extraordinary events sceptical and intensely thoughtful, he unites an
undeviating love of rectitude, a disposition of the gentlest kind,
feelings the most delicate and pure, and a sensibility painfully alive
to the smallest deviation from virtue or propriety of conduct. Thus,
while gifted to discern and to suffer from every moral aberration in
those who surround him, his powers of action are paralysed in the
first instance, by the unconquerable tendency of his mind to explore,
to their utmost ramification, all the bearings and contingencies of
the meditated deed; and in the second, by that tenderness of his
nature which leads him to shrink from the means which are necessary
to carry it into execution. Over this irresolution and weakness, the
result, in a great measure, of emotions highly amiable, and which in
a more congenial situation had contributed to the delight of all who
approached him, Shakspeare has thrown a veil of melancholy so sublime
and intellectual, as by this means to constitute him as much the idol
of the philosopher, and the man of cultivated taste, as he confessedly
is of those who feel their interest excited principally through the
medium of the sympathy and compassion which his ineffective struggles
to act up to his own approved purpose naturally call forth.
It may be useful, however, in order to give more strength and
precision to this general outline, to enter into a few of the leading
particulars of Hamlet's conduct. He is represented at the opening
of the play as highly distressed by the sudden death of his father,
and the hurried and indecent nuptials of his mother, when the awful
appearance of the spectre overwhelms him with astonishment, unhinges
a mind already partially thrown off its bias, and fills it with
indelible apprehension, suspicion, and dismay. For though, on the
first communication of the murder, his bosom burns with the thirst of
vengeance, yet reflection and the gentleness of his disposition soon
induce him to regret that he has been chosen as the instrument of
effecting it,
"That ever he was born to set it right;"
and then, under the influence of this reluctance, he begins to question
the validity and the lawfulness of the medium through which he had
received his information, describing with admirable self-consciousness,
the vacillation of his will, and the tendency of his temper:—
"The spirit that I have seen
May be the Devil, and the Devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps,
_Out of my weakness and my melancholy_,—
Abuses me to damn me."[394:A]
Here, therefore, on a structure of mind originally indecisive as
to volition, on feelings rendered more than usually sensitive and
serious by domestic misfortune, operate causes calculated, in a
very extraordinary degree, to augment the sources of irresolution
and distress. The imagination of Hamlet, agitated and inflamed by
a visitation from the world of spirits, is lost amid the mazes of
conjecture, amid thoughts which roam with doubt and terror through all
the labyrinths of fate and superhuman agency; whilst, at the same time,
indignation at the crime of his uncle, and aversion to the vindictive
task which has been imposed upon him, raise a conflict of passion
within his breast.
Determined, however, if possible, to obey what seems both a commission
from heaven, and a necessary filial duty; but sensible that the wild
workings of imagination, and the tumult of contending emotions have
so far unsettled his mind, as to render his control over it at times
precarious and imperfect, and that consequently he may be liable to
betray his purpose, he adopts the expedient of counterfeiting madness,
in order that if any thing should escape him in an unguarded moment, it
may, from being considered as the effect of derangement, fail to impede
his designs.
And here again the bitterness of his destiny meets him; for, with the
view of disarming suspicion as to his real intention, he finds it
requisite to impress the king and his courtiers with the idea, that
disappointed love is the real basis of his disorder; justly inferring,
that as his attachment to Ophelia was known, and still more so the
tenderness of his own heart, any harsh treatment of her, without an
adequate provocation, must infallibly be deemed a proof, not only
of insanity, but of the cause whence it sprang; since though some
reserve on her part had been practised, in obedience to her father's
commands, it could not, without a dereliction of reason, have produced
such an entire change in his conduct and disposition. And such indeed
would have been the result, had Hamlet possessed a perfect command
of himself; but his feelings overpowered his consistency, and the
very part which he had to play with Ophelia, was one of the most
excruciating of his afflictions; for he tells us, and tells us truly,
that
"'He' lov'd Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up 'his' sum;"[395:A]
consequently what he suffers on this occasion, on this compulsory
treatment, as it were, of the being dearest to his heart, gives him one
of the strongest claims upon our sympathy. With what agony he pursues
this line of conduct, and how foreign it is to every feeling of the
man, appears at the close of his celebrated soliloquy on the expediency
of suicide, and just previous to the rudest and most sarcastic instance
of his behaviour towards Ophelia. That hapless maiden suddenly crosses
him; when, starting at her sight, and forgetting his assumed character,
he exclaims, in an exquisite tone of solemnity and pathos—
——————————— "Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia:—Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd."[395:B]
It is impossible, we think, to compare this passage, this burst of
undisguised emotion, with the tenour of the immediately subsequent
dialogue, without the deepest commiseration for the fate of the
unfortunate prince.
In this play, as in _King Lear_, we have madness under its real
and its assumed aspect, and in both instances they are accurately
discriminated. We find Lear and Ophelia constantly recurring, either
directly or indirectly, to the actual causes of their distress; but it
was the business of Edgar and of Hamlet, to place their observers on
a wrong scent, and to divert their vigilance from the genuine sources
of their grief, and the objects of their pursuit. This is done with
undeviating firmness by Edgar; but Hamlet occasionally suffers the
poignancy of his feelings, and the agitation of his mind, to break
in upon his plan, when, heedless of what was to be the ostensible
foundation of his derangement, his love for Ophelia, he permits his
indignation to point, and on one occasion almost unmasked, towards the
guilt of his uncle. In every other instance, he personates insanity
with a skill which indicates the highest order of genius, and imposes
on all but the king, whose conscience, perpetually on the watch, soon
enables him to detect the inconsistencies and the drift of his nephew.
It has been objected to the character of Hamlet, whose most striking
feature is profound melancholy, that its keeping is broken in upon
by an injudicious admixture of humour and gaiety; but he who is
acquainted with the workings of the human heart, will be far, very
far indeed, from considering this as any deviation from the truth of
nature. Melancholy, when not the offspring of an ill-spent life, or
of an habitual bad temper, but the consequence of mere casualties and
misfortunes, or of the vices and passions of others, operating on
feelings too gentle, delicate, and susceptible, to bear up against
the ruder evils of existence, will sometimes spring with playful
elasticity from the pressure of the heaviest burden, and dissipating,
for a moment, the anguish of a breaking heart, will, like a sun-beam
in a winter's day, illumine all around it with a bright, but transient
ray, with the sallies of humorous wit, and even with the hilarity of
sportive simplicity; an interchange which serves but to render the
returning storm more deep and gloomy.
