cal feelings, they soon arranged a plan; which putting into execution, he ascended the throne of his brother and espoused the widowed princess. Amlettus (or Hamlet) suspecting that his father had died by the hand, or the devices of his uncle, determined to be revenged. But perceiving the jealousy with which the usurper eyed his superior talents; and the better to conceal his hatred and intentions, he affected a gradual derangement of reason; and at last acted all the extravagancies of an absolute madman. Fengo's guilt induced him to doubt the reality of a malady so favourable to his security; and suspicious of some direful project being hidden beneath assumed insanity, he tried by different stratagems to penetrate the truth. One of these was to draw him into a confidential interview with a young damsel who had been the companion of his infancy; but Hamlet's sagacity, and the timely caution of his intimate friend, frustrated this design. In these two persons we may recognise the Ophelia and Horatio of Shakspeare. A second plot was attended with equal want of success. It was concerted by Fengo that the queen should take her son to task in a private conversation; vainly flattering himself that the prince would not conceal his true state from the pleadings of a mother. Shakspeare has adopted every part of this scene; not only the precise situation and circumstances, but the sentiments, and sometimes the very words themselves. The queen's apartment was the appointed place of conference; where the king, to secure certain testimony, had previously ordered one of his courtiers to conceal himself under a heap of straw: so says the historian; and though Shakspeare, in unison with the refinement of more modern times, changes that rustic covering for the royal tapestry, yet it was even as Saxo Grammaticus relates. In those primitive ages, straw, hay, or rushes, strewed on the floor, were the usual carpets in the chambers of the great. One of our Henrys, in making a progress to the north of England, previously sent forward a courier to order clean straw at every house where he was to take his lodging. But to return to my subject.

The prince, suspecting there might be a concealed listener, and that it was the king, pursued his wild and frantic acts;

hoping that by some lucky chance he might discover his hidingplace. Watchful of all that passed in the room, as he dashed from side to side he descried a little movement of the uneasy courtier's covering. Suddenly Hamlet sprung on his feet, began to crow like a cock, and flapping his arms against his sides, leaped upon the straw; feeling something human under him, he snatched out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner with which he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we must suppose that it was not a merely wanton act, but done the more decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he was now alone with his mother, in a most awful manner he turns upon her and avows his madness to be assumed; he reproaches her with her wicked deeds and incestuous marriage; and threatens a mighty vengeance upon the instigator of her crime. I have the more particularly translated part of this speech, as it will show you, in its original state, the rough diamond which Shakspeare has polished to so transcendant a brightness.

*

"Hear me, most polluted woman! Thou who art loathsome from thy crimes and thy hypocrisy; whose very breath is impregnated with the falsehood of thine heart! Thou, who only seemest to lament one, who claims and deserves thy truest tears! Shame!-By what a course of folly hast thou become a common whore! Lasciviously and unlawfully holding in thy detestable soul, conditions with thy husband's murderer-embracing in incest this bosom fiend-and staining with him, the sacred bed of that king-whose son will avenge his blood; and destroy all the obscene allurements to thy execrable adultery, in the object of thy brutal passion.-Granted, thou mare-mated, that thy victory is gained; that thou art now linked to the sun of thy lechery nature of brutes!—and like them ye lose no moments of gratification, impelled but by your beastly wishes.

The coarseness of this translation will be pardoned, as it is literal; otherwise than literal, it would be inexpressive of the manners it is intended to represent.

I had forgot to one worn out and self-consumed by much enjoyment, these examples are excellent; and to a married woman's mind, most suitable.-Aye, forsooth, it must be preferable too, to carry on such warm desires as far as they will extend, that she should be a husband's brother's wife!—And to add yet unto its pleasures, she must not stand to gain the foul accomplishment, but by the bearing down her wedded lord. Thou dam of cruelty!-Yes! I have played the mad man, raved! With this cloak of willing dulness I have wrapped about my reason; it is my guard, while I watch to spring upon my prey. My soul at every hour calls aloud for a murdered father's revenge. The moment is now arrived.—I waited the opportunity, and time has now given what I so impatiently desired-though, alas! not in all deserving it!Dwell not, mother, on the dark and secret causes which actuated thy son's apparent madness; wail not for my wild ravings, nor the actions of my insanity: turn thy lamentations on thyself; bemoan thine own infamy, and thine own deformed heart.-Look to thyself!-Deny not thy depravity and faultiness; for these, thy sorrow is necessary indeed.-Tear such foul weeds from thy bosom, mother; and check the furor of thy crimes.-Thou hast once walked in the light of virtue! call back to your remembrance its serenity, its joys: turn to its pure flame; and once more let thy son see it beam upon his mother's face!"

