surely is the obvious meaning, and indeed the only meaning that can be implied in these words,

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them."

He now drops this idea, and reverts to his reasoning on death, in the course of which he owns himself deterred from suicide by the thoughts of what may follow death:

"... the dread of something after death,——

That undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveller returns."

This might be a good argument in a Heathen or Pagan, and such indeed Hamlet really was; but Shakspeare has already represented him as a good Catholic, who must have been acquainted with the truths of revealed religion, and says expressly in this very play,

". . . had not the Everlasting fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-murder."

Moreover, he had just been conversing with his father's spirit, piping hot from purgatory, which, we would presume, is not within the bourne of this world. The dread of what may happen after death, says he,

"Makes us rather bear the ills we have,

Than fly to others that we know not of."

This declaration at least implies some knowledge of the other world, and expressly asserts that there must be ills in that world, though what kind of ills they are we do not know. The argument, therefore, may be reduced to this lemma: this world abounds with ills which I fear; the other world abounds with ills, the nature of which I do not know; therefore, I will rather bear those ills I have, "than fly to others which I know not of"; a deduction amounting to a certainty, with respect to the

only circumstance that should create a doubt, namely, whether in death he should rest from his misery; and if he was certain there were evils in the next world, as well as in this, he had no room to reason at all about the matter. What alone could justify his thinking on the subject, would have been the hope of flying from the ills of this world, without encountering any others in the

next.

Nor is Hamlet more accurate in the following reflection:

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."

A bad conscience will make us cowards; but a good conscience will make us brave. It does not appear that anything lay heavy on his conscience; and from the premises we cannot help inferring, that conscience in this case was entirely out of the question. Hamlet was deterred from suicide by a full conviction, that, in flying from one sea of troubles which he did know, he should fall into another which he did not know.

is no

His whole chain of reasoning, therefore, seems inconsistent and incongruous. "I am doubtful whether I should live, or do violence upon my own life; for I know not whether it is more honourable to bear misfortune patiently, than to exert myself in opposing misfortune, and by opposing, end it." Let us throw it into the form of a syllogism, it will stand thus: "I am oppressed with ills; I know not whether it is more honourable to bear those ills patiently, or to end them by taking arms against them; ergo, I am doubtful whether I should slay myself or live. To die, more than to sleep; and to say that by a sleep we end the heartache," &c., " 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished." Now to say it, was of no consequence unless it had been true. "I am afraid of the dreams that may happen in that sleep of death; and I choose rather to bear those ills I have in this life, than fly to other ills in that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller ever returns. I have ills that are almost insupportable in this life. I know not what is in the next, because it is an undiscovered country: ergo, I had rather bear those ills I have, than fly

to others which I know not of." Here the conclusion is by no means warranted by the premises. "I am sore afflicted in this life; but I will rather bear the afflictions of this life, than plunge myself in the afflictions of another life; ergo, conscience makes cowards of us all." But this conclusion would justify the logician in saying, negatur consequens; for it is entirely detached both from the major and minor proposition.

This soliloquy is not less exceptionable in the propriety of expression, than in the chain of argumentation. "To die-to sleep no more," contains an ambiguity, which all the art of punctuation cannot remove; for it may signify that "to die" is to sleep no more; or the expression "no more," may be considered as an abrupt apostrophe in thinking, as if he meant to say "no more of that reflection." "Ay, there's the rub," is a vulgarism beneath the dignity of Hamlet's character, and the words that follow leave the sense imperfect :

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause."

Not the dreams that might come, but the fear of what dreams might come, occasioned the pause or hesitation. Respect in the same line may be allowed to pass for consideration: but

"The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,”

according to the invariable acceptation of the words wrong and contumely, can signify nothing but the wrongs sustained by the oppressor, and the contumely or abuse thrown upon the proud. man; though it is plain that Shakspeare used them in a different sense: neither is the word spurn a substantive, yet as such he has inserted it in these lines:

"The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes."

If we consider the metaphors of the soliloquy, we shall find them. jumbled together in a strange confusion.

7 The conclusion is denied; i.e. does not follow from the premises.

If the metaphors were reduced to painting, we should find it a very difficult task, if not altogether impracticable, to represent, with any propriety, outrageous fortune using her slings and arrows, between which indeed there is no sort of analogy in nature. Neither can any figure be more ridiculously absurd than that of a man taking arms against the sea, exclusive of the incongruous medley of slings, arrows, and seas, justled within the compass of one reflection. What follows is a strange rhapsody of broken images of sleeping, dreaming, and shifting off a coil, which last conveys no idea that can be represented on canvas. A man may be exhibited shuffling off his garments or his chains; but how he should shuffle off a coil, which is another term for noise and tumult, we cannot comprehend. Then we have "long-lived calamity," and "time armed with whips and scorn"; and "patient merit spurned at by unworthiness," and "misery with a bare bodkin going to make his own quietus," which at best is but a mean metaphor. These are followed by figures "sweating under fardels of burdens," "puzzled with doubts," "shaking with fears," and "flying from evils." Finally, we see resolution sicklied o'er with pale thought," a conception like that of representing health by sickness; and a current of pith turned awry so as to lose the name of action," which is both an error in fancy, and a solecism in sense. In a word, this soliloquy may be compared to the "Egri somnia," and the "Tabula, cujus vanæ finguntur species."8

66

But while we censure the chaos of broken, incongruous metaphors, we ought also to caution the young poet against the opposite extreme, of pursuing a metaphor until the spirit is quite exhausted in a succession of cold conceits; such as we see in the following letter, said to be sent by Tamerlane to the Turkish Emperor Bajazet. "Where is the monarch that dares oppose our arms? Where is the potentate who doth not glory in being numbered among our vassals? As for thee, descended from a Tur

8".. a sick man's dreams

Varies all shapes and mixes all extremes." —
FRANCIS. PRIOR'S note.

coman mariner, since the vessel of thy unbounded ambition hath been wrecked in the gulf of thy self-love, it would be proper that thou shouldest furl the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, which is the harbour of safety; lest the tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of that punishment thou hast deserved."

But if these laboured conceits are ridiculous in poetry, they are still more inexcusable in prose: such as we find them frequently occur in Strada's Bellum Belgicum. "Vix descenderat à prætoria navi Cæsar, cùm fæda ilico exorta in portu tempestas; classem impetu disjecit, prætoriam hausit; quasi non vecturam amplius Cæsarem Cæsarisque fortunam." "Cæsar had scarcely set his feet on shore, when a terrible tempest arising, shattered the fleet even in the harbour, and sent to the bottom the prætorian ship, as if he resolved it should no longer carry Cæsar and his fortunes.”

Yet this is modest in comparison of the following flowers: "Alii, pulsis è tormento catenis discerpti sectique, dimidiato corpore pugnabant sibi superstites, ac peremptæ partis ultores." "Others, dissevered and cut in twain by chain-shot, fought with one-half of their bodies that remained, in revenge of the other half that was slain."

Homer, Horace, and even the chaste Virgil, is not free from conceits. The latter, speaking of a man's hand cut off in battle,

says:

"Te decisa suum, Laride, dextera quærit;

Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant,” 9

thus enduing the amputated hand with sense and volition. This, to be sure, is a violent figure, and hath been justly condemned by some accurate critics; but we think they are too severe in extending the same censure to some other passages in the most admired authors. Virgil, in his sixth Eclogue, says:

9"Thy hand, poor Laris, sought its absent lord;
Thy dying fingers, quiv'ring on the plain,

With starts convulsive grasp the steel in vain.".

DRYDEN. PRIOR'S note. VIRGIL, Eneid, X. 395-6.