclude, it is obvious to the most careless spectator or reader, that he kills the king at last to revenge himself, and not his father.

“Hamlet cannot be said tohave pursued his ends by very warrantable means; and if the poet, when he sacrificed him at last, meant to have enforced such a moral, it is not the worst that can be deduced from the play; for, as Maximus, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Valentinian, says, ‘Although his justice were as white as truth, His way was crooked to it; that condemns him.’

“The late Dr. Akinside once observed to me, that the conduct of Hamlet was every way unnatural and indefensible, unless he were to be regarded as a young man whose intellects were in some degree impaired by his own misfortunes; by the death of his father, the loss of expected soveeignty, and a sense of shame resulting from the hasty and incestuous marriage of his mother.

“I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because Hamlet seems to have been hitherto regarded as a hero, not undeserving the pity of the audience, and because no writer on Shakespeare has taken the pains to point out the immoral tendency of his character. Steevens”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Malone (ed. 1790) : “Some of the charges here brought against Hamlet appear to me questionable at least, if not unfounded. I have already observed that in the novel on which this play is constructed, the ministers who by the king’s order accompanied the young prince to England, and carried with them a packet in which his death was concerted, were apprized of its contents; and therefore we may presume that Shakspeare meant to describe their representatives, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as equally criminal; as combining with the king to deprive Hamlet of his life. His procuring their execution therefore does not with certainty appear to have been an unprovoked cruelty, and might have been considered by him as necessary to his future safety ; knowing, as he must have known, that they had devoted themselves to the service of the king in whatever he should command. The principle on which he acted, is ascertained by the following lines, from which also it may be inferred that the poet meant to represent Hamlet’s school-fellows as privy to the plot against his life: ‘There’s letters seal’d: and my two school-fellows— Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d, They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, And mashall me to knavery: Let it work; For ‘tis the sport, to have the engineer Hoist with his own petar; and it shall go hard, But I will delve one yard below their mines, And blow them to the moon .’

[MALONE moves these notes from STEEVENS and himself to 3850]1790 MALONE (1790 ed., p. 422; v1793, p. 353; v1803, p. 379; v1813, p. 379; v1821, p. 516) inserts his 1783 note before he quotes STEEVENS’ very long note, but he also adds to the Pericles’ quote:

3850 And . . . rest] Steevens (ed. 1793) : “Rather from Marston’s Insatiate Countess, 1603: ‘An host of angels be thy convey hence!’ STEEVENS”

3850 And . . . rest]

3850 And . . . rest] Seymour (1805, 2:205-06) : <p. 205> “I believe there are few readers in the closet, or spectators in a theatre, who do not cordially subscribe to this pious ejaculation of Horatio upon Hamlet’s death; but Mr. Steevens is much displeased with it; and, by a long note, in which, with a fervour of reprehension that would do credit to theSociety for the Suppression of Vice, he prefers a bill of religious and moral indictment against the deceased prince, in order to arrest the spirit on its passage, and prevent for ever its approach to the heavenly mansions.

“This critic, whose zeal and industry in the illustration of Shakspeare cannot be too much applauded, appears, in the present instance, to have mistaken the author’s design in the composition of Hamlet’s character, as well as to exaggerate the facts on which he condemns it. Shakspeare never meant to display in Hamlet a pattrn of purity or insipid perfection, in which no one would be found to feel an interest; but rather, on the contrary, a striking example of human frailty; a young man with noble propensities and estimable habits, contemplative, learned, and wise, but at the same time passionate, irresolute, and capricious. Profound sorrow at his father’s death, succeeding horror on his learning the manner of </p. 205> <p. 206>that death, resentment at his wrongs, indignation at his mother’s conduct, contempt and hatred of the murderous usurper, and indigested schemes of vengeance, alternately agitate and distract his mind, and leave him scarcely amenable to the ordinary laws of decorum.

