The Contemporary Review, January 1883 / Vol 43, No. 1

ue and significance of the fact? Before we can answer this we mus

esentative man, we have only to look at the careful way in which all the other characters are touched and modelled so as to allow and enhance Hamlet's superiority, This is true even of Horatio. We have already remarked that in their scenes with the ghost the manhood of Hamlet is of a higher strain and dignity. And not only in resolution, but in that other manly virtue of self-reliance, his superiority is incontestable. Horatio follows Hamlet at a distance as Lucilius follows Brutus, content if from time to time he may stand at his side. Whatever is Hamlet's mood he reflects it, for to him Hamlet is always great. Horatio never questions, presumes not to give advice, echoes the scorn or laughter of his friend, is equally contemptuous of the king, and, as he never urges to action, is, if his friend is supposed to procrastinate, accomplice in his delay. Hamlet detaches himself from the w

ter, hast thou,

of Laertes is the more odious in this, that the success of his plot depends on the generous confidence of his victim. Polonius is handled in the same way with special reference to Hamlet. His thinking is marked by slowness and insincerity, and when he comes in contact with the rapid current of Hamlet's mind he is benumbed; he can only mutter, "If this is madness, there is method in it." What little portable wisdom was given to him in the first Act is soon withdrawn-he stammers in his deceit, and the old indirectness having no material of thought to work upon becomes a circumlocution of truisms. As t

and we have not the study of a special affliction, but the fundamental drama of the soul and the world. This, whatever we may call it, was the work at