thing which would be scanned. The thought of his father taken in the blossom of his sin makes him cherish more diabolical schemes of revenge. There is nothing in the refined cruelty of this thought inconsistent with Hamlet's general character: it is one mark of that egotism or selfishness which is one of his prominent features. Similar cruelty we have already seen in his treatment of Ophelia—and we shall see it again in his unfeeling conduct when he has killed Polonius, and in his unscrupulous sacrifice of his two friends who are not near his conscience. The feeling was real at the moment, but most of all it was a motive for further delay. He still "lives to say this thing's to do."

Scene 4. In a state of the greatest excitement Hamlet passes to his mother's chamber. The very call, mother! mother! mother! with which he approaches shows this. His answer to her first words confirm it. The poor queen has not often been so rudely addressed by a son whom she throughout so tenderly loves. And yet in it all there is a depth of tender melancholy :

You are the queen—your husband's brother's wife
And-would you were not so!-you are my mother.

Though innocent of complicity in her husband's murder, the queen is not ignorant of the causes of Hamlet's altered state, and so this rough beginning excites her fears. He probably lays his hand upon her and she cries out for help. Polonius echoes the cry, and so the "rash intruding fool" gets his death-thrust. The behaviour of Hamlet here is very instructive. He has let slip an opportunity of executing his revenge only a few minutes before, in order that his sword might know a more horrid hent, that he might catch his uncle drunk or in his rage, and here the moment after he makes this pass through the arras thinking it was the king, "I took thee for thy betters." And when he finds his mistake there is no feeling of pity or sorrow; the feeble expression of compunction at the end of the scene

For this same lord I do repent,

is shoved aside by a weak excuse of fatalism. Here as elsewhere he tries to divest himself of all responsibility for his acts. So the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is none of his doing-they did make love to their fate. No doubt this feeling was strongly fostered by the ghost's appearance, and the consequent consciousness of being a minister of destiny-but it is a common trait of a self-indulgent character.

Polonius is thus dismissed with scant pity, but the rash and bloody deed serves as the peg on which the rest of the scene may hang. Even without the evidence of the first quarto the surprise of the queen at the words "as kill a king," to which she wants the clue, would be sufficient to exonerate her from complicity in her husband's murder. The first part of Hamlet's objurgation may be quickly dismissed. His language is a little strained at first, but as the contrast between the past and the present king, which he draws in such poetical language, more and more fills his mind, all affectation disappears, and we feel the passionate earnestness of his words. The difference between the two speeches is marked in the queen's repliescompare the "act which roars and thunders in the index"-words indicative rather of fear lest this bluster may lead to some unhappy end than of any real feeling of wrong done-with the conscience stricken cry "Thou turn'st my eyes into my very soul." But Hamlet is not satisfied with the effect that he has produced, and dwells in a somewhat coarse way on this portrait of the present object of his mother's affection. And what are we to think of her? She has nothing to say for her husband-nothing but this repeated cry "No more!"

It seems to be very doubtful whether the second appearance of the ghost is more than an objective representation to the spectators of Hamlet's inmost thoughts. His mother is unconscious of the apparition which on the former occasions was visible to the

bystanders. He has been dwelling on the picture of the father that he loves and the wrongs that he has suffered, and is naturally reminded of his former visitation. The motive of the apparition, whether it be real or a mere "coinage of the brain," is evident. Hamlet is in danger of forgetting the ghost's parting injunction: Nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught: leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her.

It is to recal this that the ghost again appears-and henceforth Hamlet's tone to his mother is entirely changed: all his words are full of affectionate solicitude.

It is but natural that the queen, knowing nothing of the previous visitation, and seeing no cause for Hamlet's sudden terror, should put it down as the bodiless creation of ecstasy—and not less natural and in accordance with the strong feeling of the moment that Hamlet should protest that it is no madness that he has uttered, a confession which he afterwards appears to regret. He would not have it thought that he was "not essentially in madness, but only mad in craft." Let doctors decide about the test which he proposes. He confesses afterwards to Laertes the sore distraction with which he is visited, and prays forgiveness for the acts of his madness; and yet I think that here he speaks truth. This vision is no fruit of madness-whether it be a true apparition-or the vivid memory of the former one, it is no offspring of a disordered brain. And this is the proof. His language after is calmer even than before. Before it he was passing from earnest but subdued passion to rant-now he is again calm, affectionate, subdued. What a contrast between the rude reproach of the earlier part of the scene-and the tender though reproving farewell :

Once more good night,

And when you are desirous to be blest
I'll blessing beg of you.

Hamlet already knows of the king's plan of getting him out of the country-how, we are not told,—and he seems also to know of the meditated treachery which this mission conceals, and to have formed already the plan of sending his two school-fellows to the fate which is meant for himself—

'Tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petar.

That he should do this from the instinct of selfpreservation when he discovered the plot might claim some indulgence-but this deliberate premeditated murder is quite inconsistent with that noble weakness which some have accepted as the theory of Hamlet's character. He cannot say of this act of cruelty as he says of his words to his mother,

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

Neither does he by this act gain anything for the accomplishment of his meditated vengeance on his uncle. On the contrary his submitting to be shipped off to England at all frustrates his schemes. He serves no purpose by it, save it be to justify a subsequent attack by the evidence of Claudius' designs upon his life; and of this there is no hint in the text. He is removed from the scene of action, and when he returns does not come upon the king by surprise, but sends him notice of his coming. I can see no motive for the voyage but the delight in the meeting of two crafts, the same delight in his own ingenuity which he showed in the play scene and which he was ready to gratify without any thought of the cost.

(To be concluded.)

་

THE LESSON OF THE FLOWERS.

FROM HAFIZ.

'TWAS morning, and the Lord of day
Had shed his light o'er Shiraz' towers,
Where bulbuls trill their love-lorn lay
To serenade the maiden flowers.

Like them oppressed by love's sweet pain,
I wander in a garden fair;

And there to cool my throbbing brain
I woo the perfumed morning air.

The damask rose with beauty gleams,
Its face all bathed in ruddy light,

And shines like some bright star that beams
From out the sombre veil of night.

The very bulbul, as the glow

Of pride and passion warms its breast,
Forgets awhile its former woe

In pride that conquers love's unrest.

The sweet narcissus opes its eye,
A teardrop glistening on the lash,
As tho' 'twere gazing piteously
Upon the tulip's bleeding gash.