“It must be confessed, the poet has left this drama very imperfect: of the assumed madness he has neglected to make any effectual use, but while it appeared expedient for Hamlet ‘To put an antic disposition on,’ it certainly was very proper to wear it before the daughter of Polonius; and I cannot acknowldge that brutal conduct ascribed by Mr. Steevens to Hamlet, in this scene, however it may be overacted on the stage: his satire is general; beauty, he tells Ophelia, is a dangerous quality, which will sooner corrupt honesty to vice, than honesty can change beauty, so as to make it resemble honesty. He says the world is full of wickedness, and recommends her to withdraw from it to a nunnery, that she may avoid adding to what mass of wickedness, by giving birth to more sinners. What is said of aiting, lisping, ambling, &c. refes to the common practice or fashion of the times; and as to the disavowal of his love, if madness must be scrutinized like truth and reson, Hamlet put on the madman to littl purpose indeed. But this, as well as his having procured the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guilderstern, whatever Mr. Steevens may pronounc, will, I believe, be deemed excusable, for the reasons I have given in several places; and I must further deny the assertion, that he is answerable for the distraction and death of Ophelia, until I can discover that he had any intention or thought of </p. 206> <p. 207>such a lamentable consequence, when he mistakingly killed Polonius. For the outrage at the funeral of Ophelia, indeed, and for the unprincely falshood uttered in the last scene to Laertes, I can find no excuse, and suppose that Shakspeare, if he had taken the trouble to correct and finish his work, would have expunged them both.” </p 207>

3849-50 good . . . rest] Richardson (1808, pp. 64-5): <p. 64> “From these remarks [regarding Hamlet’s ‘melancholy gaiety’], I hope you will now agree with me, that Hamlet deserves compassion; and that Horatio may say of him with propriety, [cites 3849-50]. </p. 64>

<p. 65>“The character is consistent. Hamlet is exhibited with good dispositions, and struggling with untoward circumstances. The contest is interesting. As he endeavours to act aright we approve and esteem him.” </p. 65>

3850 And . . . rest]

3850 And . . . rest]

3850 And . . . rest] Malone (ed. 1821) : “As Hamlet, according to my conjecture, was written in 1600, Shakspeare could not have copied from the Insatiate Countess in 1603. MALONE”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Caldecott (ed. 1832) : “Bursts or breaks is the language of the present day.”

3850 And . . . rest]

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] see n. 3877

3848-51 Strachey (1848, p. 101): <p. 101>“Do we not heartily respond to Horatio’s ‘Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest !’ There is something so unpretending, and even homely, (if I may apply the word to such a state of things) in the circumstances of Hamlet’s death, that it does not strike us obviously that he dies for the cause to which he has been called to be the champion. Yet so it is. Laertes, and his treacherous revenge, are but the instruments of the great criminal: Laertes is merely the poisoned foil in the King’s hand, and the blow is struck only and entirely because the King knows that Hamlet’s death alone can protect him from the sword of justice in Hamlet’s hand. But not only does he die by the criminal’s device, because he has undertaken to execute judgment upon him, but he dies by Heaven’s will, that he may execute that judgment. Nothing but the knowledge that he was dying, that now or never must the blow be struck, could have sufficiently spurred Hamlet to do a deed so utterly repugnant to all his over-wrought sensibilities, as the killing with his own hand his uncle, his mother’s husband, and his king. He had shrank from the task again and again, though he knew it was his appointed duty; but he had resigned himself to Heaven, and looked for strength to be sent him thence, in Heaven’s own way. He knew not that it was to come through his death, but he was quite ready that it should so come: and death was at once the accomplishment of his work, and the full atonement for all the previous faults by which it had so long remained unfinished. “</p. 101>

3848-50 Collier (1853, p. 432): <p. 432>“The drama, abridged, as far as we can judge, for, or from, representation some time after the appearance of the folio, 1634, concludes with the two lines spoken by Horatio over the dead body of Hamlet: all the rest, including ‘Why does the drum come hither,’ [3851] is crossed out, so that nothing is seen of Fortinbras, or of the English ambassadors. The lines put into the mouth of Horatio are these, as they stand in every edition, Hamlet having just expired:— ‘Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ However, it seems to have been thought, about the time the abbreviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a rhyming couplet, and we may infer that the alteration we meet with in the folio, 1632, was made for the purpose:—’Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, be blest, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ This couplet is followed by the word Finis, in manuscript, to show that it was the conclusion of the piece.