Thus is it with Hamlet in those parts of this inimitable tragedy in
which we behold him suddenly deviating into mirth and jocularity; they
are scintillations which only light us
————————— "to discover sights of woe,
Regions of sorrow,"[397:A]
for no where do we perceive the depth of his affliction and the energy
of his sufferings more distinctly than when under these convulsive
efforts to shake off the incumbent load.
Of that infirmity of purpose which distinguishes Hamlet during the
pursuit of his revenge, and of that exquisite self-deceit by which
he endeavours to disguise his own motives from himself, no clearer
instance can be given, than from the scene where he declines destroying
the usurper because he was in the act of prayer, and might therefore
go to heaven, deferring his death to a period when, being in liquor
or in anger, he was thoroughly ripe for perdition; an enormity of
sentiment and design totally abhorrent to the real character of Hamlet,
which was radically amiable, gentle, and compassionate, but affording
a striking proof of that hypocrisy which, owing to the untowardness
of his fate, he was constantly exercising on himself. Struck with the
symptoms of repentance in Claudius, his resentment becomes softened;
and at all times unwilling, from the tenderness of his nature, and the
acuteness of his sensibility, to fulfil his supposed duty, and execute
retributive justice on his uncle, he endeavours to find some excuse for
his conscious want of resolution, some pretext, however far-fetched or
discordant with the genuine motive, to shield him from his own weakness.
One remarkable effect of this perpetual contest in the bosom of Hamlet
between a sense of the duty, enjoined as it were by heaven, and his
aversion to the means which could alone secure its accomplishment, has
been to throw an interest around him of the most powerful and exciting
nature. It is an interest not arising from extrinsic causes, from any
anxiety as to the completion of the meditated vengeance, or from the
intervention of any casual incidents which may tend to hasten or retard
the catastrophe, but exclusively springing from our attachment to the
person of Hamlet. We contemplate with a mixture of admiration and
compassion the very virtues of Hamlet becoming the bane of his earthly
peace, virtues which, in the tranquillity either of public or private
life, would have crowned him with love and honour, serving but, in
the tempest which assails him, to wreck his hopes, and accelerate his
destruction. In fact, the very doubts and irresolution of Hamlet endear
him to our hearts, and at the same time condense around him an almost
breathless anxiety, for, while we confess them to be the offspring of
all that is lovely, gentle, and kind, we cannot but perceive their
fatal tendency, and we shudder at the probable event.
It is thus that the character of Hamlet, notwithstanding the veil of
meditative abstraction which the genius of philosophic melancholy has
thrown over it, possesses a species of enchantment for all ranks and
classes. Its popularity, indeed, appears to have been immediate and
great, for, in 1604, Anthony Scoloker, in a dedication to his poem,
entitled "Daiphantus," tells us, that his "epistle" should be "like
friendly Shake-speare's tragedies, where the commedian rides, when the
tragedian stands on tiptoe: _Faith it should please all, like prince
Hamlet_."[398:A]
We should bear in mind, however, that the favour of the public must,
in part, have been attached to this play through the vast variety of
incident and characters which it unfolds, from its rapid interchange of
solemnity, pathos, and humour, and more particularly from the awful,
yet grateful terror which the shade of buried Denmark diffuses over the
scene.
That a belief in _Spiritual Agency_ has been universally and strongly
impressed on the mind of man from the earliest ages of the world, must
be evident to every one who peruses the writings of the Old Testament.
It is equally clear that, with little but exterior modification,
this doctrine has passed from the East into Europe, flowing through
Greece and Rome to modern times. It is necessary, however, to a just
comprehension of the subject, that it be distinctly separated into two
branches,—into the _Agency of Angelic Spirits_, and into the _Agency
of the Spirits of the Departed_, as these will be found to rest on very
dissimilar bases.
To the _Agency of Angelic Spirits_, both good and bad, and to their
operation on, and influence over the intellect and affairs of men, the
records of our religion bear the most direct and indubitable testimony;
nor is it possible to disjoin a full admission of this intercourse from
any faith in its Scriptures, whether Jewish or Christian. "That the
holy angels," observes Bishop Horsley, "are often employed by God in
his government of this sublunary world, is indeed clearly to be proved
by holy writ: that they have powers over the matter of the universe
analogous to the powers over it which men possess, greater in extent,
but still limited, is a thing which might reasonably be supposed, if
it were not declared: but it seems to be confirmed by many passages of
holy writ, from which it seems also evident that they are occasionally,
for certain specific purposes, commissioned to exercise those powers
to a prescribed extent. That the evil angels possessed, before the
Fall, the like powers, which they are still occasionally permitted to
exercise for the punishment of wicked nations, seems also evident.
_That they have a power over the human sensory (which is part of the
material universe), which they are occasionally permitted to exercise,
by means of which they may inflict diseases, suggest evil thoughts, and
be the instruments of temptations, must also be admitted._"[399:A]
Of a doctrine so consolatory as the ministration and guardianship of
benevolent spirits, one of the most striking instances is afforded us
by the Book of Job, perhaps the most ancient composition in existence;
it is where Elihu, describing the sick man on his bed, declares, that—
"As his soul draweth near to the Grave,
And his life to the Ministers of Death,
Surely will there be over him an _Angel_,
An _Intercessor_, one of _The Thousand_,
Who shall instruct the Sufferer in his duty;"[400:A]
and from the same source was the awful but monitory vision described in
the fourth chapter of this sublime poem.
Subsequent poets have embraced with avidity a system so friendly to
man, and so delightful to an ardent and devotional imagination. Thus
Hesiod, repeating the oriental tradition, seems happy in augmenting the
number of our heavenly protectors to _thirty thousand_, Τρὶς γὰρ μύριοί:—
"Invisible the Gods are ever nigh,
Pass through the midst and bend th' all-seeing eye:
The men who grind the poor, who wrest the right,
Awless of Heaven's revenge, are naked to their sight.
For _thrice ten thousand_ holy Demons rove
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove.
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys,
The upright judgments, and th' unrighteous ways."
ELTON.
But, next to the sacred writers, and more immediately derived from
their inspiration, has this heavenly superintendance been best
described by two of our own poets: by Spenser with his customary piety,
sweetness, and simplicity:—
"And is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is:—else much more wretched were the cace
Of men than beasts: But O! th' exceeding grace
Of Highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his workes with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!
