Chapter X (2)

Now, there can be no doubt that Shakspeare, in conformity to his usual custom, would avail himself of the labours of this his dramatic predecessor; but it is also evident that he had other resources. "The author of the old play of _The Jew_," observes Mr. Douce, "and Shakspeare in his _Merchant of Venice_, have not confined themselves to one source only in the construction of their plot; but, that the _Pecorone_, the _Gesta Romanorum_, and perhaps the old _Ballad of Gernutus_, have been respectively resorted to. It is however most probable that the original play was indebted chiefly, if not altogether to the _Gesta Romanorum_, which contained both the main incidents; and that Shakspeare expanded and improved them, partly from his own genius, and partly, as to the bond, from the _Pecorone_, where the coincidences are too manifest to leave any doubt. Thus, the scene being laid at Venice; the residence of the lady at Belmont; the introduction of a person bound for the principal; the double infraction of the bond, viz., the taking more or less than a pound of flesh and the shedding of blood, together with the after-incident of the ring, are common to the novel and the play. The whetting of the knife might perhaps have been taken from the _Ballad of Gernutus_. Shakspeare was likewise indebted to an authority that could not have occurred to the original author of the play in an English form; this was, Silvayn's _Orator_, as translated by Munday. From that work Shylock's reasoning before the senate is evidently borrowed; but at the same time it has been most skilfully improved."[386:A]

The _Orator_ of _Silvayn_, translated by Munday from the French, was printed by Adam Islip in 1596, and forms one of Mr. Chalmers's authorities for assigning the composition of the _Merchant of Venice_ to the year 1597.

Of the _two English Gesta_ mentioned by Mr. Douce, that containing the story of the _Bond_ is as old as the reign of Henry the Sixth, and though now only known to exist in manuscript[386:B], might probably have been in print in the time of Shakspeare and the author of the elder play.

The _Gesta_, including the story of the _Caskets_, there is reason to think, was translated by _Leland_ and revised by R. Robinson; for a memorandum relative to the first edition of the improved version, written by Robinson himself, and occurring in his _Eupolemia_, is thus worded:—"1577. A record of ancyent historyes intituled in Latin _Gesta Romanorum_, translated (auctore ut supponitur Johane Leylando antiquario) by mee perused corrected and bettered. Perused further by the wardens of the stationer's and printed first and last by Thomas Easte."[386:C] If the supposition here recorded be correct, it is highly probable that Leland's translation is identical with that referred to by Mr. Warton and Dr. Farmer[387:A] as printed by Wynkyn de Worde without date; though it must be remarked, that neither Mr. Herbert, nor Mr. Douce, nor Mr. Dibdin has been fortunate enough to discover such an impression.[387:B]

As many of the incidents in the Bond story of the _Merchant of Venice_ possess a more striking resemblance to the first tale of the fourth day in the _Pecorone_ of _Ser Giovanni_, than to either the Gesta, the Ballad of Gernutus, or the Orator of Silvayn, the probability is, that a version of this tale, if not of the entire collection, was extant in Shakspeare's days. _Il Pecorone_, though written almost two centuries before, was not published until 1558, when the first edition came forth at Milan.

The love and elopement of Jessica and Lorenzo have been noticed by Mr. Dunlop as bearing a similitude to the fourteenth tale of the second book of the _Novellino_ of _Massuccio Di Salerno_[387:C]; but it must be recollected, that until the play alluded to by Gosson can be produced, it is impossible to ascertain to whom Shakspeare is most peculiarly indebted for the materials of his complicated plot.

There is much reason to conclude, however, that the felicitous union of the two principal actions of this drama, that concatenation of cause and effect, which has formed them into a whole, is to be ascribed, almost exclusively, to the judgment and the art of Shakspeare. There is also another unity of equal moment, seldom found wanting, indeed, in any of the genuine plays of our poet, but which is particularly observable in this, that _unity of feeling_ which we have once before had occasion to notice, and which, in the present instance, has given an uniform, but an extraordinary, tone to every part of the fable. Thus the unparalleled nature of the trial between the Jew and his debtor, required, in order to produce that species of dramatic consistency so essential to the illusion of the reader or spectator, that the other important incident of the piece should assume an equal cast of singularity; the enigma, therefore, of the caskets is a most suitable counterpart to the savage eccentricity of the bond, and their skilful combination effects the probability arising from similitude of nature and intimacy of connection.

Yet the ingenuity of the fable is surpassed by the truth and originality of the characters that carry it into execution. Avarice and revenge, the prominent vices of Shylock, are painted with a pencil so discriminating, as to appear very distinct from the same passions in the bosom of a Christian. The peculiar circumstances, indeed, under which the Jews have been placed for so many centuries, would of themselves be sufficient, were the national feelings correctly caught, to throw a peculiar colouring over all their actions and emotions; but to these were unhappily added, in the age of Shakspeare, the most rooted prejudices and antipathies; an aversion, indeed, partaking of hatred and horror, was indulged against this persecuted people, and consequently the picture which Shakspeare has drawn exhibits not only a faithful representation of Jewish sentiments and manners, the necessary result of a singular dispensation of Providence, but it embodies in colours, of almost preternatural strength, the Jew as he appeared to the eye of the shuddering Christian.

