with all its varied forms, do not always proceed from mal-conformation of the brain, but frequently from the intellectual powers being too much called into action, whereby, those endowed with a high tone of thought, and lofty imagination, have been considered more subject to madness, than the dull and phlegmatic portion of mankind, a truth which led the philosophic Pope to say:

"True genius is to madness near allied."

The lives of the poets amongst whom we may name Nathaniel Lee, Collins, and the good and amiable Cowper unhappily present to us, a melancholy picture of the proof of this assertion.

Upon a subject involved in so much obscurity, where little or no knowledge of the proximate causes of mania, can be satisfactorily explained, the definition offered by medical writers of what constitutes real insanity, is very defective; some alleging, that it is to be known, where the intellect becomes disturbed by extreme violence of action, labouring at the same time, under a delusion of false perception; but, if such a definition be correct, we may be warranted to consider the whole human race as actually in a state of madness, for all in some degree, are subject to hallucinations of this description; amidst the various opinions offered to the world, upon this abstruse and interesting topic, that given by the immortal Locke, is perhaps entitled to some estimation where he says, "A madman draws right conclusions from wrong principles, whereas, a fool draws wrong conclusions from right." (9.) Guided by this view, no one who estimates correctly the character delineated by Shakspere, will ever be inclined to imagine, that Hamlet formed his conclusions from false premises, or that his reasoning was not the result of the most profound meditation;-suffering under the most lamentable affliction which can possibly harrow the feelings of humanity ;a father murdered,—a mother disgraced by incestuous crime, his soul became agitated by emotions which gave birth to the bitter

terness of sentiment, that prevails over all he utters ;-the eternal principles of justice had been violated, and meditating on the villainy of his uncle, he was led by the ardour of his imagination, to survey life, with the same scrutinizing research, that has characterized the wisdom of all ages;-no flatterer to the prejudices of mankind, a knowledge of their vices sank deep into his heart, and brought upon his feelings that weariness of existence, which urged him to exclaim,

"O! that the Everlasting had not fix'd,

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!"

Hamlet felt keenly the calamities of life; the intensity of his anguish proceeded from no imaginary cause, and though he indulged in the exercise of those powers which occasionally bring forth meditations of an abstract and speculative nature, he was free from the influence of that apathy, and sterility of soul, which actuated Pyrrho, the ancient philosopher, who, as it is recorded, regarded death and life with so much indifference that he did not commit suicide, merely because he could not find motives to determine his choice; --possessing, however, a temperament diametrically opposite, Hamlet's career, was one continued scene of too ardent feeling, giving rise to those melancholy reflections which gained vigour, from the accumulated evil that surrounded him.

No subject has engaged more the attention of philosophy, than the deranged intellectual faculties of man ;-the investigations of physicians, like Pinel and Morgagni, merit our highest admiration; but we are compelled to admit, that notwithstanding their laborious research into this interesting but abstruse department of physiology, that with all our anatomical knowledge of the brain, great obscurity still prevails, and our views upon the troubles of human passion and human reason, are yet of so imperfect a nature, as to lead daily to errors of such magnitude that entail, unhappily too often, upon many of our fellowcreatures, protracted and unmerited suffering. The prevalence of

of such errors have led authors to rank Hamlet as a maniac, and were a Commission de lunatico inquirendo" to be instituted, composed of men influenced by opinions so erroneous, an individual possessing his disposition, and giving utterance to the like sentiments, would in all probability have the misfortune to become the wretched inhabitant of a mad-house.

