PREFACE TO HAMLET.

WHEN SO great a writer as Johnson declares himself unable to perceive any satisfactory cause for Hamlet's counterfeiting madness, I fear I shall be accused of presumption, if I attempt to offer any solution of the problem; yet I really think that the difficulty is not as great as he supposes it to be.

He

says that Hamlet does nothing in the character of a lunatic, which he might not have done in his proper senses; but in this observation, he appears to have overlooked what Hamlet intended to do, which ought to have been taken into consideration as well as what he actually did.

The state of the question I take to be as follows: Hamlet being informed by the Ghost of the murder of his father, and being at the same time required to revenge it, forms the resolution of killing his uncle; but being sensible that he has no proof of the murder, except what was said by the Ghost to himself alone, which could have no weight with any other person; he feels conscious, that his killing the king, would be considered as the act of a traitor and an assassin: he therefore determines to assume the appearance of madness, in order that the intended blow might be ascribed to distraction rather than to treason. Having formed this resolution, he requires the most solemn oaths from Horatio and Marcellus, that they will not, if he

"Perchance hereafter shall think meet,
To put an antick disposition on,"

allow any expression to escape them, which would

convey an idea of what might have occasioned the alteration in his behaviour.

Hamlet is nevertheless induced by more mature reflection, to doubt the propriety of proceeding to extremities, till he has further proof of the king's guilt.

"The spirit that I have seen

May be a devil,

I'll have grounds

More relative than this."

He therefore has recourse to the play. The stratagem succeeds; and being now convinced of the truth of what was said by the Ghost, he determines to kill the king.

"Now could I drink hot blood," &c.

This resolution, he would immediately afterwards have carried into effect, if a very extraordinary circumstance (the finding the king engaged in prayer) had not induced him to postpone it. I am happy that it is by no means necessary for me to say any thing respecting his horrid reflections on that occasion: they do not affect the course of argument which I am pursuing, and in this, as in other instances, I attempt nothing more than to point out the motives of Hamlet's conduct, without entering into the propriety or impropriety of those motives, or of the actions to which they gave birth.

Hamlet now goes to his mother, and while he is with her, he does (as he supposes) what he had before resolved to do. He thinks he is killing the king, when he kills Polonius. That he supposed the person behind the arras to be the king, is evident from his words to his mother: "Is it the king?" and to the dead Polonius, "I took thee for thy better." After this, he entreats the queen by

no means to disclose the secret of his madness being counterfeit, and not real distraction.

Here then, with all due submission to Dr. Johnson, is an act done by Hamlet while supposed to be mad, which would have been thought an unpardonable murder if he had been in his proper senses; and this is the use which Hamlet afterwards makes of his counterfeit madness. He excuses himself to Laertes on this very ground:

"This presence knows, and you must needs have heard, How I am punish'd with a sore distraction?

What I have done,

That might your nature, honour, and exception,
Roughly awake; I here proclaim was madness," &c.

It appears, then, that Hamlet resolved to counterfeit madness, that he might kill the king without being considered as a traitor and a murderer. He thought he was killing him when he killed Polonius, and if the person behind the arras had been the king, Hamlet would have excused his death, as he excused the death of Polonius, by saying,

"What I have done,

I here proclaim was madness."

I shall add one word in answer to a question which I have heard frequently asked: Why did Hamlet act the madman in a manner so distressing to the amiable Ophelia? The reason I take to be this: Ophelia was known to be the object of his affection. The queen hoped

"She would have been her Hamlet's wife."

If then it appeared that he acted as a madman in the presence of the object of his tenderest regard, he considered it as a certain consequence, that no doubt could be entertained of the reality of his distraction.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

CLAUDIUS, king of Denmark.

HAMLET, Son to the former, and nephew to the present king.

POLONIUS, lord chamberlain.

HORATIO, friend to Hamlet.

LAERTES, Son to Polonius.

GUILDENSTERN,

OSRIC, a courtier.

Another Courtier.
A Priest.

MARCELLUS,

BERNARDO,

} officers.

FRANCISCO, a soldier.

REYNALDO, servant to Polonius.
A Captain. An Ambassador.
Ghost of Hamlet's father.

FORTINBRAS, prince of Norway.

GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark, and mother of Hamlet,

OPHELIA, daughter of Polonius.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Players, Gravediggers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants.

SCENE, Elsinore.