instantly, but Polonius could not conceive that anything but madness could justify the prince in such an act of presumption.

The inscription in Hamlet's letter to Ophelia is another effort to delineate the maiden. Are not the words:

In her excellent white bosom, these, &c.,

meant to suggest that Hamlet allowed himself at least a freedom of speech with Ophelia? To a sensitive mind the words do not express exactly the same sentiment as we find in "pure bosom," "gentle bosom," which Shakespeare elsewhere employs; and to no maiden but Ophelia does Shakespeare allow a lover to speak or write in such a tone; -of her person rather than her qualities. The phrase is allied to Richard's free expression of his desire for Lady Anne:

So I might live an hour in your sweet bosom.

As soon as Polonius read the lines,—" In her excellent white bosom, these, &c." Gertrude interrupted. him, asking:

Came this from Hamlet to her?

She can hardly believe that her son would write in this way to any maiden, and Polonius, seeing that she doubts whether the prince had written thus, but does not doubt that he has written, replies:

Stay awhile, I will be faithful. That is, 'Do not judge so fast; I will read nothing that he did not write.'

The fact that Ophelia had this missive is another of Shakespeare's touches. Her father had forbid

den her to receive Hamlet's tokens, and she had told him that she "did repel his letters and denied his access," and then, rather than go in person to the king, she had produced this letter, although it was a proof of her disobedience. Understand, I am not blaming her for this, any more than I should blame a red rose for not being white. I only insist that red is red, and that Shakespeare meant us to see it red.

Hamlet's conversations with Polonius about his daughter are strong helps to our understanding of Ophelia's character, and so is his conversation with her, in the lobby, and at the mock-play. They show that Hamlet, who knew her better than we, believed that her sensuousness might become sensuality.

Ophelia's consenting to encounter Hamlet, by seeming accident, the very day after he had treated her with such great rudeness, and her planning to offer to return his gifts to him, are touches by which she is self-revealed; and her songs, when insanity has still further loosened the bonds of self-restraint, expose her natural disposition to us. Even the words used by Horatio and the gentleman in waiting on Gertrude add to our conception of Ophelia's character. We understand what the gentleman means though he does not express it plainly, and Horatio, who, while he knows her innocence, yet knows to what "thoughts" her hearers may "botch her words up," advises:

'Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjecture in ill-breeding minds.

The words with which Gertrude leaves the scene, when Ophelia is going to the lobby to meet Hamlet, are open to the construction that she too entertained a doubt as to the purity of their relations. It was natural that her depraved mind should attribute evil to others, and she did not believe that disappointed love had any share in producing Hamlet's transformation; but her words are these:

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

After all this, which looks like censure, shall I be excused if I say I think Hamlet was wrong in rejecting the maiden? if I say that, had he married her, he would have bounded her horizon, and she would have been as absolutely faithful to him as were Imogen or Desdemona to their husbands? I believe that Hamlet's fidelity to his ideal, which separated him from Ophelia, entailed an unnecessary sacrifice, a sacrifice to which both were innocent. victims. Ophelia's love had root, not in her fancy alone but in the very fibre of her heart; her reason was destroyed by her efforts to conceive of and support life without Hamlet. Such a love could blossom only once, and would have bloomed for Hamlet only.

This conception of Ophelia does not, in my opinion, dethrone or degrade her: it defines her character with strong lines and enhances the beauty aud pathos of the play.

XXVI.

LAERTES did not follow his sister when she left the royal presence, but he withdrew with Claudius, who, in some other apartment, gave him his version of Polonius's murder, telling him that Hamlet, seized with sudden madness, had killed the chamberlain supposing him to be the king. While Claudius is making this explanation we see Horatio in another room of the castle. Sailors bring him a letter from Hamlet, saying that "it comes from the ambassador that was bound for England." This letter tells Horatio that Hamlet is returned to Elsinore, and is now waiting, in some secluded spot, desirous that his friend shall come to him; the sailors are to guide him. But they have other letters, one for the king and one for Gertrude; both are sent to Claudius. We do not know that Gertrude's letter ever reaches her, but we see, in Hamlet's sending it, a proof that he has lost no time in again reminding his mother of his parting admonitions.

In the next scene we see Claudius when these letters are delivered to him. He has had time to tell Laertes how and when Hamlet had killed Polonius, and we now hear him excuse himself for not bringing the prince to punishment. He says he loves Gertrude so dearly that he could not bear to

This,

wound her by proceeding against her son. his first reason, we know to be untrue, for he is in daily expectation of the news of Hamlet's death, for which he only is responsible. The other reason as he explains it, is that the young prince is so beloved by his late father's subjects that they would excuse any fault in him, and consider it a virtue; this, though true in fact, is untrue in its application. But Claudius, finding that Laertes is clamorous for revenge, is just about to confide to him that he has ordered Hamlet's death, when he is interrupted by the messenger who brings the letters which have been sent in by the sailors. Taking them both, his own and the queen's, he tells Laertes:

You shall hear them.

His own letter, which he first opens and reads, seems so to have surprised him that he does not read the other. This letter to Claudius differs widely from the grave and thoughtful epistle Hamlet sent to his friend; it is not the respectful salutation of a son to a father, or a subject to a king. The matter and the manner of it could both be attributed to madness, and we see that Hamlet means still to continue, in the presence of his enemies, a behavior which was forced upon him by them. The letter says that "to-morrow" Hamlet will seek to see the king, and Claudius instantly conceives a plan by which Laertes, while he pursues his own. revenge, shall free him forever from the dread which Hamlet must inspire so long as he remains upon the earth. This he thinks he can accomplish with