How oft do they their silver bowers leave
To come to succour us that succour want!
How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant,
Against fowle feends to ayd us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love and nothing for reward:
O, why should Hevenly God to men have such regard;"[401:A]
by Milton, in a strain of greater sublimity, and with more philosophic
dignity and grace:—
"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night: How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to others note,
Singing their great Creator? oft in bands
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonick number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven."[401:B]
But mankind, not satisfied with this angelic interposition, though
founded on _indisputable authority_, and exercised on their behalf,
has, in every age and nation, fondly clung to the idea, that the
_souls_ or _Spirits of the Dead_ have also a communication with the
living, and that they occasionally, either as happy or as suffering
shades, re-appear on this sublunary scene.
The common suggestions and associations of the human mind have laid
the foundation for this general belief; man has ever indulged the hope
of another state of existence, feeling within him an assurance, a kind
of intuitive conviction, emanating from the Deity, that we are not
destined as the beasts to perish. It is true, says Homer,
"'Tis true, 'tis certain, man though dead, retains
Part of himself; th' immortal mind remains;"[402:A]
but to this mental immortality, which is firmly sanctioned by religion,
affection, grief, and superstition have added a vast variety of
unauthorised circumstances. The passions and attachments which were
incident to the individual in his earthly, are attributed to him in his
spiritual state; he is supposed to be still agitated by terrestrial
objects and relations, to delight in the scenes which he formerly
inhabited, to feel for and to protect the persons with whom he was
formerly connected, to be actuated, in short, by emotions of love,
anger, and revenge, and to be in a situation which admits of receiving
benefit or augmented suffering through the attentions or negligence of
surviving friends. Accordingly the spirit or apparition of the deceased
was supposed occasionally to revisit the glimpses of the moon, and to
become visible to its dearest relatives or associates, for the purpose
of admonishing, complaining, imploring, warning, or directing.
Now all these additions to the abstract idea of immortality, though
perhaps naturally arising from the affectionate regrets, the conscious
weakness, and the eager curiosity of man, and therefore universal as
his diffusion over the globe, are totally unwarranted by our only safe
and sure guide, the records of the Bible; for though we are taught
that man exists in another state, and disembodied of the organs which
he possessed whilst an inhabitant of this planet, we are also told,
that he is supplied with a new body, of a very different nature, and,
without a miracle, indiscernible by our present senses. We are told by
St. Peter, that even the body of our Saviour after his resurrection
could only be seen through the operation of a miracle: "Him God raised
up the third day, and _gave him to be visible: Et dedit eum manifestum
fieri_. Vulg. He was no longer," observes Bishop Horsley, "in a state
to be naturally visible to any man. His body was indeed risen, but it
was become that body which St. Paul describes in the fifteenth chapter
of his first epistle to the Corinthians, which, having no sympathy with
the gross bodies of this earthly sphere, nor any place among them, must
be indiscernible to the human organs, till they shall have undergone a
similar refinement."[403:A]
We have no foundation, therefore, in Scripture, nor, according to
its doctrine, can we have, for attaching any credibility to the
re-appearance of the Departed; yet, independent of the predisposition
of the human mind, from the influence of affectionate regret, to think
upon the dead as if still present to our wants and wishes, a state of
feeling which, in Celtic poetry, has given birth to an interesting
system of mythology entirely built on apparitional intercourse[403:B],
the relations which we possess of the apparent return of the dead, are
so numerous, and, in many instances, so unexceptionably attested, that
they have led to several ingenious, and, indeed, partially successful
attempts to account for them. One or two of these attempts, as
terminating in some curious speculations on the character of _Hamlet_,
and on the _apparition of his father_, it will be necessary more
particularly to notice.
A firm belief in _Visitation from the Spirits of the Deceased_ was
so strong a feature in the age of Shakspeare, and the immediately
subsequent period, and was supported by such an accumulation of
testimony, that it roused the exertions of a few individuals of
a philosophical turn of mind, to account for what they would not
venture to deny; Lavaterus[404:A] and others on the continent, and
Scot[404:B] and Mede[404:C] in our own country, attempting to prove
that these appearances were not occasioned by the return of the dead,
but by the permitted and personal agency of good or evil angels, who,
as we occasionally find in Scripture, and more particularly in the
case of Samuel, before the Witch of Endor, were allowed to assume the
resemblance of the deceased.
But, though this hypothesis be constructed on a species of spiritual
agency which we know to have existed, yet are the instances for which
it is adopted by these writers much too trivial and frequent to secure
to their solution a rational assent; nor is the presence of these
superior intelligences, as objects of sight, at all necessary to
account for the phenomena in question.
For it is obvious, that if relying, with Bishop Horsley, on the
evidence of sacred history, we believe that the Deity oftentimes acts
mediately, through his agents, on the human sensory, as a part of the
material universe, thereby producing diseases and morbid impressions,
the same effects will result. Not that we conceive matter can, in any
degree, modify the thinking principle itself, but its organisation
being the sole medium through which the intellect communicates with the
external world, it is evident that any derangement of the structure
of the brain must render the perceptions of the mind, as to material
existences, imperfect, false, and illusory.
It is remarkable that a doctrine similar to this was produced in the
last century to account for the spectral appearances of second sight,
by a Scotchman too, himself an Islander, who has furnished us with
an ample collection of instances of this singular visitation[405:A];
this gentleman contending, that these prophetic scenes are exhibited
not to the sight, but merely to the imagination. He adds, with great
sagacity, "as these Representations or waking Dreams, according to the
best Enquiry I could make, are communicated (unless it be seldom) but
to one Person at once, though there should be several Persons, and even
some Seers in Company, those Representations seem rather communicated
to the Imagination (as said is) than the Organ of Sight; seeing it is
impossible, if made always to the latter, but all Persons directing
their sight the same Way, having their Faculty of Sight alike perfect
and equally disposed, must see it in common."[405:B]
We must refer, however, to the present day for demonstration, founded
on actual experience, that the appearance of ghosts and apparitions
is, in every instance, the _immediate_ effect of certain partial but
morbid affections of the brain; yet, it must be remarked, that the
ingenious physiologists who have proved this curious fact, entirely
confine themselves, and perhaps very justly, to physical phenomena,
professedly discarding the consideration of any higher efficiency in
the series of causation than what appears as the result of diseased
organisation; so that their discovery, though completely overturning
the common superstition as to the return of the departed spirit, or the
visible interference of angelic agency, is yet very reconcileable with
the pneumatology of Bishop Horsley.