“Nevertheless, the necessary changes of the text, as we find it in the second folio, are continued, as if what follows the entrance of Fortinbras, &c., had not been erased. The first is merely ‘This’ for His, when Fortinbras says,—’This quarry cries on havock,’ &c.’ [3857] It is ‘His quarry,’ &c., in the folios, and certainly wrong.” </p. 432>

3848-50 Collier (1853 [2nd ed.], p. 447-8): <p. 447>“The drama, abridged, as far as we can judge, for, or from, representation some time after the appearance of the folio, 16342, concludes with the two lines spoken by Horatio over the dead body of Hamlet: all the rest, including ‘Why does the drum come hither,’ [3851] is crossed out, so that nothing is seen of Fortinbras, or of the English ambassadors. The lines put into the mouth of Horatio are these, as they stand in every edition, Hamlet having just expired:— ‘Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ However, it seems to have been thought, about the time the abbreviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a rhyming couplet, and we may infer that the alteration we meet with in the folio, 1632, was made for the purpose:—’Now cracks a noble heart.—Good night, be blest, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ This couplet is followed by the word Finis, in manuscript, to show that it was the conclusion of the piece; but still after ‘Finis’ we meet with a couplet, which may have been intended as a closing tag, possibly to follow that we have last quoted. It runs thus:—’While I remain behind to tell a tale, That shall hereafter turn the hearers pale.’ Of course this weak, inanimate stuff could not have come from Shakespeare’s pen, but must have been added subsequently, and recited when the tragedy was abbreviated.

“Nevertheless, The necessary changes of the text, as we find it in the second folio, are continued, as if what follows the entrance of </p. 447> <p. 448> Fortinbras, &c., had not been erased. The first is merely ‘This’ for His, when Fortinbras says,—’This quarry cries on havock,’ &c.’ [3857] It is ‘His quarry,’ &c., in the folios, and certainly wrong.” </p. 448>

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Mit diesen Worten Horatio’s muss nach dem Urtheile des alten Corectors die TragÖdie schliessen; alles Weitere ist vom Uebel und wird umbarmherzig durchgestrichen. Freilich lässt sich dann nicht einsehen, weshalb der Dichter den Fortinbras vorher eingeführt und vorgeführt habe; aber dem massgebenden Ansehen eines so beewährten tiefen Shaksperekenners, wie der alte Corrector war und vielleicht einma wieder sein wird, lässt sich noch weniger widerstreiten er für sweet prince liest be blest. Die wünschenswerthe Illusion, dass er auf Shakspere’s Autorität hin diese geistreicht Emendation vorgenommen und Shakspere’s eigene Worte im Texte wieder hergestellt habe, zerstÖrt uns leider Collier selbst mit der Notiz: it seems to have ben thought, about the time the abbreviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a rhyming couplet. Der alte Corrector bietet uns also, nach dem Geständniss seines Entdeckers, gemacht wurden, meinte, dass der Text lauten müsste.—Für die verblendeten Gemüther, welche sich den Fortinbra und die Englischen Gesandten nicht entgehen lassen mÖgen, setzt der alte Corrector auch nach dem von ihm statuirten Schlusse des Dramas seinen Dienst fort, und liefert ausser einigen Verbesserungen, in demen ihm die Qs. schon zuvorgekommen waren, noch eine, die him allein angehÖrt.” [With these words of Horatio, the tragedy must close, according to the judgement of the old corrector; all the rest [of the text] is wrong and is crossed out mercilessly. Certainly, there is no realization why the poet had earlier created and introduced this Fortinbras; but for the authoritative appearance of such a proven, profound Shakespearean scholar as the old corrector was and perhaps again will be, this is still less conflict. Likewise, he compensates us for the abbreviated ending of the play through rhmed verse, in which he reads ibe blest for sweet prince. The desired illusion, that he placed here with Shakespeare’s authority this clever , purposeful emendation and Shakespeare’s own words, Collier destroys for us, alas, with this note: it seems to have been thought, about the time the abbreviations were made, that the tragedy ought to end with a rhyming couplet. The old Corrector offers us, in addition, after the admission of its discovery, a text not as the poet meant it written; to the contrary, as intended by one at the time the abbreviations were made that the text must have sounded.]

