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THE local illustrations of this play are from original sketches by C. F. Sargent, for the Pictorial edition. The architecture and scenery are more nearly those of the poet's age than that of the period of the drama : but the designs cannot claim the merit of most of the similar embellishments of this edition-that of suggesting to the reader some idea of the poet's own conception of the scenes which he filled with the ever-living creations of his mind. They are transferred to the present edition, chiefly on account of the interest they possess from being connected (in Mr. Knight's language) "with the supposed scenes of Hamlet's history, and with the popular traditions which have most likely sprung from the European reputation of the drama."

As Shakespeare has placed the period of his drama during the term of the Danish power over England, the costume, in strictness, should be that of the age of Canute, which differed little in Denmark from that of the contemporary Anglo-Saxons. The outline of Canute

and his Queen, from a nearly contemporary drawing, exhibits the royal dress; while the spirited sketch of the "angry parle" with "the sledded Polacks on the ice," by Harvey, delineates the arms and armour of the time with antiquarian accuracy.

Still there is little or nothing in the drama to connect it closely with the precise costume of any period: the poet thought not of it; and provided the artist or the actor throws it back from any immediate association with our own age, the spectator is not disturbed by any incongruity, more than the reader is by the anachronism of the firing of cannon at the royal banquet. The ordinary old English dress and armour of the 15th and 16th centuries, have been found, for every purpose of art, to answer all the demands of the most sluggish imagination, and the most fastidious criticism. They were indeed, probably, very nearly the costume in which his characters passed before the mind's eye of the poet himself.

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He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour,

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not;

But in the gross and scope of mine opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Mar. Good now, sit down; and tell me, he that
knows,

Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war?
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week?
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day?
Who is't, that can inform me?
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dar'd to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Hor.

Did forfeit with his life all those his lands,
Which he stood seiz'd of, to the conqueror :
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov'nant
And carriage of the article design'd,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimprov'd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsative, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost. And this, I take it,

Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

Ber. think, it be no other, but e'en so:
Well may it sort, that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
That was, and is, the question of these wars.

Hor. A-mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome," A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets :

As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
And even the like precurse of fierce events—
As harbingers preceding still the fates,
And prologue to the omen coming on,—
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.-

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Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft! behold! lo, where it comes again!
I'll cross it, though it blast me.-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, and 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,
[Cock crows.
Speak of it:-stay, and speak!-Stop it, Marcellus.
Mar. Shall I strike at it with my partisan?
Hor. Do, if it will not stand.
Ber.

Hor.

Mar. 'Tis gone.

'Tis here!

'Tis here! [Exit Ghost.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Ber. 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,
Th' 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 can walk 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 that time.

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