In 1805, Dr. Alderson of Hull read to the Literary Society of that
place, and published in 1811, an Essay on Apparitions, the object
of which is to prove that the immediate cause of these spectral
visitations "lies, not in the perturbed spirits of the departed,
but in the diseased organisation of the living." For this purpose he
relates several cases of this hallucination which fell under his own
observation and treatment, and which, as distinguished from partial
insanity, from delirium, somnambulism, and reverie, were completely
removed by medical means.
In 1813, Dr. Ferriar of Manchester published, on a more extended scale,
"An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions," whose aim and result are
precisely similar to the anterior production of Dr. Alderson; both
admitting the reality and universality of spectral impressions, and
both attributing them to partial affections of the brain, independent
of any sensible external agency; it is also remarkable that both have
applied their speculations and experience in illustration of the
character of _Hamlet_, a circumstance which has, in a great measure,
led to these general observations on the progress of opinion as to the
nature of apparitional visitation.
The state of mind which Shakspeare exhibits to us in _Hamlet_, as the
consequence of conflicting passions and events, operating on a frame
of acute sensibility, Dr. Ferriar has termed _latent lunacy_. "The
subject of _latent lunacy_," he remarks, "is an untouched field, which
would afford the richest harvest to a skilful and diligent observer.
Cervantes has immortalized himself, by displaying the effect of one
bad species of composition on the hero of his satire, and Butler has
delineated the evils of epidemic, religious, and political frenzy; but
it remains as a task for some delicate pencil, to trace the miseries
introduced into private families, by a state of mind, which 'sees more
devils than vast hell can hold,' and which yet affords no proof of
derangement, sufficient to justify the seclusion of the unhappy invalid.
"This is a species of distress, on which no novelist has ever touched,
though it is unfortunately increasing in real life; though it may
be associated with worth, with genius, and with the most specious
demonstrations (for awhile) of general excellence.
"Addison has thrown out a few hints on this subject in one of the
Spectators; it could not escape so critical an observer of human
infirmities; and I have always supposed, that if the character of Sir
Roger de Coverley had been left untouched by Steele, it would have
exhibited some interesting traits of this nature. As it now appears, we
see nothing more than occasional absence of mind; and the peculiarities
of an humourist, contracted by retirement, and by the obsequiousness of
his dependants.
"It has often occurred to me, that Shakspeare's character of _Hamlet_
can only be understood, on this principle. He feigns madness, for
political purposes, while the poet means to represent his understanding
as really, (and unconsciously to himself) unhinged by the cruel
circumstances in which he is placed. The horror of the communication
made by his father's spectre; the necessity of belying his attachment
to an innocent and deserving object; the certainty of his mother's
guilt; and the supernatural impulse by which he is goaded to an act
of assassination, abhorrent to his nature, are causes sufficient
to overwhelm and distract a mind previously disposed to 'weakness
and to melancholy,' and originally full of tenderness and natural
affection. By referring to the book, it will be seen, that his real
insanity is only developed after the mock play. Then, in place of a
systematic conduct, conducive to his purposes, he becomes irresolute,
inconsequent, and the plot appears to stand unaccountably still.
Instead of striking at his object, he resigns himself to the current of
events, and sinks at length, ignobly, under the stream."[407:A]
Dr. Alderson, alluding to the common but cogent argument against
a belief in Ghosts, "that only one man at a time ever saw a
ghost, therefore, the probability is, that there never was such
a thing," adds, in reference to the character of Hamlet, and to
Shakspeare's management of his supernatural machinery, the following
observations:—"From what I have related, it will be seen why it should
happen, that only one at a time ever could see a ghost; and here we
may lament, that our celebrated poet, whose knowledge of nature is
every Englishman's boast, had not known such cases, and their causes
as those I have related; he would not then, perhaps, have made his
ghosts visible and audible on the stage. Every expression, every look
in Macbeth and Hamlet, is perfectly natural and consistent with men
so agitated, and quite sufficient to convince us of what they suffer,
see, and hear; but it must be evident, that the disease being confined
solely to the individual, such objects must be seen and heard only by
the individual. That men so circumstanced as Macbeth or Hamlet, Brutus
and Dion, should see phantoms and hold converse with them, appears to
me perfectly natural; and, though the cases I have now related owe
their origin entirely to a disordered state of bodily organs, as may
be evidently inferred by the history of their rise, and the result of
their cure, yet, with the knowledge we have of the effects of mind on
the body, we may be fairly led to conclude, that great mental anxiety,
inordinate ambition, and guilt may produce similar effects."[409:A]
If Shakspeare, more philosopher than poet, had pursued the plan which
Dr. Alderson has recommended, he would have injured his tragedy, and
wrecked his popularity. We could have spared, indeed, any ocular
demonstration of the mute and blood-boultered ghost of Banquo in
_Macbeth_, but had the ghost in _Hamlet_ been invisible and inaudible,
we should have lost the noblest scene of grateful terror which genius
has ever created.
Nor was it ignorance on the part of Shakspeare which gave birth to the
visibility of this awful spectre, for he has told us, in another place,
that
"Such _shadows_ are the _weak brain's forgeries_."[409:B]
and, even in the very play under consideration, he calls them "the very
coinage of the brain," and adds,—
"This _bodiless creation ecstacy_
Is very cunning in;"[409:C]
but he well knew, that as a dramatic poet, in a superstitious age, it
was requisite, in order to produce a strong and general impression, to
adopt the popular creed, the superstition relative to his subject; and,
as Mrs. Montagu has justly observed, "the poet who does so, understands
his business much better than the critic, who, in judging of that work,
refuses it his attention.—Thus every operation that developes the
attributes, which vulgar opinion, or the nurse's legend, have taught us
to ascribe to 'such a preternatural Being,' will augment our pleasure;
whether we give the reins to our imagination, and, as spectators,
willingly yield ourselves up to pleasing delusion, or, as 'judicious'
Critics, examine the merit of the composition."[410:A]
That an undoubting belief in the actual appearance of ghosts and
apparitions was general in Shakspeare's time, has been the assertion
of all who have alluded to the subject, either as contemporary or
subsequent historians. Addison, at the commencement of the eighteenth
century, speaking of the credulities of the two preceding centuries,
observes, that "our Forefathers looked upon Nature with reverence and
horror—that they loved to astonish themselves with the apprehensions
of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and enchantments.—There was not
a village in England that had not a _ghost_ in it—the church-yards
were all _haunted_—every common had a circle of fairies belonging
to it—and there was scarce a shepherd to be met with who had not
seen a _spirit_[410:B];" and Bourne, who wrote about the same period,
and expressly on the subject of vulgar superstitions, tells us, that
formerly "_hobgoblins_ and _sprights_ were in every _city_, and _town_,
and _village_, by every _water_, and in every _wood_.—If a house was
seated on some melancholy place, or built in some old romantic manner;
or if any particular accident had happened in it, such as murder,
sudden death, or the like, to be sure that house had a mark set on it,
and was afterwards esteemed the habitation of a ghost.—Stories of this
kind are infinite, and there are few _villages_, which have not either
had such an house in it, or near it."[410:C]
Such, then, being the superstitious character of the poet's times, it
was with great judgment that he seized the particulars best adapted to
his purpose, moulding them with a skill so perfect, as to render the
effect awful beyond all former precedent. A slight attention to the
circumstances which accompany the first appearances of the spectre to
Horatio and to Hamlet, will place this in a striking point of view.