In Shylock, therefore, while we behold the manners and the associations of the Hebrew mingling with every thing he says and does, and touched with a verisimilitude and precision which excite our astonishment, we, at the same time, perceive, that, influenced by the prepossessions above-mentioned, the poet has clothed him with passions which would not derogate from a personification of the evil principle itself. He is, in fact, in all the lighter parts of his character, a generical exemplar of Judaism, but demonized, individualized, and rendered awfully striking and horribly appalling by the attribution of such unrelenting malice, as we will hope, for the honour of our species, was never yet accumulated, with such intensity, in any human breast.

So vigorous, however, so masterly is the delineation of this Satanic character, and so exactly did it, until of late years, chime in with the bigotry of the Christian world, that no one of our author's plays has experienced greater popularity. Fortunately the time has now arrived when the Jew and the Christian can meet with all the feelings of humanity about them; a state of society which, more than any other, is calculated to effect that conversion for which every disciple of our blessed religion will assuredly pray.

There is, also, to be found in this beautiful play a charm for the most gentle and amiable minds, a vein of dignified melancholy and pensive sweetness which endears it to every heart, and which fascinates the more as affording the most welcome relief to the merciless conduct of its leading character. What, for instance, can be more soothing and delightful to the feelings, than the generous and disinterested friendship of Antonio, when contrasted with the hard and selfish nature of Shylock; what more noble than the sublime resignation of the merchant, when opposed to the deadly and relentless hatred of his prosecutor! Never was friendship painted more intense and lovely than in the parting scene of Antonio and Bassanio; Salarino, speaking of the former, says,—

"A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
I saw Bassanio and Antonio part:
Bassanio told him, he would make some speed
Of his return: he answer'd—'Do not so,
Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
But stay the very riping of the time;
And for the Jew's bond, which he hath of me,
Let it not enter in your mind of love:
Be merry; and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there:'
_And even there, his eye being big with tears,
Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
And with affection wond'rous sensible
He wrung Bassanio's hand, and so they parted_.

_Salanio._ I think, he only loves the world for him."[389:A]

Nor do the female personages of the drama contribute less to this grateful effect: the sensible, the spirited, the eloquent _Portia_, who has a principal share in the business of both plots, is equally distinguished for the tenderness of her disposition and the goodness of her heart, and her pleadings for mercy in behalf of the injured Antonio will dwell on the ear of pity and admiration to the last syllable of recorded time.

With a similar result do we enter into the character of _Jessica_, whose artlessness, simplicity, and affectionate temper, excite, in an uncommon degree, the interest of the reader. The opening of the fifth act, where Lorenzo and Jessica are represented conversing on a summer's night, in the avenue at Belmont, and listening with rapture to the sounds of music, produces, occurring as it does immediately after the soul-harrowing scene in the court of justice, the most enchanting emotion; it breathes, indeed, a repose so soft and delicious, that the mind seems dissolving in tranquil luxury:

"How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of musick
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony."[390:A]

Shakspeare was an enthusiast in music in a musical age; and though his subsequent encomium upon it be somewhat extravagant, and his reprobation of the man who "is not moved with concord of sweet sounds," undeservedly harsh and severe, yet are they both more applicable and judicious than the flippant and undiscriminating censure of Mr. Steevens, whose note on the subject has met with its due castigation from the pen of Mr. Douce, who, after stigmatising the commentator's disingenuous effort to throw an odium on this recreation, in conjunction with the feeble aid of an illiberal passage from Lord Chesterfield's _Letters_, justly and beautifully adds, that "It is a science which, from its intimate and natural connexion with poetry and painting, deserves the highest attention and respect. He that is happily qualified to appreciate the _better parts_ of music, will never seek them in the society so emphatically reprobated by the noble lord, nor altogether in the way he recommends. He will not lend an ear to the vulgarity and tumultuous roar of the tavern catch, or the delusive sounds of martial clangour; but he will enjoy this heavenly gift, this exquisite and soul-delighting sensation, in the temples of his God, or in the peaceful circles of domestic happiness: he will pursue the blessings and advantages of it with ardour, and turn aside from its abuses."[391:A]

The fifth act of this play, which consists of but one scene, appears to have been intended by the poet to remove the painful impressions incident to the nature of his previous plot; it is light, elegant, and beautifully written, and, though the main business of the drama finishes with the termination of the fourth act, it is not felt as an incumbrance, but on the contrary is beheld and enjoyed as a graceful, animated, and consolatory close to one of the most perfect productions of its author.

15. HAMLET: 1597. That this tragedy had been performed before 1598 is evident from Gabriel Harvey's note in Speght's edition of Chaucer, as quoted by Mr. Malone[391:B]; and, from the intimations of time brought forward by Mr. Chalmers[391:C], we are induced to adopt the era of this gentleman, placing the first sketch of _Hamlet_ early in 1597, and its revision with additions in 1600.[391:D] Soon after which, namely, on the 26th of July, 1602, it was entered on the Stationers' book, the first edition hitherto discovered being printed in the year 1604.