I well know how feeble is my unpractised per in transmitting the strength of the original: but take it as the shadow of a sublime subject; and you will see sufficient to afford you an opportunity of judging how much the Hamlet of Saxo Grammaticus, and the Hamlet of Shakspeare thought alike.

In the historian, we find that the admonitions of Hamlet awakened the conscience of the queen, and recalled her to penitence and virtue. The king, observing the change, became doubly suspicious of the prince; and baffling some of the preliminary steps he took to vengeance, Hamlet was entrapped by him into an embassy to England. He sent along with him two courtiers, who bore private letters to the English monarch, requesting him, as the greatest favour he could confer upon Den

mark, to compass, by secret and sure means, the death of the prince as soon as he landed. Hamlet, during the voyage, had reason to suspect the mission of his companions; and by a stratagem obtaining their credentials, he found the treacherous mandate: and changing it for one wherein he ordered the execution of the two lords, he quietly proceeded with them to the British shore. On landing, the papers were delivered; and the king, without further parley, obeyed what he believed the request of his royal ally: and thus did treason meet the punishment due to its crime. It seems that love in those ages was very rapid in its effects; a very summer fly, to-day revelling in sweets, to-morrow numbered with the dust! for the daughter of the king being charmed with the person and manners of the foreign prince, evinced such marks of tenderness, that Hamlet could not but perceive the depth of his conquest. He was not insensible to her attractions; and receiving the king's assent, in the course of a few days led her to the nuptial altar. Fair as the lady might be, love was not sufficient for his filial heart; still it remembered his father's wrong, and panted for revenge. Amidst all joys, he was like a perturbed ghost that could not rest; and before many suns had rose and set, he obtained a hard wrung leave from his bride; once more set sail and appeared at Elsineur just in time to be a witness of the splendid rites which Fengo (supposing him now to be murdered) had prepared for his funeral. On the proclamation of his arrival, he was welcomed with enthusiasm by the people, whose idol he was; and who had been overwhelmed with grief, when Fengo publicly announced to them his sudden death in England. The king, inflamed with so ruinous a disappointment; and becoming doubly jealous of his growing popularity, now affected no conciliation, but openly manifested his hatred and hostility. Hamlet again had recourse to his pretended madness; and committed so many alarming acts, that Fengo, fearing their direction, ordered his sword to be locked in its scabbard, under a plea of guarding the lunatic from personal harm; but the true reason was, he dreaded the point of it himself. After various adventures, at last the prince accomplishes the death of his uncle's adherents, and vengeance on the fratricide

himself, by setting fire to the palace during the debauch of a midnight banquet. Rushing in amidst the flames, he kills Fengo with his own hand, reproaching him at the moment with his murder, adultery, and incest. Immediately on this act of retribution, he was proclaimed lawful successor to the throne, and crowned with all due solemnity.

Thus far Shakspeare treads in the steps of the annalist: the only difference is in the fate of the hero; in the one he finds a kingdom, in the other a grave. Saxo Grammaticus carries the history further; and after the crowning of Hamlet as king, brings him again into Britain; where, in compliment to that land of beauty, he marries a second wife, the daughter of the Scottish king. Polygamy was no crime in those days: and where person was usually the sole attraction, it is not wonderful that the heart should wander from fair to fair. The soul had then little to do in the attachments between man and woman; she, uneducated in every thing, but the doctrine of passive obedience and the instinct of self-preservation, bestowed her hand where policy inclined her parents to give it; and loved the warrior she espoused, for the valour that afforded her protection: he, devoted to arms and to glory, saw in woman only the object of dalliance, and the continuer of his race. Such was the state of the most endearing band in society, till the promulgation of that religion which now happily fills the greatest part of the globe, taught woman the rank she holds in creation; and imparted to man the power she has to bless his days.

Hamlet brought both his wives to Denmark, and prepared for a long life of prosperity and peace. But the sword hung over his head; war burst around him, and he fell in combat by the hand of Vigelotes the son of Ruric. Saxo Grammaticus sums up his character in a few words. "He was a wise prince and a great warrior. Like Achilles he had the principal actions of his life wrought on his shield. The daughter of the king of Scotland casting her eye on it, loved him for the battles he had won, and became his bride." So much for Hamlet.

In my way from the garden which bears his name, I came up with a regiment of Danish soldiers, exercising near the castle. They were about a thousand strong; and with five hun

B