The solemnity with which this Royal phantom is introduced is beyond
measure impressive: Bernardo is about to repeat to the incredulous
Horatio what had occurred on the last apparition of the deceased
monarch to Marcellus and himself, and thus commences his narrative:—
"Last night of all,
When yon same star, that's westward from the pole,
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus, and myself,
The bell then beating one:"——
This note of time, the traditionary hour for the appearance of a ghost,
and, above all, the mysterious connection between the course of the
star, and the visitation of the spirit, usher in the "dreaded sight"
with an influence which makes the blood run chill.
A similar correspondence between a natural phenomenon in the heavens,
and the agency of a disembodied spirit, occurs, with an effect which
has been much admired, in a late poem by Lord Byron, where the shade of
Francesca, addressing her apostate lover, and directing his attention
to the orb of night, exclaims,—
"There is a light cloud by the moon—
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon—
If, by the time its vapoury sail
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,
Thy heart within thee is not changed,
Then God and man are both avenged;
Dark will thy doom be, darker still
Thine immortality of ill."[411:A]
The adjuration and interrogation of the ghost by Horatio and Hamlet,
are conducted in conformity to the ceremonies of papal superstition;
for it may be remarked, that in many things relative to religious
observances, or to the preternatural as connected with religion,
Shakspeare has shown such a marked predilection for the imposing
exterior, and comprehensive creed of the Roman church, as to lead some
of his biographers to suppose that he was himself a Roman Catholic.
This adoption, however, is to be attributed to the poetical nature of
the materials which the doctrines of Rome supply, and more particularly
to the food for imagination which the supposition of an intermediate
state, in which the souls of the departed are still connected with, and
influenced by, the conduct of man, must necessarily create.
Such a system, it is evident, would very readily admit some of the
oldest and most prevalent superstitions of the heathen world, and would
give fresh credibility to the re-appearance of the dead, in order to
reveal and to punish some horrible murder, to right the oppressed
orphan and the widow, to enjoin the sepulture of the mangled corse,
to discover concealed and ill-gotten treasure, to claim the aid of
prayer and intercession, to announce the fate of kingdoms, &c. &c.
Thus Horatio, addressing the Spectre, alludes to some of these as the
probable causes of the dreadful visitation which appals him:—
"Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me!
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, or grace to me,
Speak to me:
If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!
Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it."[412:A]
With a still higher degree of anxiety, curiosity, and terror, does
Hamlet, as might naturally be expected, invoke the spirit of his
father; his address being wrought up to the highest tone of amazement
and emotion, and clothed with the most vigorous expression of poetry:—
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
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,
King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,
With thoughts beyond the riches of our souls?
Say why is this? wherefore? what should we do?"[413:A]
The doubts and queries of this most impressive speech are similar to
those which are allowed to be entertained, and directed to be put, by
contemporary writers on the subject of apparitions. Thus the English
Lavaterus enjoins the person so visited to charge the spirit to
"declare and open what he is—who he is, why he is come, and what he
desireth;" saying,—"Thou Spirite, we beseech thee by Christ Jesus,
tell us what thou art;" and he then orders him to enquire, "What man's
soule he is? for what cause he is come, and what he doth desire?
Whether he require any ayde by prayers and suffrages? Whether by
massing or almes giving he may be released?" &c. &c.[413:B]
In pursuance of the same judicious plan of adopting the popular
conceptions, and giving them dignity and effect, by that philosophy
of the supernatural which has been remarked as so peculiarly the
gift of Shakspeare[414:A], we find him employing, in these scenes of
super-human interference, the traditional notions of his age, relative
to the influence of approaching light on departed spirits, as intimated
by the crowing of the cock, and the fading lustre of the glow-worm.
One of the passages which have so admirably immortalised these
superstitions, contains also another not less striking, concerning
the supposed sanctity and protecting power of the nights immediately
previous to Christmas-Day. On the sudden departure of the Spirit,
Bernardo remarks,—
"It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
_Hor._ And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.
_Mar._ It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."[414:B]
"————————— Fare thee well at once!"
exclaims the apparition on retiring from the presence of his son,
"The glow-worm shows the matins to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire."[414:C]
This idea of spirits flying the approach of morning, appears from
the hymn of _Prudentius_, quoted by Bourne, to have been entertained
by the Christian world as early as the commencement of the fourth
century[415:A]; but a passage still more closely allied to the lines
in Shakspeare, has been adduced by Mr. Douce, from a hymn composed by
Saint Ambrose, and formerly used in the Salisbury service.—"It so
much resembles," he observes, "Horatio's speech, that one might almost
suppose Shakspeare had seen them:—
"_Preco diei jam sonat_,
Noctis profundæ pervigil;
Nocturna lux viantibus,
A nocte noctem segregans.
_Hoc excitatus Lucifer,
Solvit polum caligine;
Hoc omnis errorum chorus
Viam nocendi deserit.