No character in our author's plays has occasioned so much discussion, so much contradictory opinion, and, consequently, so much perplexity, as that of _Hamlet_. Yet we think it may be proved that Shakspeare had a clear and definite idea of it throughout all its seeming inconsistencies, and that a very few lines taken from one of the monologues of this tragedy, will develope the ruling and efficient feature which the poet held steadily in his view, and through whose unintermitting influence every other part of the portrait has received a peculiar modification. We are told, as the result of a deep but unsatisfactory meditation on the mysteries of another world, on "the dread of something after death," that

—— "thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the _pale cast of thought_;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."[392:A]

Now this _pale cast of thought_ and its consequences, which, had not Hamlet been interrupted by the entrance of Ophelia, he would have himself applied to his own singular situation, form the very essence, and give rise to the prominent defects of his character. It is evident, therefore, that Shakspeare intended to represent him as variable and indecisive in action, and that he has founded this want of volition on one of those peculiar constitutions of the mental and moral faculties which have been designated by the appellation of _genius_, a combination of passions and associations which has led to all the useful energies, and all the exalted eccentricities of human life; and of which, in one of its most exquisite but speculative forms, Hamlet presents us with perhaps the only instance on _theatric_ record.

To a frame of mind naturally strong and contemplative, but rendered by extraordinary events sceptical and intensely thoughtful, he unites an undeviating love of rectitude, a disposition of the gentlest kind, feelings the most delicate and pure, and a sensibility painfully alive to the smallest deviation from virtue or propriety of conduct. Thus, while gifted to discern and to suffer from every moral aberration in those who surround him, his powers of action are paralysed in the first instance, by the unconquerable tendency of his mind to explore, to their utmost ramification, all the bearings and contingencies of the meditated deed; and in the second, by that tenderness of his nature which leads him to shrink from the means which are necessary to carry it into execution. Over this irresolution and weakness, the result, in a great measure, of emotions highly amiable, and which in a more congenial situation had contributed to the delight of all who approached him, Shakspeare has thrown a veil of melancholy so sublime and intellectual, as by this means to constitute him as much the idol of the philosopher, and the man of cultivated taste, as he confessedly is of those who feel their interest excited principally through the medium of the sympathy and compassion which his ineffective struggles to act up to his own approved purpose naturally call forth.

It may be useful, however, in order to give more strength and precision to this general outline, to enter into a few of the leading particulars of Hamlet's conduct. He is represented at the opening of the play as highly distressed by the sudden death of his father, and the hurried and indecent nuptials of his mother, when the awful appearance of the spectre overwhelms him with astonishment, unhinges a mind already partially thrown off its bias, and fills it with indelible apprehension, suspicion, and dismay. For though, on the first communication of the murder, his bosom burns with the thirst of vengeance, yet reflection and the gentleness of his disposition soon induce him to regret that he has been chosen as the instrument of effecting it,

"That ever he was born to set it right;"

and then, under the influence of this reluctance, he begins to question the validity and the lawfulness of the medium through which he had received his information, describing with admirable self-consciousness, the vacillation of his will, and the tendency of his temper:—

"The spirit that I have seen
May be the Devil, and the Devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
_Out of my weakness and my melancholy_,—
Abuses me to damn me."[394:A]

Here, therefore, on a structure of mind originally indecisive as to volition, on feelings rendered more than usually sensitive and serious by domestic misfortune, operate causes calculated, in a very extraordinary degree, to augment the sources of irresolution and distress. The imagination of Hamlet, agitated and inflamed by a visitation from the world of spirits, is lost amid the mazes of conjecture, amid thoughts which roam with doubt and terror through all the labyrinths of fate and superhuman agency; whilst, at the same time, indignation at the crime of his uncle, and aversion to the vindictive task which has been imposed upon him, raise a conflict of passion within his breast.

Determined, however, if possible, to obey what seems both a commission from heaven, and a necessary filial duty; but sensible that the wild workings of imagination, and the tumult of contending emotions have so far unsettled his mind, as to render his control over it at times precarious and imperfect, and that consequently he may be liable to betray his purpose, he adopts the expedient of counterfeiting madness, in order that if any thing should escape him in an unguarded moment, it may, from being considered as the effect of derangement, fail to impede his designs.

And here again the bitterness of his destiny meets him; for, with the view of disarming suspicion as to his real intention, he finds it requisite to impress the king and his courtiers with the idea, that disappointed love is the real basis of his disorder; justly inferring, that as his attachment to Ophelia was known, and still more so the tenderness of his own heart, any harsh treatment of her, without an adequate provocation, must infallibly be deemed a proof, not only of insanity, but of the cause whence it sprang; since though some reserve on her part had been practised, in obedience to her father's commands, it could not, without a dereliction of reason, have produced such an entire change in his conduct and disposition. And such indeed would have been the result, had Hamlet possessed a perfect command of himself; but his feelings overpowered his consistency, and the very part which he had to play with Ophelia, was one of the most excruciating of his afflictions; for he tells us, and tells us truly, that

"'He' lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up 'his' sum;"[395:A]

consequently what he suffers on this occasion, on this compulsory treatment, as it were, of the being dearest to his heart, gives him one of the strongest claims upon our sympathy. With what agony he pursues this line of conduct, and how foreign it is to every feeling of the man, appears at the close of his celebrated soliloquy on the expediency of suicide, and just previous to the rudest and most sarcastic instance of his behaviour towards Ophelia. That hapless maiden suddenly crosses him; when, starting at her sight, and forgetting his assumed character, he exclaims, in an exquisite tone of solemnity and pathos—

——————————— "Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia:—Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd."[395:B]

It is impossible, we think, to compare this passage, this burst of undisguised emotion, with the tenour of the immediately subsequent dialogue, without the deepest commiseration for the fate of the unfortunate prince.

