it appears surprising strange that in the present instance, the pirate ship simply grapples with its prey with the evident purpose of allowing Hamlet, who is on the watch, to leap aboard. That done, then instantly, forgetful of its pirate trade, it cuts loose, and, abandoning the royal ship and its rich booty without a fight on either side, retraces its course immediately, and bears the one desired prize back in safety to Denmark. The mystery, which surrounds the transaction, is cleared away by Hamlet himself, when he tells Horatio that they were, not piratical thieves, but thieves of mercy who knew what they were doing, for he was to do a good turn for them. Nothing further is manifestly wanting to show that the Prince's capture by the pretended pirate ship, was the successful execution of his predicted counterplot.

Hamlet's letter to Horatio is necessarily couched in cautious and ambiguous phrases. If it fell into the hands of the enemy, it would compromise both his friend and the officers of the pirate ship. It was, however, sufficiently clear to one who was a sharer in the stratagem; and its chief purpose was to assure him of its success and to demand his immediate presence. He has words to speak in his ear that will strike him dumb. They are too grave and alarming to commit to writing, and so he reserves them for a private interview. He has actually in his possession documentary evidence which proves that his uncle sent him to England with the sealed positive order that he be murdered there by proxy.

SCENE SEVENTH

IN SECRET CONFERENCE

We now come to a remarkable and vivid portrayal of the king's ingenious villainy. With crafty skill he forms and fashions Laertes to his nefarious will, as clay in a potter's hands. If in a former brief appearance, Laertes left a good impression, he now destroys it by actions which disclose his real character. Naturally impetuous, fiery of temperament, and ruled by passion rather than by reason, he reveals himself, on returning from his libertine life in Paris, as indiffer ent to noble ideals of honor and of justice, and willingly agrees to become the base tool of a crafty criminal. If, of the two conspirators, Claudius is the master villain, Laertes by his own suggestion of the use of poison, proves himself no mean adept in the ways of infamy.

By forcing upon our notice the deep contrast between Hamlet and Laertes, the Poet in the present scene seems intent upon a further glorification of his hero. If the one is characterized by a love of truth, sincerity, virtue, justice, and of all that is honorable; the latter in contempt of them all, enters ignobly into an alliance with falsehood, treachery, and crime. The whole scene is a strong sketch in black and white, in which the evil traits of Laertes, serve to illuminate all the more the nobility of Hamlet's nature.

The curtain rises on the two conspirators in secret conference. The King is supposed to have narrated to Laertes what the audience knows well already: namely, that in an attempt at his life, Hamlet had in mistake slain Polonius. In consequence, Claudius claims the friendship and alliance of

Laertes; since both are animated by the same purpose of revenge. Laertes, however, can not understand why the King, even when impelled by his own safety, did not vindicate the law against so capital an offence. Claudius assigns two reasons: the one on the part of Hamlet's mother, and the other on the part of the people. "The Queen lives almost by his looks," and, as a star can move only within its sphere, so was he held in check by her. On the other hand, "the general gender," or common people love him so highly that his faults seem graces in their eyes; and any attempt to punish or restrain him, would appear as so many injuries perpetrated against his innocence and good qualities: to put gyves upon him was only to endear him to the people.

Laertes in smothered feelings of disgust at the fears and weakness of the King, recounts his dual loss as motives for insisting on revenge, and in reference to his sister's perfections, makes a beautiful allusion to an olden ceremony at the coronation of the Kings of Hungary. It was customary for the newly-crowned monarch to stand on the Mount of Defiance at Pressburg, and unsheathing the sword of State, to extend it towards the four quarters of the globe, challenging the world the while to dispute his claim. Claudius in reply, protests that he is not a dull weakling to be branded with fear in face of danger; and when, in the hope of speedy news from the ambassadors, he proceeds to offer proof, he is interrupted by the sudden entrance of a messenger with letters for the King and Queen from the lord Hamlet.

In a refinement of irony, the letter to Claudius shatters his dream at the moment when he is gloating over the prospect of soon communicating to Laertes the news of Hamlet's execution. The letter, formal and diplomatic, informs him that Hamlet has returned alone to Denmark, and promises to recount to him on the morrow the occasion of his sudden

and strange return. The King, surprised and startled, is scarcely able to believe his eyes, and in sheer bewilderment turns to consult Laertes. He, though equally lost in sur prise, rejoices at the news; the prospect of challenging on the morrow the slayer of his father causes his heart to glow still more with its mad sickness for revenge.

CONSPIRATORS

After Hamlet had delved beneath the King's mine, and exploded it, Claudius nonplussed, was at sea regarding his next move; but hearing Laertes' implied challenge of the Prince, he instantly grasped at a new plot which it suggested to his mind so astute and quick in treachery. It is, he informs Laertes, a device which cannot fail, nor will it stir even a breath of suspicion or of blame in the mind of the mother, who must needs charge her son's death to a chance stroke in the play of fencing. Laertes without hesitation and without a scruple assents to the King's murderous device, and, as Claudius expected, demands that he himself be the cause of Hamlet's death.

The King proceeds to explain how speciously he may arrange the desired fencing bout with Laertes. The Prince, though addicted to philosophy, was by no means lost in its study; graced in kingly accomplishments and famed for skill with the sword, it was as "a courtier and a soldier" that he was "the expectancy and rose of the fair state." These qualities, and not his love for philosophy, won him popularity with the people. The King, therefore, relying on the Prince's well-known accomplishments, reasonably expected to convince Laertes of Hamlet's jealousy. In feline cunning he begins to work upon the young man's vanity by exaggerating the common rumor of his prowess of arms, which, often repeated in Hamlet's hearing, had stirred his soul to envy. Of

all his accomplishments, Hamlet, he affirms, envied none so much as his skill with the sword, a skill which, though a "mere riband in the cap of youth," is, nevertheless, most becoming to an aspiring youthful knight or courtier. To emT bolden Laertes, he further inflames his vanity and selfesteem by alleging new reasons for Hamlet's jealousy. With a mixture of truth and fiction he narrates how recently a Norman soldier," reputed the flower of knight-errantry, had exhibited before the court at Elsinore a skill in horsemanship so rare, and military feats so wondrous as to surpass imagination. Upon Laertes proudly claiming acquaintance with this foreign knight, who is the acknowledged gem of the French nation, Claudius continued: "Supereminent as he was, he surprised all by affirming that no one in France could match Laertes with the rapier." On hearing all this, Hamlet was so envenomed with envy that he often expressed a desire for Laertes' speedy return that he might measure his swordly skill with him.

As Laertes appeared slower than was supposed to catch at his purpose, the King, as a cunning tactician, suddenly changed the course of procedure. If formerly he labored, according to his interest, to smother the mad flame of Laertes' passion, it is now his interest to bestorm his calm of reason, and to rouse him anew to a fiery thirst for revenge. He begins by cunningly questioning the reality of Laertes' love for his father. Does he truly mourn his loss, or is his a painted sorrow, as of a lily-livered, heartless man? Such an unexpected question startles Laertes; but the King satisfied of his affection for his father, argues that love like all

29 This gentleman of Normandy named Lamond" is found to have been Duc de Biron, Marshal of France, born about 1563, and executed in the Bastille by order of Henry IV, July 31, 1602. He had been sent by Henry on an embassy to the English: Court in 1601. Of his wonderful horsemanship Chapman testifies in his drama, The Conspiracy of Biron". He was well known to the English, many of whom served under him at Navarre.