Gallo canente spes redit_, &c."[415:B]
"The epithets _extravagant_ and _erring_," he adds, "are highly
poetical and appropriate, and seem to prove that Shakspeare was not
altogether ignorant of the Latin language."[415:C]
With what awful and mysterious grandeur has he invested the Popish
doctrine of purgatory! a doctrine certainly well calculated for
poetical purposes, and of which the particulars must have been familiar
to him, through the writings of his contemporaries. Thus the English
Lavaterus, detailing the opinions of the Roman Catholics on this
subject, tells us, that "Purgatorie is also under the earth as Hel
is. Some say that Hell and Purgatorie are both one place, albeit the
paines be divers according to the deserts of soules. Furthermore they
say, that under the earth there are more places of punishment in which
the soules of the dead may be purged. For they say, that this or that
soule hath ben seene in this or that mountaine, floud, or valley, where
it hath committed the offence: that there are particuler Purgatories,
assigned unto them for some special cause, before the day of Judgement,
after which time all maner of Purgatories, as well general as
particuler shal cease. Some of them say, that the paine of Purgatorie
is al one with the punishment of Hel, and that they differ only in
this, that the on hath an end, the other no ende: and that it is far
more easie to endure all the paynes of this worlde, which al men since
Adam's time have susteined, even unto the day of the last Judgement,
than to bear one dayes space the least of those two punishments.
Further they holde that our fire, if it be compared with the fire of
Purgatorie, doth resemble only a painted fire."[416:A]
From this temporary place of torment, he informs us, that, "by Gods
licence and dispensation, certaine, yea before the day of Judgement,
are permitted to come out, and that not for ever, but only for a
season, for the instructing and terrifying of the lyving:"—and
again:—"Many times in the nyght season, there have beene certaine
spirits hearde softely going——who being asked what they were, have
made aunswere that they were the soules of this or that man, and that
they nowe endure extreame tormentes. If by chaunce any man did aske of
them, by what meanes they might be delivered out of those tortures,
they have aunswered, that in case a certaine numbre of Masses were sung
for them, or Pilgrimages vowed to some Saintes, or some other such
like deedes doone for their sake, that then surely they shoulde be
delivered."[416:B]
Never was the art of the poet more discoverable, than in the use
which has been made of this doctrine in the play before us, and more
particularly in the following narrative, which instantly seizes on the
mind, and fills it with that indefinite kind of terror that leads to
the most horrible imaginings:—
"_Ghost._ My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.
_Ham._ Alas, poor ghost!——
_Ghost._ I am thy father's spirit;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood."[417:A]
In this hazardous experiment, of placing before our eyes a spirit from
the world of departed souls, no one has approached, by many degrees,
the excellence of our poet. The shade of Darius, in the Persians of
Æschylus, has been satisfactorily shown, by a critic of great ability,
to be far inferior[417:B]; nor can the ghosts of Ossian, who is justly
admired for delineations of this kind, be brought into competition with
the Danish spectre; neither the Grecian, nor the Celtic mythology,
indeed, affording materials equal, in point of impression, to those
which existed for the English bard. We may also venture to affirm, that
the management of Shakspeare, in the disposition of his materials,
from the first shock which the sentinels receive, to that which
Hamlet sustains in the closet of his mother, is perfectly unrivalled,
and, more than any other, calculated to excite the highest degree of
interest, pity, and terror.
It is likewise no small proof of judgment in our poet, that he has
only _once_ attempted to unveil, in this direct manner, the awful
destiny of the dead, and to embody, as it were, at full length, a
missionary from the grave; for the ghost of _Banquo_, and the spectral
appearances in _Julius Cæsar_ and _Richard the Third_, are slight
and powerless sketches, when compared with the tremendous visitation
in _Hamlet_, beyond which no human imagination can ever hope to
pass.[418:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[356:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. pp. 37-39. Act i. sc. 3.
[357:A] See Stowe's Chronicle, and Gabriel Harvey's Letter in the
Preface to Spenser's Works, edit. 1679.
[357:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 38. note 2.
[357:C] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 272.
[357:D] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 268.
[357:E] Supplemental Apology, p. 286.
[358:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 269.
[358:B] Supplemental Apology, p. 284.
[359:A] British Bibliographer, vol. ii. p. 115.—The title, which is
wanting in Mr. Capell's copy of 1562, is thus given by Mr. Hazlewood:—
"The Tragicall His-
torye of Romeus and Juliet, writ-
ten first in Italian by Bandell,
and nowe in Englishe by
Ar. Br.
In ædibus Richardi Tottelli.
Cum Priuilegio.
(Col.) Imprinted at London in
Flete strete within Temble barre, at
the signe of the hand and starre, by
Richard Tottill the XIX day of
November. An. do. 1562."
[359:B] "Steevens," remarks Mr. Haslewood, "in a note prefixed to the
play, rather prophetically observes, 'we are not yet at the end of
our discoveries relative to the originals of our author's dramatick
pieces:' true: a play founded on the story of Romeo and Juliet,
appearing on the stage 'with commendation,' anterior to the time of
Shakspeare, is a new discovery for the commentators."
To the notices afforded us by the Commentators on Shakspeare, of
the popularity of the story of Romeo and Juliet, may be added the
following, collected by the industry of Mr. Hazlewood. The first
is from "The Pleasant fable of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, by T.
Peend, Gent. With a morall in English Verse. Anno Domini 1565, Mense
Decembris. (Col.) Imprinted at London in Flete streat beneath the
Conduyt, at the sygne of S. John Euangelyste, by Thomas Colwell. Oct.
24 leaves."
"And Juliet, Romeus yonge,
for bewty did imbrace,
Yet dyd hys manhode well agree,
unto hys worthy grace:"
On which lines occurs the following note, at the end of the
poem:—"Juliet. A noble mayden of the cytye Verona in Italye, whyche
loued Romeus, eldest sonne of the Lorde Montesche, and beinge pryuely
maryed together: he at last poysoned hymselfe for loue of her. She
for sorowe of hys deathe, slewe her selfe in the same tombe, with hys
dagger."—Brit. Bibliographer, vol. ii. pp. 344. 347. 349.
The second instance is from a work entitled "Philotimus. The Warre
betwixt Nature and Fortune. Compiled by Brian Melbancke Student in
Graies Inne. Palladi virtutis famula. Imprinted at London by Roger
Warde, dwelling neere unto Holborne Conduit at the signe of the Talbot,
1583." 4to. pp. 226.
"Nowe Priams sone give place, thy Helen's hew is stainde. O Troylus,
weepe no more, faire Cressed thyne is lothlye fowle. Nor Hercules thou
haste cause to vaunt for thy swete Omphale: _nor Romeo thou hast cause
to weepe for Juliets losse_," &c.—Brit. Bibliographer, vol. ii. pp.