In this play, as in _King Lear_, we have madness under its real and its assumed aspect, and in both instances they are accurately discriminated. We find Lear and Ophelia constantly recurring, either directly or indirectly, to the actual causes of their distress; but it was the business of Edgar and of Hamlet, to place their observers on a wrong scent, and to divert their vigilance from the genuine sources of their grief, and the objects of their pursuit. This is done with undeviating firmness by Edgar; but Hamlet occasionally suffers the poignancy of his feelings, and the agitation of his mind, to break in upon his plan, when, heedless of what was to be the ostensible foundation of his derangement, his love for Ophelia, he permits his indignation to point, and on one occasion almost unmasked, towards the guilt of his uncle. In every other instance, he personates insanity with a skill which indicates the highest order of genius, and imposes on all but the king, whose conscience, perpetually on the watch, soon enables him to detect the inconsistencies and the drift of his nephew.

It has been objected to the character of Hamlet, whose most striking feature is profound melancholy, that its keeping is broken in upon by an injudicious admixture of humour and gaiety; but he who is acquainted with the workings of the human heart, will be far, very far indeed, from considering this as any deviation from the truth of nature. Melancholy, when not the offspring of an ill-spent life, or of an habitual bad temper, but the consequence of mere casualties and misfortunes, or of the vices and passions of others, operating on feelings too gentle, delicate, and susceptible, to bear up against the ruder evils of existence, will sometimes spring with playful elasticity from the pressure of the heaviest burden, and dissipating, for a moment, the anguish of a breaking heart, will, like a sun-beam in a winter's day, illumine all around it with a bright, but transient ray, with the sallies of humorous wit, and even with the hilarity of sportive simplicity; an interchange which serves but to render the returning storm more deep and gloomy.

Thus is it with Hamlet in those parts of this inimitable tragedy in which we behold him suddenly deviating into mirth and jocularity; they are scintillations which only light us

————————— "to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow,"[397:A]

for no where do we perceive the depth of his affliction and the energy of his sufferings more distinctly than when under these convulsive efforts to shake off the incumbent load.

Of that infirmity of purpose which distinguishes Hamlet during the pursuit of his revenge, and of that exquisite self-deceit by which he endeavours to disguise his own motives from himself, no clearer instance can be given, than from the scene where he declines destroying the usurper because he was in the act of prayer, and might therefore go to heaven, deferring his death to a period when, being in liquor or in anger, he was thoroughly ripe for perdition; an enormity of sentiment and design totally abhorrent to the real character of Hamlet, which was radically amiable, gentle, and compassionate, but affording a striking proof of that hypocrisy which, owing to the untowardness of his fate, he was constantly exercising on himself. Struck with the symptoms of repentance in Claudius, his resentment becomes softened; and at all times unwilling, from the tenderness of his nature, and the acuteness of his sensibility, to fulfil his supposed duty, and execute retributive justice on his uncle, he endeavours to find some excuse for his conscious want of resolution, some pretext, however far-fetched or discordant with the genuine motive, to shield him from his own weakness.

One remarkable effect of this perpetual contest in the bosom of Hamlet between a sense of the duty, enjoined as it were by heaven, and his aversion to the means which could alone secure its accomplishment, has been to throw an interest around him of the most powerful and exciting nature. It is an interest not arising from extrinsic causes, from any anxiety as to the completion of the meditated vengeance, or from the intervention of any casual incidents which may tend to hasten or retard the catastrophe, but exclusively springing from our attachment to the person of Hamlet. We contemplate with a mixture of admiration and compassion the very virtues of Hamlet becoming the bane of his earthly peace, virtues which, in the tranquillity either of public or private life, would have crowned him with love and honour, serving but, in the tempest which assails him, to wreck his hopes, and accelerate his destruction. In fact, the very doubts and irresolution of Hamlet endear him to our hearts, and at the same time condense around him an almost breathless anxiety, for, while we confess them to be the offspring of all that is lovely, gentle, and kind, we cannot but perceive their fatal tendency, and we shudder at the probable event.

