firms, is to enter the soul in time of desolation or melancholy, in order to affect it with pusillanimity, sadness, and languor. This principle was, therefore, recognized by Hamlet, when in the consciousness of the state of his own agitated mind and deep melancholy, he affirmed that the devil "is very potent" with persons who suffer from "melancholy" and from "weakness' of a troubled mind. Actuated, therefore, by the aforesaid principles, Hamlet was very rational in doubting the identity and veracity of the ghost, and most prudent in demanding more evident and tangible proof of the supposed crime of his uncle than the unsubstantial voice of a dubious and mistrusted ghost. If the Play disclose the crime of Claudius, it will also show that the apparition which claimed to be his father's ghost is a spirit good, truthful, and worthy of his confidence. Only after this important fact has been established beyond doubt by the following Act, may he with clear conscience turn to the pursuit of the 'revenge.'

ACT THIRD

SCENE FIRST

THE REPORT OF THE SPIES

Hamlet has been thus far portrayed as harassed by fears and doubts. Before proceeding to action in an affair so momentous as the slaying of Claudius, he felt it his conscientious duty to solve his doubts, and to solve his doubts, he needed time in which he might devise some means of testing whether the message from the grave were from heaven or from hell. A delay was, therefore, dictated by prudence, and not by a desire to shirk his duty. He had, moreover, little to gain by rashness, but much from cautious procedure. If as the idol of the Danes and of the Queen-mother, he felt secure against the open treachery of the King, he relied still more on his own prowess of arms against any sudden sally of his foes. Diligently exercising himself from day to day with the skilful use of the sword, he frequented, fully armed, the halls of the court for the vigilant observance of the smiling villain, and showed himself in the mask of lunacy, not only a match for the wiles of his uncle, but even an over-match for false friends and the cunning of the intriguing chancellor.

The Third Act brings us one day further; and, without notable interruption, events move on to their dreadful climax. Hamlet in the interval had, with his usual energy, devoted himself to the practice of the Players. On the following morning, he presents himself at court in answer to a royal summons. The King was more than ever determined to discover the secret cause of his mad antics. Alone in the knowledge of his hidden crime, he had strong reasons for incredulity. If Ham

let daily observed every move of the King, Claudius in turn observed him with no less vigilance and caution, and not satisfied with setting spies upon him, he himself maintained watchful guards about his person.

At this stage of the drama, Claudius, in supreme uneasiness at the sight of Hamlet's increasing manifestations of "turbulent and dangerous lunacy," had summoned the spies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to report their observations. To the disappointment of the King, they admit their ill success. They had, as he suggested, repeatedly essayed the Prince on the subject of love and ambition, but when they tried to bring him to a confession of his true state, he was loath to be sounded, and with a crafty madness kept himself aloof. Though very sparing of replies to their baited questions, he was on other subjects most copious in speech, and, while admitting his melancholy and mental distraction, he manifested a marked repugnance to touch upon their cause and origin.

The Queen next questions whether they had tempted him to resume his customary exercises, and to play anew their former games and pastimes. In reply, they narrate how but yesterday he gladly welcomed some strolling players, entertained them at the castle, and, indifferent to all else, was now devoting himself to the rehearsal of a tragedy which, according to his design, they are to play to-night before the King and Queen in presence of the whole court. Polonius confirms the report, and adds that the Prince has commissioned him to invite their majesties to attend the Play. Claudius is delighted with the news, and well satisfied at the turn events have taken, urges the spies to cultivate this new form of amusement, and to aid and stimulate Hamlet's interest in the play and Players; perchance, this diversion may lift from his mind the dark clouds of melancholy and distraction.

A STRATAGEM

Polonius enters ready to meet the challenge of the King. Assured of victory, and joyous of mood, he hurries with Ophelia into the presence of Claudius, anxious to reveal before his very eyes the fact that from the first he was correct in the diagnosis of the Prince's lunacy. The King is equally glad to accept the challenge, and eager to employ the stratagem at once, dismisses all save the chancellor and his daughter. Before the Queen departs, he informs her of the plot, and much pleased she turns in a gracious manner to the daughter of Polonius, and with words of high compliment wishes that her good beauties may in truth be the happy cause of her son's distraction, so that her virtues shall bring him to his wonted ways again. As she believes the theory of the minister, her words must have gladdened the heart of the young woman. Now that the Queen, in the presence of her father, wishes her to renew intercourse with Hamlet, she with secret joy deems herself dispensed from the harsh mandate of her parent.

After Hamlet's sworn resolve which followed the interview with the ghost, he had tested Ophelia, and sorrowfully found her devoid of the strength of character he had looked for, a fact which in the present scene, she herself confirms by her conduct. That Ophelia without a single word of protest, should willingly ally herself with the Prince's enemies; that she should without objection acquiesce, and actually play an ignoble part in her father's plot; that, above all, she should make Hamlet's powerful love for her, the snare by which she would entrap him in presence of the King, seems indeed surpassing strange, and may perhaps be explained on the supposition, that she was unware of the full import of her conduct. She had no knowledge of the real cause of Hamlet's transformation; but she did observe that, after she had painfully repelled him, he began to show signs of dementia, which

the whole court ascribed to her unkindness. When, therefore, to test the fact, the King and her father resort to a stratagem, it is, she thinks, for her lover's good, in which she is most of all interested. If they discover the true cause of his madness to be her unkindness, they will surely see the remedy. Unfortunately, Ophelia looks upon the stratagem through the eyes of Hamlet's enemies, all unmindful of how it will be understood by her sensitive and noble-minded lover.

Whatever be the supposition, her readiness to decoy her lover, reveals her a true daughter of her father. His were low ideals of honor; with him it mattered little whether in the pursuit of ends noble or ignoble, "fair was foul, and foul was fair." It is difficult to conceive how Ophelia's mind and heart could long remain uninfluenced by the words and example of such a father, especially when, from tender years bereft of a mother's love and care, she made him her sole and supreme guide in all affairs of life. Herself undeveloped in character, inexperienced in the devious ways of the world, and without her lover's keen ethical sense and lofty ideals of justice and honor, she naturally looked upon her father's commands, regardless of their nature and their consequences, as for her the sum of all morality. Hence, she did not foresee how her act would appear so treacherous and perfidious to 'her lover's eyes, as to exasperate him, and bring down upon her the crashing thunders of a wrathful irony and contempt in a farewell which snapped asunder their bond of love, tore from his heart the one remaining vestige of respect for womanhood, and compelled her to realize all too late how she loved him more than life.

In the scene, the King and Polonius are concealed behind the heavy curtains of the reception hall. Ophelia apparently alone and expecting the entrance of Hamlet at any moment, assumes according to her father's order the guise of