upon

Τότε

and even inflamed with metaphors, some of them so bold as even to entail him the censure of the critics. τῷ Πυθωνι τῷ ῥήτορι ῥέοντι καθ ̓ ὑμῶη.—« Then I did not yield to Python the orator, when he overflowed you with a tide of eloquence.>> Cicero is still more liberal in the use of them; he ransacks all nature, and pours forth a redundancy of figures, even with a lavish hand. Even the chaste Xenophon, who generally illustrates his subject by way of simile, sometimes ventures to produce an expressive metaphor, such as, part of the phalanx fluctuated in the march; and indeed nothing can be more significant than this word exúμnve, to represent a body of men staggered, and on the point of giving way. Armstrong has used the word fluctuate with admirable efficacy, in his philosophical poem, entitled, The Art of Preserving Health.

O! when the growling winds contend, and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm,
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements-

The word fluctuate on this occasion not only exhibits an idea of struggling, but also echoes to the sense like the copie de pann of Homer; which, by the by, it is impossible to render into English, for the verb picow signifies not only to stand erect like prickles, as a grove of lances, but also to make a noise like the crashing of armour, the hissing of javelins, and the splinters of spears.

Over and above an excess of figures, a young author is apt to run into a confusion of mixed metaphors, which leave the sense disjointed, and distract the imagination : Shakspeare himself is often guilty of these irregularities.

The soliloquy in Hamlet, which we have so often heard extolled in terms of admiration, is, in our opinion, a heap of absurdities, whether we consider the situation, the sentiment, the argumentation, or the poetry. Hamlet is informed by the Ghost, that his father was murdered, and therefore he is tempted to murder himself, even after he had promised to take vengeance on the usurper, and expressed the utmost eagerness to achieve this enterprise. It does not appear that he had the least reason to wish for death; but every motive which may be supposed to influence the mind of a young prince, concurred to render life desirable-revenge towards the usurper; love for the fair Ophelia ; and the ambition of reigning. Besides, when he had an opportunity of dying without being accessary to his own death; when he had nothing to do but, in obedience to his uncle's command, to allow himself to be conveyed quietly to England, where he was sure of suffering death; instead of amusing himself with meditations on mortality, he very wisely consulted the means of self-preservation, turned the tables upon his attendants, and returned to Denmark. But granting him to have been reduced to the lowest state of despondence, surrounded with nothing but horror and despair, sick of this life, and eager to tempt futurity, we shall see how far he argues like a philosopher.

In order to support this general charge against an author so universally held in veneration, whose very errors have helped to sanctify his character among the multitude, we will descend to particulars, and analyze this famous soliloquy.

Hamlet, having assumed the disguise of madness, as a cloak under which he might the more effectually revenge

his father's death upon the murderer and usurper, appears alone upon the stage in a pensive and melancholy attitude, and communes with himself in these words:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:-
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?—To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;—to sleep;—

To sleep! perchance to dream;—ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us

pause:

-There's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The
pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the

spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To
grunt and sweat under a weary life;

But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will:
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

I's sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

We have already observed, that there is not any apparent circumstance in the fate or situation of Hamlet, that should prompt him to harbour one thought of self-murder: and therefore these expressions of despair imply an impropriety in point of character. But supposing his condition was truly desperate, and he saw no possibility of repose but in the uncertain harbour of death, let us see in what manner he argues on that subject. The question is, « To be, or not to be;" to die by my own hand, or live and suffer the miseries of life. He proceeds to explain the alternative in these terms, « Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, or endure the frowns of fortune, or to take arms, and by opposing, end them." Here he deviates from his first proposition, and death is no longer the question. The only doubt is, whether he will stoop to misfortune, or exert his faculties in order to surmount it. This surely is the obvious meaning, and indeed the only meaning that can be implied to 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,

The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn

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 presume is not within the bourn of this world. The dread of what may happen after death, says he,

Makes us rather bear those 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 feel; 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 could 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 this 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 docs make cowards of us all.