It is thus that the character of Hamlet, notwithstanding the veil of meditative abstraction which the genius of philosophic melancholy has thrown over it, possesses a species of enchantment for all ranks and classes. Its popularity, indeed, appears to have been immediate and great, for, in 1604, Anthony Scoloker, in a dedication to his poem, entitled "Daiphantus," tells us, that his "epistle" should be "like friendly Shake-speare's tragedies, where the commedian rides, when the tragedian stands on tiptoe: _Faith it should please all, like prince Hamlet_."[398:A]

We should bear in mind, however, that the favour of the public must, in part, have been attached to this play through the vast variety of incident and characters which it unfolds, from its rapid interchange of solemnity, pathos, and humour, and more particularly from the awful, yet grateful terror which the shade of buried Denmark diffuses over the scene.

That a belief in _Spiritual Agency_ has been universally and strongly impressed on the mind of man from the earliest ages of the world, must be evident to every one who peruses the writings of the Old Testament. It is equally clear that, with little but exterior modification, this doctrine has passed from the East into Europe, flowing through Greece and Rome to modern times. It is necessary, however, to a just comprehension of the subject, that it be distinctly separated into two branches,—into the _Agency of Angelic Spirits_, and into the _Agency of the Spirits of the Departed_, as these will be found to rest on very dissimilar bases.

To the _Agency of Angelic Spirits_, both good and bad, and to their operation on, and influence over the intellect and affairs of men, the records of our religion bear the most direct and indubitable testimony; nor is it possible to disjoin a full admission of this intercourse from any faith in its Scriptures, whether Jewish or Christian. "That the holy angels," observes Bishop Horsley, "are often employed by God in his government of this sublunary world, is indeed clearly to be proved by holy writ: that they have powers over the matter of the universe analogous to the powers over it which men possess, greater in extent, but still limited, is a thing which might reasonably be supposed, if it were not declared: but it seems to be confirmed by many passages of holy writ, from which it seems also evident that they are occasionally, for certain specific purposes, commissioned to exercise those powers to a prescribed extent. That the evil angels possessed, before the Fall, the like powers, which they are still occasionally permitted to exercise for the punishment of wicked nations, seems also evident. _That they have a power over the human sensory (which is part of the material universe), which they are occasionally permitted to exercise, by means of which they may inflict diseases, suggest evil thoughts, and be the instruments of temptations, must also be admitted._"[399:A]

Of a doctrine so consolatory as the ministration and guardianship of benevolent spirits, one of the most striking instances is afforded us by the Book of Job, perhaps the most ancient composition in existence; it is where Elihu, describing the sick man on his bed, declares, that—

"As his soul draweth near to the Grave,
And his life to the Ministers of Death,
Surely will there be over him an _Angel_,
An _Intercessor_, one of _The Thousand_,
Who shall instruct the Sufferer in his duty;"[400:A]

and from the same source was the awful but monitory vision described in the fourth chapter of this sublime poem.

Subsequent poets have embraced with avidity a system so friendly to man, and so delightful to an ardent and devotional imagination. Thus Hesiod, repeating the oriental tradition, seems happy in augmenting the number of our heavenly protectors to _thirty thousand_, Τρὶς γὰρ μύριοί:—

"Invisible the Gods are ever nigh,
Pass through the midst and bend th' all-seeing eye:
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right,
Awless of Heaven's revenge, are naked to their sight.
For _thrice ten thousand_ holy Demons rove
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove.
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys,
The upright judgments, and th' unrighteous ways."
ELTON.

But, next to the sacred writers, and more immediately derived from their inspiration, has this heavenly superintendance been best described by two of our own poets: by Spenser with his customary piety, sweetness, and simplicity:—

"And is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is:—else much more wretched were the cace
Of men than beasts: But O! th' exceeding grace
Of Highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his workes with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle feends to ayd us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love and nothing for reward:
O, why should Hevenly God to men have such regard;"[401:A]

by Milton, in a strain of greater sublimity, and with more philosophic dignity and grace:—

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night: How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to others note,
Singing their great Creator? oft in bands
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonick number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven."[401:B]

But mankind, not satisfied with this angelic interposition, though founded on _indisputable authority_, and exercised on their behalf, has, in every age and nation, fondly clung to the idea, that the _souls_ or _Spirits of the Dead_ have also a communication with the living, and that they occasionally, either as happy or as suffering shades, re-appear on this sublunary scene.

The common suggestions and associations of the human mind have laid the foundation for this general belief; man has ever indulged the hope of another state of existence, feeling within him an assurance, a kind of intuitive conviction, emanating from the Deity, that we are not destined as the beasts to perish. It is true, says Homer,

"'Tis true, 'tis certain, man though dead, retains
Part of himself; th' immortal mind remains;"[402:A]

but to this mental immortality, which is firmly sanctioned by religion, affection, grief, and superstition have added a vast variety of unauthorised circumstances. The passions and attachments which were incident to the individual in his earthly, are attributed to him in his spiritual state; he is supposed to be still agitated by terrestrial objects and relations, to delight in the scenes which he formerly inhabited, to feel for and to protect the persons with whom he was formerly connected, to be actuated, in short, by emotions of love, anger, and revenge, and to be in a situation which admits of receiving benefit or augmented suffering through the attentions or negligence of surviving friends. Accordingly the spirit or apparition of the deceased was supposed occasionally to revisit the glimpses of the moon, and to become visible to its dearest relatives or associates, for the purpose of admonishing, complaining, imploring, warning, or directing.