3848-9 Hora. .. . . Prince] Anon. (1856, pp. 383-4) comments on the F2 ms. forgery: <p.383> “One remarkable instance will show the nature of this process of double amendment for distinct purposes. The play of Hamlet </p.383><p.384> is made to end with the two lines spoken by Horatio over the prince’s body—but, inasmuch as the eternal fitness of things seemed to the Corrector to require that a tragedy should conclude with a couplet, they are thus altere ‘There crack’d a noble heart. Good night, be blest, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.’ Then follows ‘Finis.’ Then another couplet, evidently a ‘tag’ introduced by some actor; and the remainder of the play is scored through; but under this scoring the corrections of the text are continued. The Corrector was, therefore, carrying on two processes at once. This being the case, it appears a formidable task, if not a hopeless one, to disentangle these separate operations; to say of each amendment, whether its purpose be critical or theatrical.” </p.384>

3848 Now cracks a noble heart] Anon. (1856, p. 1221): <p.1221> "More than one student of Shakespeare has addressed us on the new reading of the first ’Hamlet.’ We refrain from a full discussion of the newly recovered text until Mr. Halliwell has produced it in his edition; but as any person may see it by calling in Bond Street, we may without breach of confidence refer to the text in such general terms as may sharpen the desire for further knowledge. The new reading, as it seems to us, consists in the structure of the whole scene; which differs from the enlarged edition of 1604. After Hamlet’s death, Horatio says in the later version, [quotes 3848-50] Fortinbras enters, and some fifty lines of dialogue are spoken. In the quarto of 1603 those lines are condensed to about a dozen—a circumstance which strengthens an old conjecture that this quarto was printed from an actor’s copy. The line which has often puzzled commentators [3889] does not occur; and the passage— ‘Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage,’ reads— ‘Let four captains Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to his grave.’” </p. 1221>

3848-9 Hora. .. . . Prince] Elze (ed. 1857, 262): <p. 262>"MC: Good night, be blest, eine Änderung, die augenscheinlich den Zweck hat, mit einem Reimpaare zu schliessen. Collier Notes and Emendatt. 432. Mommsen P.-S. 404. Der MC lässt nämlich das Stück mit dem folg. Verse endigen; alles Übrige ((von ’Why does the drum come hither?’ an)) hat er ausgestrichen und ’Finis’ darunter geschrieben, obgleich er auch in der ausgestrichenen Parthie sine Verbesserungen nicht gespart hat. Mommsen P.-S. 479 vermuthet, dass die ausgestrichenen Verse wol von Th. Heywood, dem Leibpoeten des Drury-Lane, herrühren könnten. —Statt ’And flights of angels sing thee’ im folg. Verse hat Warburton geschrieben: wing thee. Nach Malone’s nicht unwahrscheinlicher Vermuthung haben dem Dichter hier die letzten Worte des im J. 1601 hingerichten Grafen Essen vorgeschwebt: ’—and when my life and body shall part, send thy blessed angels, which may receive my soule, and convey it to the joys of heaven.’ Dies wäre ein Zeichen mehr für die Annahme, dss die endgültige Bearbeitung des Hamlet zwischen 1600-1602 stttgefunden habe. In der vor 1601 entstandenen QA heisst es zwar auch: Farewell Horatio, heaven receive my soul, allein das ist so allgemein gehalten, dass man darin schwelich irgend eine Auspielung finden kann. Der Dichter müsste dieselbe also erst bei der letzten Bearbeitung hineingelegt haben. S. Einleitung XXIV." [mCOL1: ’Good night, be blest," an alteration which evideently has the goal of closing with a couplet. Collier Notes and Emendqatt. 432. Mommsen P.-S. 404. The mCOL1 has namely the piece with the following final verse; all the remaining ((from ’Why does the drum come hither’)) it has struck through and written below it, ’Finis,’ although he has not even saved his emendation in the struck through part. Mommsen P.-S 479 conjectures that the struck-through verse could have derived from Th. Heywood, the love poet of Drury-Lane.—Instead of ’And flights of angels sing thee’ in the following verse, Warburton has written ’wing thee.’ According to Malone’s not improbable conjecture, the last words of the 1601 executed Essex were in the poet’s mind ’—and when my life and body shall part, send thy blessed angels, which may receive my soule, and convey it to the joys of heaven.’ This might be a great sign for the assumption that the final revision of Hamlet happened between 1600-02. In the original 1601 Q1 it appears indeed even ’Farewell, Horatio, heaven receive my soul,’ allone that it is generally held that one can find therein hardly anything of an allusion. The poet must have inserted this first at the last revision. See Introduction XXIV.]

