The frontispiece to this volume is taken from a hitherto unreproduced etching by Mr. S. J. B. Haydon, and is included herein by the kind permission of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, to whom grateful acknowledgment is here made.

INTRODUCTION

BY

F. J. FURNIVALL, M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt.

ASSISTED BY JOHN MUNRO

66

HAMLET.-In his play of Hamlet Shakspere passes from the seven-hilld city, so long the empress of the world, from Rome, wherein the drama of the doom of the mightiest Cæsar has been acted, to " Denmarke, the whyche is a very poore countre, bare, and full of penurite,"1 and yet a country which, like Rome, conquerd England. The Danes hath bene good warryers, but for theyr poverte I do marueyle how they dyd get ones Englonde. They be subtyll-wytted, and they do proll muche about to get a prey." Of Elsinore, Miss Deedes says : Many a warm and starlight summer's eve have I passed sitting on the rocks, below the ramparts of the castle. Who could describe the perfection of such a scene and such a situation? The calm sea rippling at one's feet; opposite, the bright lights of the Swedish town; and nearer still the manycoloured lanterns of the numerous ships anchored and at rest for the night. Above, the shining stars, excelling in beauty, purity, and brightness all earthly lights; in one's ears the great silence of a summer's night, broken only by the musical whisper of the

1 1542. Andrew Boorde, p. 163 of my edition.

rippling waves, the chimes from the town, and the bells in the ships as the midnight hour draws near. Behind, the grim old walls, whereon it is not difficult to imagine that one sees the dark figures of Hamlet and his friends, and the shadowy vision of the ghost; or to fancy one's ear saluted with the Who goes there?' of the sentry, the wild pleading of Hamlet, and the sepulchral tones of his supernatural visitor." But it is on no sweet summer's eve that Shakspere, with his sense of nature's sympathy with man, has put his Hamlet; biting winter is the time for that. Let us first, tho', look at the links with Julius Cæsar, links of likeness as well as contrast. There are first, three mentions of Julius Cæsar in the play by Horatio, in I. i.; Polonius, in III. ii.; Hamlet, in V. i. Then 2, there is the burden of setting right the times out of joint, put as a duty on a student, a man who knows himself unfit for the burden, and who in bearing it brings death to himself and the woman who loves him, her mind giving way under the strain. 3. As Antony has to revenge his friend Cæsar's murder, so Hamlet and Laertes have to revenge their fathers' murders; and Laertes accepts his duty as willingly as Antony does. 4. A ghost appears in each play. 5. Antony's character of Brutus after Ideath is like that of Hamlet's father. 6. Brutus's words to Messala in Act IV., sc. iii., of Julius Cæsar on Portia's death " we must die," "she must die once," are like Gertrude's and Claudius's to Hamlet on his father's death, "all that lives must die," etc. 7. Hamlet's making his speech of a dozen or sixteen lines the turning-point of his vengeance is like Brutus