ness of the outside scene, and the silent stars, and the awful expectation. But they talk, and discuss this custom of deep-drinking Denmark, which Hamlet indignantly condemns, with much refined addition, according to his habit. His present thoughts of the king are plain enough: they are soon to be worse. For, even whilst he talks, Horatio ex claims : Look, my lord, it comes! and the ghost of Hamlet's father appears before them. In a scene of this awful character, the limited power of stage representation must always be painfully felt. The simpler stage of a period even within the recollection of many yet living, interfering less with the imagination, if it did not give it much aid, seems to us to have been less unfavourable. Too much in the more decorated theatre of later years, at least in England, is sacrificed to scenic effects, and a frigidity is imparted by too picturesque grouping, by a tableau with a principal figure. The actor is too often made of more importance than the action, and even the ghost is subdued to this consideration, and not permitted to be too spectral. The very armour is no longer complete steel; the ghost's story is not sufficiently solemn, and passionless, and unearthly; the step no longer noiseless and dignified. When we read, among doubtful traditions, that William Shakspeare's highest part, as an actor, was that of the ghost in his own play, we are almost allowed to conjecture that the explanation lay in the fact, that he alone knew or felt how the other-world words should be delivered. Thus it is only when we read the play, alone, and with attention undistracted, that we realise the emotions of the group on the platform, when this visitor from the dead stands before them, released for a short period, or doomed for a certain time, to walk the night; its days passed in scenes not to be described to mortal ears, and unimaginable. Although veiled with something of the colouring of the grave, it comes SO much in mortal form as to force unwilling conviction even on the mind of Hamlet. We know that the previous appearances of this spirit have excited great fear, as well as wonder, in those who have seen it; they have described its sorrowful expression, its majestic presence, its kingly frown, as if offended by the semblance of their interference, and the dignities of life survived even in the coldness of death, and overcame the degradations of the grave. They have confessed how they were dumb with fear, so that even Horatio, sceptical as he had been, had almost been deprived of power to question it. Yet, all prepared as he had been, Hamlet,— scarcely yet persuaded,-when Horatio now suddenly says Look, my lord, it comes !- seems, on actually beholding a figure so awful, yet to pause, and to undergo some agitation and inward debate, before he can quite convince himself that what he beholds is a thing that he may speak to. The first line of his address to the ghost is an exclamation, strongly expressing surprise and dread; for indeed no previous description could have fully prepared him for an appearance so unprecedented. But, after exclaiming Angels and ministers of grace defend us !— and prefatory to questions accordant with foregone reflection, his words are as if broken by passionate doubt and fear. His suspicions of error or deception have disappeared, but those suspicions had given place to one other and deeper suspicion, that the ghost he actually saw might be a spirit of evil in the borrowed shape of his father's spirit in arms. He had resolved that at all hazards he would not be deterred from speaking to the ghost if it appeared to him, and really assumed his noble father's person, and had doubtless resolved to abjure it to explain its terrifying wanderings; but as he proceeds, his mind is still shaken with some misgiving as to the actual character of the spirit; misgivings which we shall find painfully recurring at a subsequent time : 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, These words are addressed to an unmoving figure, the image of once moving life, but now passive to all such appeal: no syllable or sign responds. Hamlet goes on, with more earnest imploration O, answer me : Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell, Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd, Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws, Still no answer; no movement; no passage of sympathy along that pale, sorrowful, unearthly face; no sign, or of impatience, or of favour, or of intent. Hamlet resorts to terms more coloured by a kind of horror : What may this mean, That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel, |