An Essay on the Tragedy of Hamlet: Embracing a View of Hamlet's Character--his Feigned Or Real Madness--conduct to Ophelia--the Soliloquy on Suicide, &c., &c., Interspersed with Reflections on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare

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Cunningham and Mortimer, 1843 - 79 pages

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Page 21 - I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation ; nor the musician's which is fantastical ; nor the courtier's, which is proud ; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious ; nor the lawyer's, which is politic ; nor the lady's, which is nice ; nor the lover's, which is all these...
Page 38 - Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops ; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery ; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass : and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.
Page 32 - O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
Page 9 - Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not 'seems.' 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black...
Page 73 - ild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord! we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Page 27 - The spirit that I have seen May be the devil : and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, — As he is very potent with such spirits, — Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: — the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Page 35 - And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear ? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish, her election Hath seal'd thee for herself...
Page 22 - I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory...
Page 65 - Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that ; That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that. For a
Page 47 - Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples, That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.

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