438. 444.
[362:A] The History of Fiction, vol. ii. pp. 339-341. 1st edit.
[364:A] A Course of Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. By
Augustus William Schlegel. Translated from the original German, by John
Black. 8vo. 2 vols. 1815. vol. i. pp. 187, 188.
[364:B] Supplemental Apology, p. 371.
[364:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 349. Act i. sc. 1.
[364:D] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 342.
[364:E] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 5.
[366:A] "I suspect," says Mr. Malone, "that the anonymous _Taming of
a Shrew_ was written about the year 1590, either by George Peele or
Robert Greene."—Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 196.
[366:B] "A very droll print of village society," observes Mr. Felton,
"might be taken" from this interlude. "It might represent this worthy
tinker, at _Marian Hackets_ of Wincot, with _Stephen Sly_, _Old John
Naps o' th' Green_, _Peter Turf_, and _Henry Pimpernell_, not as
smoking their pipes, (as scarce at that day introduced,) but drinking
their ale in _stone-jugs_."—Imperfect Hints towards a New Edition of
Shakspeare, part i. p. 21.
[367:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 176.
[368:A] History of Fiction, 1st edit. vol. iii. p. 131.
[368:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 177.
[369:A] It is remarkable, that a great poet of the present day has
exhibited, in his poetical romances, an equal attachment to this mode
of disguise. I will here also add, that the compass of English poetry
does not, _in point of interest_, afford any thing more stimulating
and attractive than the _Dramas_ of _Shakspeare_, the _Romances_ of
_Scott_, and the _Tales_ of _Byron_.
[369:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 277. Act iv. sc. 3.
[370:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 234. Act ii. sc. 7.
[370:B] Richard the Second was entered on the Stationers' books, on
August 29. 1597; and Richard the Third on October 20. 1597; and both
printed the same year.
[370:C] It must be recollected that Mr. Malone's "Chronological
Order of Shakspeare's Plays," is founded, not on the period of their
publication, but on that of their composition; it is "an attempt to
ascertain the order in which the Plays of Shakspeare were _written_."
[372:A] Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce books, vol. vi. pp. 156.
158, 159.
[372:B] The lines which seem to imply the future intentions of the
poet, are these:—
"_Glo._ Clarence, beware: thou keep'st me from the light;
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee:
For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone:
Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest."
Henry VI. Pt. III. act v. sc. 6.
"_Glo._ I'll blast his harvest, if your head were laid;
For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave;
And heave it shall some weight, or break my back:—
Work thou the way,—and thou shall execute."
Ibid. act v. sc. 7.
[373:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiv. p. 206. Henry VI. Pt. III. act v.
sc. 6.
[373:B] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 205.
[374:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xiv. p. 272. Act i. sc. 1.
[374:B] Ibid. vol. xiv. p. 116.
[376:A] Supplemental Apology, p. 308.
[376:B] "This prince," observes Mr. Godwin, "is universally described
to us as one of the most beautiful youths that was ever beheld; and
from the portrait of him still existing in Westminster Abbey, however
imperfect was the art of painting in that age, connoisseurs have
inferred that his person was admirably formed, and his features cast
in a mould of the most perfect symmetry. His appearance and manner
were highly pleasing, and it was difficult for any one to approach him
without being prepossessed in his favour."—Life of Chaucer, vol. iii.
p. 170. 8vo. edit.
[377:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. p. 108. Act iii. sc. 3.
[377:B] Ibid. vol. xi. p. 98. Act iii. sc. 2.
[378:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xi. pp. 145, 146. Act v. sc. 2.
[378:B] Historie of Great Britaine, folio, pp. 766. 777. 2d edit. 1623.
[379:A] The exception alluded to consists in a quotation from Jonson's
Every Man out of his Humour, first acted in 1599, as an authority for
supposing the Second Part of King Henry IV. to have been written in
1598; and it is a remarkable circumstance, that both Mr. Malone and Mr.
Chalmers have each committed an error in referring to this passage.
It is in Act v. sc. 2. where Fastidius Brisk, in answer to Saviolina,
says,—"No, lady, this is a kinsman to Justice Silence," which Mr.
Malone has converted into Justice Shallow; while Mr. Chalmers tells us,
that "Ben Jonson, certainly, alluded to the Justice Silence of this
play, in his Every Man _in his_ Humour."—Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol.
ii. p. 288. and Chalmers's Supplemental Apology, p. 331.
[379:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xii. p. 3.
[379:C] I have not the smallest doubt but that Meres, in his List of
our author's Plays, published in September, 1598, meant to include both
parts under his mention of Henry IV.; speaking of the poet's excellence
in both species of dramatic composition, he says, "for comedy, witness
his Gentlemen of Verona, &c. &c.;—for tragedy, his Richard II. Richard
III. Henry IV."; and had he recollected the Parts of Henry the Sixth,
he would have included them, also, under the bare title of Henry VI.
[381:A] An ingenious Essay has been lately published by Mr. Luders,
in which an attempt is made, with some success, to prove, that the
youthful dissipation ascribed to Henry, by the chroniclers, is without
any adequate foundation. It is probable, however, that Shakspeare, had
he been aware of this, would have preferred the popular statement, from
its superior aptitude for dramatic effect.
[385:A] Supplemental Apology, p. 348.
[385:B] Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 229.
[386:A] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 291.
[386:B] Preserved in the Harleian Collection, No. 7333, and containing
70 stories.
[386:C] Vide Douce's Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 424.
[387:A] Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 18.; vol. iii.
p. lxxxiii.; and Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 229.
[387:B] "I have examined numerous bibliographical treatises and
catalogues for this edition," says Mr. Dibdin, "without effect. It does
not appear to have been in Dr. Farmer's own collection."—Typographical
Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 366.
[387:C] Dunlop's History of Fiction, 1st edit. vol. ii. p. 336.
[389:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 294, 295. Act ii. sc. 8.
[390:A] Reed's Shakspeare vol. vii. p. 373. Act v.
[391:A] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. pp. 269, 270.
[391:B] This memorandum is as follows:—"The younger sort take much
delight in Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis; but his Lucrece, and his
tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, have it in them to please the
wiser sort, 1598."—Vide Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 2.
[391:C] Supplemental Apology, pp. 351, 352.
[391:D] Ibid. p. 354.
[392:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 174. Act iii. sc. 1.
[394:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 162. Act ii. sc. 2.