With those who have suffered from a confirmed state of mental derangement, and who have laboured under all its effects, without having been distinguished for any great exertion of mental power, the causes perhaps may be attributed to some organic lesion in the structure of the nerves, the fine tissue of the cerebral mass becoming either softened or hardened, whilst in those cases where insanity partially exists, where the intellect is not altogether broken down, and which is characterized by lucid intervals, derangement may arise, not from any original conformation, but from some peculiar state of the cerebum, with the minute functions of which, physiologists are still too little acquainted, to determine positively, what are really the proximate causes of mania; amongst the unsettled opinions however which prevail regarding the perversion of the intellectual faculties of man, it has been observed, by an elegant author," that almost all maniacs have become so, between twenty and forty years old; that very few have lost their reason either before or after this stormy period of life, wherein men yielding by turns to the torments of love and ambition, of fear and of hope, to the sweet illusions of happiness and the realities of suffering, consumed with passions for ever reviving, often repressed, and rarely satisfied, feel their mental powers impaired, annihilated or abased, by that tempest of the moral nature, which has well been compared to the storms which in their violence, lay desolate the flourishing earth.”

Hamlet in the vigor of youth, whose age we learn from the grave-diggers to be thirty, has consequently been placed by Shakspere within this stormy period of life, where the passions swell high in the human breast;--combining in his character the highest intelligence, with the most acute sensibility, we find

him involved in that perpetual struggle between the feelings of the heart and the dictates of the judgment, which render man often the victim of unsubdued passion,-it is amidst this contest, where these emotions of the soul are seen to prevail, that we are able to trace in Hamlet, the irresolution and want of action, which almost in every movement, pervade his conduct: (10) this indicision however, cannot be traced to any deficiency in the soundness of his reflections; -he breathes the spirit of a philosophy, which speaks to the imagination rather than to the heart, and free from the querulous feeling which is frequently the offspring of that morbid sensibility that erroneously has been fixed upon his disposition.-If Hamlet speaks the language of "a mind diseas'd," then must we look upon the glorious emanations of Shakspere, as proceeding from a source of the same character; henceforth must we also consider the noble and independent sentiments of the neglected Burns, the soft but energetic strains of Goldsmith, with the lovely aspirations of the immortal Shelley, as merely the wild effusions of disordered intellect, for, they with other poets, guided by a like sublimity of genius, have deeply moralized upon the folly and ignorance that in all ages, have influenced the destiny of man. (11) Hamlet it is true, has with some authors, met with the severest censure, but with all his imperfections, we behold in him, the delineation of a being marked by the highest virtue, yet, susceptible of the greatest frailty, embodying withal a condensation of intellectual feeling, that will ever render the picture the master-piece of Shakspere's great and aspiring mind. —— That the poet notwithstanding the weakness interwoven with Hamlet's character intended to portray him as assuming only a feigned insanity, various passages in the play fully demonstrate : though the stratagem of the counterfeit of madness, is imparted by Hamlet to no one, but his friend Horatio, we find those subservient courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, (employed by the king to find out the true cause of the prince's disturbed and unsettled state of mind), inferring, that it was only "a crafty madness," adopted by him, to keep aloof from them, some

confession "of his true state; "The unhappy and guilty Queen, with others of the court, are however impressed with an opposite belief, but the king conscious in his own breast, that there existed ample cause for Hamlet's distraction, felt like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and hence the language which he uses to Polonius, after secretly witnessing the interview of Hamlet with Ophelia.

Love his affections do not that way tend d;

Nor what he spake, tho' it lack'd form a little,

Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.

No passage however denotes the intentions of the poet more clearly, than where Hamlet in the closet scene with his mother, tells her, in language which cannot be mistaken,

My pulse, like yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music:-It is not madness,

That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,

And I the matter will reword; which madness

Would gambol from. (12)

The pensive sadness of Hamlet forming so very prominent a feature in his disposition, awakens to our remembrance the philosophic melancholy of Jacques, who, as Mr. Hallam has justly remark'd, gazes with an undiminish'd serenity, on the follies of the world; but the contemplation arising out of this melancholy, proceeding from very different circumstances than those which influenced the noble Dane, afford a remarkable proof of that deep knowledge of the human heart, which our illustrious poet so eminently possessed.-Jacques in an interesting scene with the lively Rosalind, gives the following description of himself.

“I have neither,” says he, "the scholar's melancholy which