Now all these additions to the abstract idea of immortality, though perhaps naturally arising from the affectionate regrets, the conscious weakness, and the eager curiosity of man, and therefore universal as his diffusion over the globe, are totally unwarranted by our only safe and sure guide, the records of the Bible; for though we are taught that man exists in another state, and disembodied of the organs which he possessed whilst an inhabitant of this planet, we are also told, that he is supplied with a new body, of a very different nature, and, without a miracle, indiscernible by our present senses. We are told by St. Peter, that even the body of our Saviour after his resurrection could only be seen through the operation of a miracle: "Him God raised up the third day, and _gave him to be visible: Et dedit eum manifestum fieri_. Vulg. He was no longer," observes Bishop Horsley, "in a state to be naturally visible to any man. His body was indeed risen, but it was become that body which St. Paul describes in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, which, having no sympathy with the gross bodies of this earthly sphere, nor any place among them, must be indiscernible to the human organs, till they shall have undergone a similar refinement."[403:A]

We have no foundation, therefore, in Scripture, nor, according to its doctrine, can we have, for attaching any credibility to the re-appearance of the Departed; yet, independent of the predisposition of the human mind, from the influence of affectionate regret, to think upon the dead as if still present to our wants and wishes, a state of feeling which, in Celtic poetry, has given birth to an interesting system of mythology entirely built on apparitional intercourse[403:B], the relations which we possess of the apparent return of the dead, are so numerous, and, in many instances, so unexceptionably attested, that they have led to several ingenious, and, indeed, partially successful attempts to account for them. One or two of these attempts, as terminating in some curious speculations on the character of _Hamlet_, and on the _apparition of his father_, it will be necessary more particularly to notice.

A firm belief in _Visitation from the Spirits of the Deceased_ was so strong a feature in the age of Shakspeare, and the immediately subsequent period, and was supported by such an accumulation of testimony, that it roused the exertions of a few individuals of a philosophical turn of mind, to account for what they would not venture to deny; Lavaterus[404:A] and others on the continent, and Scot[404:B] and Mede[404:C] in our own country, attempting to prove that these appearances were not occasioned by the return of the dead, but by the permitted and personal agency of good or evil angels, who, as we occasionally find in Scripture, and more particularly in the case of Samuel, before the Witch of Endor, were allowed to assume the resemblance of the deceased.

But, though this hypothesis be constructed on a species of spiritual agency which we know to have existed, yet are the instances for which it is adopted by these writers much too trivial and frequent to secure to their solution a rational assent; nor is the presence of these superior intelligences, as objects of sight, at all necessary to account for the phenomena in question.

For it is obvious, that if relying, with Bishop Horsley, on the evidence of sacred history, we believe that the Deity oftentimes acts mediately, through his agents, on the human sensory, as a part of the material universe, thereby producing diseases and morbid impressions, the same effects will result. Not that we conceive matter can, in any degree, modify the thinking principle itself, but its organisation being the sole medium through which the intellect communicates with the external world, it is evident that any derangement of the structure of the brain must render the perceptions of the mind, as to material existences, imperfect, false, and illusory.

It is remarkable that a doctrine similar to this was produced in the last century to account for the spectral appearances of second sight, by a Scotchman too, himself an Islander, who has furnished us with an ample collection of instances of this singular visitation[405:A]; this gentleman contending, that these prophetic scenes are exhibited not to the sight, but merely to the imagination. He adds, with great sagacity, "as these Representations or waking Dreams, according to the best Enquiry I could make, are communicated (unless it be seldom) but to one Person at once, though there should be several Persons, and even some Seers in Company, those Representations seem rather communicated to the Imagination (as said is) than the Organ of Sight; seeing it is impossible, if made always to the latter, but all Persons directing their sight the same Way, having their Faculty of Sight alike perfect and equally disposed, must see it in common."[405:B]

We must refer, however, to the present day for demonstration, founded on actual experience, that the appearance of ghosts and apparitions is, in every instance, the _immediate_ effect of certain partial but morbid affections of the brain; yet, it must be remarked, that the ingenious physiologists who have proved this curious fact, entirely confine themselves, and perhaps very justly, to physical phenomena, professedly discarding the consideration of any higher efficiency in the series of causation than what appears as the result of diseased organisation; so that their discovery, though completely overturning the common superstition as to the return of the departed spirit, or the visible interference of angelic agency, is yet very reconcileable with the pneumatology of Bishop Horsley.

In 1805, Dr. Alderson of Hull read to the Literary Society of that place, and published in 1811, an Essay on Apparitions, the object of which is to prove that the immediate cause of these spectral visitations "lies, not in the perturbed spirits of the departed, but in the diseased organisation of the living." For this purpose he relates several cases of this hallucination which fell under his own observation and treatment, and which, as distinguished from partial insanity, from delirium, somnambulism, and reverie, were completely removed by medical means.

