Puslapio vaizdai
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PART I.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE.

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY ON SUICIDE.

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THE classical Dr. Goldsmith commences his 'Sixteenth Essay' thus:-'Of all the implements of poetry, the metaphor is the most generally and successfully used, and indeed may be termed the Muse's caduceus, by the power of which she enchants all Over and above an excess of figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed, and distract the imagination. Shakespeare himself is often guilty of these irregularities. The soliloquy in Hamlet, which we have often heard extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdities, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment, the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed by the Ghost that his father was murdered, and therefore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enterprise. It does not appear that he had the least reason to wish for death; but every motive which may be

supposed to influence the mind of a young prince, concurred to render life desirable-revenge toward the usurper; love for the fair Ophelia, and the ambi tion of reigning. Besides, when he had an opportunity of dying without being accessory to his own death; when he had nothing to do but, in obedience to his uncle's command, to allow himself to be conveyed quietly to England, where he was sure of suffering death-instead of amusing himself with meditations on mortality, he very wisely consulted the means of self-preservation, turned the tables upon his attendants, and returned to Denmark. But granting him to have been reduced to the lowest state of despondence, surrounded with nothing but horror and despair, sick of this life, and eager to tempt futurity, we shall see how far he argues like a philosopher.

'In order to support this general charge against an author so universally held in veneration, whose very errors have helped to sanctify his character among the multitude, we will descend to particulars, and analyze this famous soliloquy.

'Hamlet, having assumed the disguise of madness, as a cloak under which he might the more effectually revenge his father's death upon the murderer and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a pensive and melancholy attitude, and communes with himself in these words:

""To be, or not to be? That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

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