[Ed HLA:The introduction, page 24, simply dates the play and the "innovation" of the children’s theatre.]

3848 noble heart] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “Dieser Ausdruck hätte jene Kritiker belehren sollen, die in falscher Beurtheilung der Motive, die H. zu seinem Verhalten zwingen, diesem Schwäche, Feigheit, krakhafte Gesinnung und Lebensanschauung u.s.w. zur Last legen.” [“This expression ought to enlighten that critic who in false judgement of the motive which forces Hamlet to his behavior to offer up for the burden, cowardice, a sick disposition and view of life, and so on.”]

3848 cracks] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Compare [Cor. 5.3.9 (3356)]: ‘Whom with a crack’d heart I have sent to Rome.’ And [Ant. 5.1.14, 15 (3124, 3125)], of Antony’s death: ‘

3848-50 Marshall (1875, p. 109): <p. 109> “With the death of Hamlet the play virtually ends. Horatio’s farewell—[cites 3848-50] recalls Hamlet’s own words, ‘to die, to sleep.’ The entry of Fortinbras and the ambassadors is necessary merely to complete the story. We may, perhaps, regret that Shakespeare never felt impelled to write the speech of Horatio over the bodies of Hamlet and the others. Had he done so, it would have formed a splendid parallel to that of Antony over the body of Cæsar.” </p. 109>

3848 cracks] Furness (ed. 1877): “Elsewhere used by Sh. where we should now use break. See [Per. 3.2.78 (1279); Cor. 5.3.9 (3356)].”

3848-9 Now . . . Prince] Neil (ed. 1877, Notes): “Malone thought that I writing these words Shakespeare had in mind the last words of Essex in his prayer on the scaffold, ‘And when my soul and body shall part, send Thy blessed angels to be near unto me, which may convey it to the joys of heaven.’ But Hamlet is a somewhat earlier play than Malone supposed. It must have been the last words of Horatio that were in the last thoughts of Essex, or else they were so familiar to him for personal reasons as to shape his last expressions unconsciusly to himself’—Gerald Massey’s Shakespeare’s Sonnets, p. 487.”

3848-49 Halliwell (1879, p. 72): <p. 72>“Horatio understood Hamlet better than any one, and his judgment of him doubtlessly exprsses Shakespeare’s own estimate,—[cites 3848-49]a ‘noble heart’ that ever shrank from an act that would have resulted in his own aggrandizement, for, although the monarchy was elective not hereditary, the succession of Hamlet had been proclaimed by the King and tacitely accepted.” </p. 72>

3848 cracks] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Crack is used elsewhere by Shakespeare where we should use break. Compare [Cor. 5.3.9 (3356) [a crack’d heart’)], [Per. 3.2.77 (1279)]; [MW 2.2.301 (1040)].”

3848 cracks]

3849 sweete] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Frequent as an epithet of affection. Cf. [3.2.53].”

3848 cracks . . . hart] Edwards (ed. 1985): “The heart-strings were supposed to snap at the moment of death. Compare [R3 4.4.365 (3151)], ‘till heart-strings break’, and Massinger, Duke of Milan 3.3.157, ‘though my heart-strings crack for’t’.”

3849 good night] Andrews (ed. 1993): "This farewell recalls the play’s earlier ’good nights’ ((among them Hamlet’s in III.iv and Ophelia’s IV.v)), and it also echoes ’To die to sleep/To sleep, perchance to dream’ ((III.i.61-62))."