In 1813, Dr. Ferriar of Manchester published, on a more extended scale, "An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions," whose aim and result are precisely similar to the anterior production of Dr. Alderson; both admitting the reality and universality of spectral impressions, and both attributing them to partial affections of the brain, independent of any sensible external agency; it is also remarkable that both have applied their speculations and experience in illustration of the character of _Hamlet_, a circumstance which has, in a great measure, led to these general observations on the progress of opinion as to the nature of apparitional visitation.

The state of mind which Shakspeare exhibits to us in _Hamlet_, as the consequence of conflicting passions and events, operating on a frame of acute sensibility, Dr. Ferriar has termed _latent lunacy_. "The subject of _latent lunacy_," he remarks, "is an untouched field, which would afford the richest harvest to a skilful and diligent observer. Cervantes has immortalized himself, by displaying the effect of one bad species of composition on the hero of his satire, and Butler has delineated the evils of epidemic, religious, and political frenzy; but it remains as a task for some delicate pencil, to trace the miseries introduced into private families, by a state of mind, which 'sees more devils than vast hell can hold,' and which yet affords no proof of derangement, sufficient to justify the seclusion of the unhappy invalid.

"This is a species of distress, on which no novelist has ever touched, though it is unfortunately increasing in real life; though it may be associated with worth, with genius, and with the most specious demonstrations (for awhile) of general excellence.

"Addison has thrown out a few hints on this subject in one of the Spectators; it could not escape so critical an observer of human infirmities; and I have always supposed, that if the character of Sir Roger de Coverley had been left untouched by Steele, it would have exhibited some interesting traits of this nature. As it now appears, we see nothing more than occasional absence of mind; and the peculiarities of an humourist, contracted by retirement, and by the obsequiousness of his dependants.

"It has often occurred to me, that Shakspeare's character of _Hamlet_ can only be understood, on this principle. He feigns madness, for political purposes, while the poet means to represent his understanding as really, (and unconsciously to himself) unhinged by the cruel circumstances in which he is placed. The horror of the communication made by his father's spectre; the necessity of belying his attachment to an innocent and deserving object; the certainty of his mother's guilt; and the supernatural impulse by which he is goaded to an act of assassination, abhorrent to his nature, are causes sufficient to overwhelm and distract a mind previously disposed to 'weakness and to melancholy,' and originally full of tenderness and natural affection. By referring to the book, it will be seen, that his real insanity is only developed after the mock play. Then, in place of a systematic conduct, conducive to his purposes, he becomes irresolute, inconsequent, and the plot appears to stand unaccountably still. Instead of striking at his object, he resigns himself to the current of events, and sinks at length, ignobly, under the stream."[407:A]

Dr. Alderson, alluding to the common but cogent argument against a belief in Ghosts, "that only one man at a time ever saw a ghost, therefore, the probability is, that there never was such a thing," adds, in reference to the character of Hamlet, and to Shakspeare's management of his supernatural machinery, the following observations:—"From what I have related, it will be seen why it should happen, that only one at a time ever could see a ghost; and here we may lament, that our celebrated poet, whose knowledge of nature is every Englishman's boast, had not known such cases, and their causes as those I have related; he would not then, perhaps, have made his ghosts visible and audible on the stage. Every expression, every look in Macbeth and Hamlet, is perfectly natural and consistent with men so agitated, and quite sufficient to convince us of what they suffer, see, and hear; but it must be evident, that the disease being confined solely to the individual, such objects must be seen and heard only by the individual. That men so circumstanced as Macbeth or Hamlet, Brutus and Dion, should see phantoms and hold converse with them, appears to me perfectly natural; and, though the cases I have now related owe their origin entirely to a disordered state of bodily organs, as may be evidently inferred by the history of their rise, and the result of their cure, yet, with the knowledge we have of the effects of mind on the body, we may be fairly led to conclude, that great mental anxiety, inordinate ambition, and guilt may produce similar effects."[409:A]

If Shakspeare, more philosopher than poet, had pursued the plan which Dr. Alderson has recommended, he would have injured his tragedy, and wrecked his popularity. We could have spared, indeed, any ocular demonstration of the mute and blood-boultered ghost of Banquo in _Macbeth_, but had the ghost in _Hamlet_ been invisible and inaudible, we should have lost the noblest scene of grateful terror which genius has ever created.

Nor was it ignorance on the part of Shakspeare which gave birth to the visibility of this awful spectre, for he has told us, in another place, that

"Such _shadows_ are the _weak brain's forgeries_."[409:B]

and, even in the very play under consideration, he calls them "the very coinage of the brain," and adds,—

"This _bodiless creation ecstacy_
Is very cunning in;"[409:C]

but he well knew, that as a dramatic poet, in a superstitious age, it was requisite, in order to produce a strong and general impression, to adopt the popular creed, the superstition relative to his subject; and, as Mrs. Montagu has justly observed, "the poet who does so, understands his business much better than the critic, who, in judging of that work, refuses it his attention.—Thus every operation that developes the attributes, which vulgar opinion, or the nurse's legend, have taught us to ascribe to 'such a preternatural Being,' will augment our pleasure; whether we give the reins to our imagination, and, as spectators, willingly yield ourselves up to pleasing delusion, or, as 'judicious' Critics, examine the merit of the composition."[410:A]