[395:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 338. Act v. sc. 1.
[395:B] Ibid. vol. xviii. p. 175. Act iii. sc. 1.
[397:A] Paradise Lost, book i. l. 64.
[398:A] Vide Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 265.
[399:A] Sermons, vol. ii. p. 369.
[400:A] Vide Good's Translation of Job, part v. chap. 33. ver. 22,
23.—I have ventured to alter the language, though I have strictly
adhered to the import of the last line. _Ministers of Death_ have also
been substituted for _Destinies_.
[401:A] Vide Todd's Spenser, vol. iv. pp. 1, 2, 3. Faerie Queene, book
ii. canto 8. stanz. 1 and 2.
[401:B] Todd's Milton, vol. iii. pp. 138, 139. Paradise Lost, book
iv. l. 677.—Shakspeare, it may be remarked, occasionally alludes to
the same species of spiritual hierarchy, and, in the very play we are
engaged upon, Laertes says—
"A _minist'ring angel_ shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling."
Act v. sc. 1.
[402:A] Pope's Iliad, book xxiii.
[403:A] Horsley's Nine Sermons on the Nature of the Evidence by which
the Fact of our Lord's Resurrection is established, p. 209.
[403:B] See an elegant and very satisfactory Dissertation on the
"Mythology of the Poems of Ossian," by Professor Richardson of Glasgow,
in Graham's "Essay on the Authenticity of the Poems of Ossian," 8vo.
1807.
[404:A] Lavaterus was translated into English by R. H. and printed by
Henry Benneyman, in 1572. 4to.
[404:B] See his Treatise on Divels and Spirits, annexed to his
Discoverie of Witchcraft, 4to. 1584.
[404:C] Mede was born in 1586 and died in 1638, and the doctrine in
question is to be found in the fortieth of his fifty-three Discourses,
published after his decease.
[405:A] "A Treatise on the Second Sight, Dreams, Apparitions, &c. By
Theophilus Insulanus." 8vo. Edinb. 1763.
[405:B] Reprint of 1815, annexed to Kirk's "Secret Commonwealth," p. 74.
[407:A] Essay on the Theory of Apparitions, pp. 111-115.—The following
very curious instance of a striking renewal of terrific impressions,
is given by the Doctor in this entertaining little work: it was
communicated to him, he tells us, by the gentleman who underwent the
deception:—
"He was benighted, while travelling alone, in a remote part of the
Highlands of Scotland, and was compelled to ask shelter for the evening
at a small lonely hut. When he was to be conducted to his bed-room, the
landlady observed, with mysterious reluctance, that he would find the
window very insecure. On examination, part of the wall appeared to have
been broken down, to enlarge the opening. After some enquiry, he was
told, that a pedlar, who had lodged in the room a short time before,
had committed suicide, and was found hanging behind the door, in the
morning. According to the superstition of the country, it was deemed
improper to remove the body through the door of the house; and to
convey it through the window was impossible, without removing part of
the wall. Some hints were dropped, that the room had been subsequently
haunted by the poor man's spirit.
"My friend laid his arms, properly prepared against intrusion of any
kind, by the bedside, and retired to rest, not without some degree of
apprehension. He was visited, in a dream, by a frightful apparition,
and awaking in agony, found himself sitting up in bed, with a pistol
grasped in his right hand. On casting a fearful glance round the room,
he discovered, by the moon-light, a corpse, dressed in a shroud, reared
erect, against the wall, close by the window. With much difficulty,
he summoned up resolution to approach the dismal object, the features
of which, and the minutest parts of its funeral apparel, he perceived
distinctly. He passed one hand over it; felt nothing; and staggered
back to the bed. After a long interval, and much reasoning with
himself, he renewed his investigation, and at length discovered that
the object of his terror was produced by the moon-beams, forming a
long, bright image, through the broken window, on which his fancy,
impressed by his dream, had pictured, with mischievous accuracy, the
lineaments of a body prepared for interment. Powerful associations
of terror, in this instance, had excited the recollected images with
uncommon force and effect." Pp. 24-28.
[409:A] Essay on Apparitions, annexed to the fourth edition of his
Essay on the Rhus Toxicodendron, pp. 68, 69.
[409:B] Rape of Lucrece, vide Malone's Supplement, vol. i. p. 500.
[409:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 250, 251.
[410:A] Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakspeare. 8vo. 5th edit.
pp. 162. 165.
[410:B] Spectator, No. 419.
[410:C] Bourne's Antiquities of the Common People, 1725, edition apud
Brand, pp. 119. 122, 123.
[411:A] The Siege of Corinth, p. 34.
[412:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 21.
[413:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. p. 70-74. Act i. sc. 4.
[413:B] "Of ghostes and spirites walking by nyght," Parte the Seconde,
pp. 106, 107. 4to. B. L., 1572. From the chapter entitled, "The
Papistes doctrine touching the soules of dead men, and the appearing of
them."
[414:A] Madame De Stael observes, "there is always something
philosophical in the supernatural employed by Shakspeare." The
Influence of Literature on Society, vol. i. p. 297.
[414:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. pp. 22-25. Act i. sc. 1.
[414:C] Ibid. pp. 86, 87. Act i. sc. 5.
[415:A] Antiquitates Vulgares apud Brand, p. 68.—It has been
observed by Mr. Steevens, that "this is a very ancient superstition.
Philostratus, giving an account of the apparition of Achilles' shade
to Apollonius Tyaneus, says that it vanished with a little glimmer as
soon as the _cock crowed_." Vit. Apol. iv. 16. Reed's Shakspeare, vol.
xviii. p. 25. note.
[415:B] "See Expositio hymnorum secundum usum Sarum, pr. by R. Pynson,
n. d., 4to. fol. vij. b."
[415:C] Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. ii. p. 201.
[416:A] "Of ghostes and spirites walking by nyght," 1572. The seconde
parte, chap. ii. p. 103.
[416:B] The seconde parte, chap. ii. p. 104.; and The first parte,
chap. xv. p. 72.
[417:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xviii. pp. 77-80. Act i. sc. 5.
[417:B] See Montagu on the Preternatural Beings of Shakspeare, in her
Essay, p. 160. 165.
[418:A] It has been asserted by Gildon, but upon what foundation does
not appear, that Shakspeare wrote the scene of the Ghost in Hamlet,
in the church-yard bordering on his house at Stratford.—Vide Reed's
Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 4.