"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull."* Horatio, a believer in the "divinity that shapes our ends," by his promised explanation of the events, delivers us from the transcendental optimism of Hamlet, and restores the purely human way of viewing things: "Give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view; And let me speak to the yet unknowing world Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause, Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I The arrival of Fortinbras contributes also to the restoration of a practical and positive feeling. With none of the rare qualities of the Danish prince, he excels him in plain grasp of ordinary fact. Shakspere knows that the success of these men, who are limited, definite, positive, will do no dishonor to the failure of the rarer natures, to whom the problem of living is more embarrassing, and for whom the tests of the world are stricter and more delicate. Shakspere "beats triumphant marches" not for successful persons alone, but also "for conquered and slain persons." Does Hamlet finally attain deliverance from his disease of will? Shakspere has left the answer to that question doubtful. Probably if anything could supply the link which was wanting between the purpose and the deed, it was the achievement of some supreme ac All's Well that Ends Well, act i., sc. 1. tion. The last moments of Hamlet's life are well spent, and, for energy and foresight, are the noblest moments of his existence. He snatches the poisoned bowl from Horatio, and saves his friend; he gives his dying voice for Fortinbras, and saves his country. The rest is silence: "Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest), O, I could tell you." But he has not told. Let us not too readily assume that we "know the stops" of Hamlet, that we can "pluck out the heart of his mystery." One thing, however, we do know that the man who wrote the play of Hamlet had obtained a thorough comprehension of Hamlet's malady. And, assured, as we are by abundant evidence, that Shakspere transformed with energetic will his knowledge into fact, we may be confident that when Hamlet was written Shakspere had gained a further stage in his culture of self-control, and that he had become not only adult as an author, but had entered upon the full maturity of his manhood. * * To refer even to the best portion of the immense Hamlet literature would require considerable space. I believe my study of the play is indebted chiefly to the article by H. A. Werner, in Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, vol. v., and to an essay by my friend J. Todhunter, M.D., read before the Dublin University Shakspere Society. The doctors of the insane have been studious of the state of Hamlet's mind-Doctors Ray, Kellogg, Conolly, Maudsley, Bucknill. They are unanimous in wishing to put Hamlet under judicious medical treatment; but they find it harder than Polonius did to hit upon a definition of madness: "For to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad?" The critics are nearly equally divided in their estimates of Ophelia. Flathe is extravagantly hostile to the Polonius family. Mr. Ruskin ("Sesame and Lilies") may be mentioned among English writers as forming no favorable estimate of Ophelia; and against Mrs. Jameson's authority we may set the authority of a lady writer in Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesell schaft, vol. ii., pp. 16-36. Vischer chivalrously defends Ophelia, and Hebler coincides. The study of Hamlet by Benno Tschischwitz is learned and ingenious. H. von Friesen's "Briefe über Shakespeare's Hamlet" contains much more than its name implies, and is, indeed, a study of the entire development of Shakspere. Sir Edward Strachey's 'Shakspeare's Hamlet," 1848, interprets the play throughout in a different sense from the interpretation attempted in this chapter. See especially what is called "Hamlet's Final Discovery," pp. 91-93. Werder's "Vorlesungen über Shakespeare's Hamlet," 1875, presents with remarkable force the view that Hamlet's was not a weak nature. Mr. Frank Marshall's "A Study of Hamlet," if less brilliant, is, I think, more sound. Last must be mentioned Mr. Furness's magnificent variorum edition of the play, in two volumes, 1877. CHAPTER IV. THE ENGLISH HISTORICAL PLAYS. THE historical plays of Shakspere may be approached from many sides. It would be interesting to endeavor to ascertain from them what was Shakspere's political creed.* It would be interesting to compare his method as artist when handling historical matter with that of some other great dramatist-with that of Schiller when writing "Wallenstein," or Goethe when writing "Egmont," or Victor Hugo when writing "Cromwell." Shakspere's opinions, however, and Shakspere's method as artist, are less than Shakspere himself. It is the man we are still seeking to discover-behind his works, behind his opinions, behind his artistic process. Shakspere's life, we must believe, ran on below his art, and was to himself of deeper import than his work as artist. Not, perhaps, his material life, though to this also he contrived to make his art contribute, but the life of his inmost being. To him art was not, as it has been to some poets and painters and musicians, a temple-worship; a devotion of self, a surrender which is at once blissful and pathetic to some presence greater and nobler than * See on this subject "Shakspere-Forschungen," by Benno Tschischwitz, III.-"Shakspere's Staat und Königthum." The writer dwells on the moral and religious character of the relation between king and people as conceived by Shakspere. He says well, "Für Shakspere nämlich ist das Königthum durchaus nicht die gekrönte Spitze einer Pyramide, sondern der lebendige Mittelpunkt eines organischen Ganzen, nach welchem zu das Gesammtleben des Organismus pulsirt," p. 84. See the subsequent chapter in this volume upon "The Roman Plays," pp. 276-336. one's self. Of such pathos we discover none in Shakspere's life. He possessed his art, and was not possessed by it. With him poetry was not, as it was with Keats, or as it was with Shelley, a passion from which deliverance was impossible. Shakspere delivered himself from his life as artist with quiet determination, and found it well to enjoy his store of worldly success, and learn to possess his soul among the fields and streams of Stratford, before there came an end of all. The main question, therefore, which it is desirable to put in the case of the historical plays now to be considered is this—What was Shakspere gaining for himself of wisdom or of strength while these were the organs through which his faculties of thought and imagination nourished themselves, inhaling and exhaling their breath of life? That Shakspere should have accomplished so great an achievement towards the interpreting of history is much; that he should have grasped in thought the national life of England during a century and upwards, in her periods of disaster and collapse, of civil embroilment, and of heroic union and exaltation-this is much. But that, by his study of history, Shakspere should have built up his own moral nature, and have fortified himself for the conduct of life, was, we may surmise, to Shakspere the chief outcome of his toil. And certainly not the least remarkable thing about these historical plays is that while each is an effort so earnest to realize objective fact, at the same time they disclose so much of the writer's personality. Even Shakspere cannot transcend himself. Facts must group and organize themselves before they become available for the service of art; and for each artist they group themselves around his strongest feelings and most cherished convictions respecting human life. If, by favorable chance, hands at work among confused slips of ancient |