That an undoubting belief in the actual appearance of ghosts and apparitions was general in Shakspeare's time, has been the assertion of all who have alluded to the subject, either as contemporary or subsequent historians. Addison, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, speaking of the credulities of the two preceding centuries, observes, that "our Forefathers looked upon Nature with reverence and horror—that they loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and enchantments.—There was not a village in England that had not a _ghost_ in it—the church-yards were all _haunted_—every common had a circle of fairies belonging to it—and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a _spirit_[410:B];" and Bourne, who wrote about the same period, and expressly on the subject of vulgar superstitions, tells us, that formerly "_hobgoblins_ and _sprights_ were in every _city_, and _town_, and _village_, by every _water_, and in every _wood_.—If a house was seated on some melancholy place, or built in some old romantic manner; or if any particular accident had happened in it, such as murder, sudden death, or the like, to be sure that house had a mark set on it, and was afterwards esteemed the habitation of a ghost.—Stories of this kind are infinite, and there are few _villages_, which have not either had such an house in it, or near it."[410:C]

Such, then, being the superstitious character of the poet's times, it was with great judgment that he seized the particulars best adapted to his purpose, moulding them with a skill so perfect, as to render the effect awful beyond all former precedent. A slight attention to the circumstances which accompany the first appearances of the spectre to Horatio and to Hamlet, will place this in a striking point of view.

The solemnity with which this Royal phantom is introduced is beyond measure impressive: Bernardo is about to repeat to the incredulous Horatio what had occurred on the last apparition of the deceased monarch to Marcellus and himself, and thus commences his narrative:—

"Last night of all,
When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one:"——

This note of time, the traditionary hour for the appearance of a ghost, and, above all, the mysterious connection between the course of the star, and the visitation of the spirit, usher in the "dreaded sight" with an influence which makes the blood run chill.

A similar correspondence between a natural phenomenon in the heavens, and the agency of a disembodied spirit, occurs, with an effect which has been much admired, in a late poem by Lord Byron, where the shade of Francesca, addressing her apostate lover, and directing his attention to the orb of night, exclaims,—

"There is a light cloud by the moon—
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon—
If, by the time its vapoury sail
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,
Thy heart within thee is not changed,
Then God and man are both avenged;
Dark will thy doom be, darker still
Thine immortality of ill."[411:A]

The adjuration and interrogation of the ghost by Horatio and Hamlet, are conducted in conformity to the ceremonies of papal superstition; for it may be remarked, that in many things relative to religious observances, or to the preternatural as connected with religion, Shakspeare has shown such a marked predilection for the imposing exterior, and comprehensive creed of the Roman church, as to lead some of his biographers to suppose that he was himself a Roman Catholic. This adoption, however, is to be attributed to the poetical nature of the materials which the doctrines of Rome supply, and more particularly to the food for imagination which the supposition of an intermediate state, in which the souls of the departed are still connected with, and influenced by, the conduct of man, must necessarily create.

Such a system, it is evident, would very readily admit some of the oldest and most prevalent superstitions of the heathen world, and would give fresh credibility to the re-appearance of the dead, in order to reveal and to punish some horrible murder, to right the oppressed orphan and the widow, to enjoin the sepulture of the mangled corse, to discover concealed and ill-gotten treasure, to claim the aid of prayer and intercession, to announce the fate of kingdoms, &c. &c. Thus Horatio, addressing the Spectre, alludes to some of these as the probable causes of the dreadful visitation which appals him:—

"Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me!
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, or grace to me,
Speak to me:
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!
Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it."[412:A]

With a still higher degree of anxiety, curiosity, and terror, does Hamlet, as might naturally be expected, invoke the spirit of his father; his address being wrought up to the highest tone of amazement and emotion, and clothed with the most vigorous expression of poetry:—

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the riches of our souls?
Say why is this? wherefore? what should we do?"[413:A]

The doubts and queries of this most impressive speech are similar to those which are allowed to be entertained, and directed to be put, by contemporary writers on the subject of apparitions. Thus the English Lavaterus enjoins the person so visited to charge the spirit to "declare and open what he is—who he is, why he is come, and what he desireth;" saying,—"Thou Spirite, we beseech thee by Christ Jesus, tell us what thou art;" and he then orders him to enquire, "What man's soule he is? for what cause he is come, and what he doth desire? Whether he require any ayde by prayers and suffrages? Whether by massing or almes giving he may be released?" &c. &c.[413:B]

In pursuance of the same judicious plan of adopting the popular conceptions, and giving them dignity and effect, by that philosophy of the supernatural which has been remarked as so peculiarly the gift of Shakspeare[414:A], we find him employing, in these scenes of super-human interference, the traditional notions of his age, relative to the influence of approaching light on departed spirits, as intimated by the crowing of the cock, and the fading lustre of the glow-worm. One of the passages which have so admirably immortalised these superstitions, contains also another not less striking, concerning the supposed sanctity and protecting power of the nights immediately previous to Christmas-Day. On the sudden departure of the Spirit, Bernardo remarks,—

"It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

_Hor._ And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

_Mar._ It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."[414:B]

"————————— Fare thee well at once!"