If any further proof is needed of a matter which must be clear to every reasoning mind, it may be found in that solemn scene in which the Prince, oppressed by the burden of a life embittered and defeated in its highest aims, meditates suicide. Now, if there is a time when all affectation of worldly rank would be likely to be forgotten and swallowed up in the contemplation of the terrible deed which occupies the mind, it is such a time as this. And here we find Shakespeare as true as Nature herself. The soldier, weary of life, uses the sword his enemies once feared, to end his troubles. Hamlet's mind overleaps the interval of his princely life, and the weapon which is most naturally suggested by his youthful career is "a bare bodkin."
Had I not already written more than I intended on this subject, I might go on with many other evidences of the truth of my view of this remarkable character. I did wish also to show that Hamlet was a most disreputable character, and by no means entitled to the sympathy or admiration of men. Suffice it to say that he was, even to his last hour, fonder of drink than became a prince (except perhaps a Prince Regent)—that he treated Ophelia improperly—that he often spoke of his step-father in profane terms—that he indulged in the use of profane language even in his soliloquies, as for example,—
"The spirit I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness, and my melancholy,
(As he is very potent with such spirits)
Abuses me too,—damme!"
His familiarity with the players likewise is an incontrovertible proof of his depravity; for the theatrical people of Denmark in his age were not what the players of our day are. They were too often people of loose and reckless lives, careless of moral and social obligations, and whose company would by no means be acceptable to a truly philosophic prince.
If this pre-Raphaelite sketch of Hamlet's character should seem unsatisfactory, it can be filled out by a perusal of the play itself, if the reader will only cast aside the trammels which the commentators have placed in his way. It may be a new view to most of my readers; but I am convinced that the theory, of which I have given an outline, is fully as tenable as many of the countless conjectural essays to which that matchless drama has given rise. If it be untrue, why, then we must conclude that all similar theories, though they may be sustained by as many passages as I have adduced in support of my Hibernico-sartorial hypothesis, are equally devoid of a foundation of common sense. If my theory stands, I have the satisfaction of having connected my name (which would else be soon forgotten) with one of Shakespeare's masterpieces; and that is all that any commentator has ever done. And if my theory proves false, it consoles me to think that the splendour of the genius which I so highly reverence is in no wise obscured thereby; for the stability and grandeur of the temple cannot be impaired by the obliteration of the ambitious scribblings and chalk-marks with which some aspiring worshippers may have defaced its portico.
MEMORIALS OF MRS. GRUNDY
Of all the studies to which I was ever impelled in my youth, either by fear of the birch or by the hope of the laurel or the bays, mythology was perhaps the most charming. It was refreshing, after trying in vain to conjugate a verb, and being at last obliged to decline it—after adding up a column of figures several times, and getting many different results, and none of them the right one—and after making a vain attempt to comprehend the only algebraic knowledge that ever was forced into my unmathematical brain, viz., that x equals an unknown quantity,—it was, I say, refreshing to turn over the leaves of my Classical Dictionary, and revel among the gods and heroes whose wondrous careers were embalmed in its well-thumbed pages. Lemprière was the great magician who summoned up before my delighted eyes the denizens of a sphere where existence was unvexed by any pestilent arithmetics, and where the slavery of the inky desk was unknown. It always seemed to me as if the knowledge that I gained out of those enchanted chronicles not only improved my mind, but made my body more robust; for I joined in the chase, fought desperate battles, as the gods willed it, and breathed all the while the pure, invigorating air of old Olympus. The consecrated groves were the dwelling-place of my mind, and I became for a time a sharer in the joys of beings in whom I believed with all the ardour and simplicity of childhood. I enjoyed my mythological readings all the more because they did not generally find favour with my school companions, most of whom vindicated their nationality by professing their affection for the Rule of Three. One of them, I remember, was especially severe on the uselessness of the studies in which I took pleasure. He, parcus deorum cultor, et infrequens, could get no satisfaction out of the books in which I revelled; if he had got to study or read, he could not afford to waste his brains over the foolish superstitions of three thousand years ago. He did not care how much romance and poetic beauty there might be in the ancient mythology: what did it all come to in the end? It didn't pay. It was a humbug. Our paths in life separated when we graduated from jackets and peg-tops. He remained faithful to his boyish instincts, and pursued the practical as if it were a reality. After a few years his face lost all its youthful look; an intense spirit of acquisitiveness gleamed in his calculating eye, and an interest table seemed to be written in the lines of his care-worn countenance. We seldom had any conversation in our after years, for he always seemed to be under some restraint, as if he feared that I wished to borrow a little money of him, and he did not wish to refuse for the sake of the old time when we sat at the same desk, although he knew that my note was good for nothing. His devotion to his deity, the practical, did not go unrewarded. He became like the only mythological personage whom he would have envied, had he known any thing of the science he despised. His touch seemed to transmute every thing into gold. His speculations during the war of 1812 were all successful. Eastern lands harmed him not. The financial panic of 1837 only put money in his purse. He rolled up a large fortune, and was happy. He looked anxious, but of course he was happy. What man ever devoted his life to the working out of the dreams of his youth in the acquisition of riches, and succeeded beyond his anticipations, without being very happy? But, if his gains were something practical and real, his losses were doubly so. Each one of them was as a dagger stuck into that sere heart. His only son gave him much trouble by his wild life, and, what touched him still more, wasted the money he had laboured to pile up, at the gaming tables of Baden. I saw him walking down Tremont Street the other day, looking care-worn and miserable, and I longed to ask him what he thought of the real and practical after trying them. He would certainly have been willing to acknowledge that there is more reality in the romance and poetry of mythology than in the thousands which he invested in the Bay State Mills. His practical life has brought him vanity and vexation of spirit, while the old Lemprière, which he used to treat so contemptuously, flourishes in immortal youth, unhurt amid the wreck of fortunes and the depreciation of stocks.
But I am not writing an essay on mythology. I wish to treat of one who is sometimes considered a myth, but who is a living and breathing personality like all of us. This wide-spread scepticism is one of the most fatal signs of the times. Because the late Mrs. Sairey Gamp supposed herself justified in cultivating a little domestic mythology in the shade of the famous Mrs. Harris, are we to take all the personages who have illustrated history as myths and unrealities? Shade of Herodotus, forbid it! There are some unbelieving and irreverent enough to doubt whether there is really such a person as Mrs. Partington; other some there are so hardened in their incredulity as to question the existence of the individual who smote Mr. William Patterson, and even of the immortal recipient of the blow himself. Therefore we ought not to think it strange that the lady whose name adorns the title of this article should not have escaped the profane spirit of the age.
Unfortunately for us, Mrs. Grundy is no myth, but a terrible reality. She is a widow. The late Mr. Grundy bore it with heroic patience as long as he could, and then, by a divine dispensation in which he gladly acquiesced, was relieved of the burden of life. If he be not happy now, the great doctrine of compensation is nought but a delusion and a sham. If endless happiness could only be attained through such a purgatory as poor Grundy's life, few of us, I fear, would yearn to be counted among the elect. Martyrs, and confessors, and saints of every degree have won their crowns of beatitude with comparative ease; if they had been subjected to a twenty years' novitiate with Mrs. Grundy and her tireless tongue, they would have found how much more terrible that was than the laborious life or cruel death by which they passed from earth, and fewer bulls of canonization would have received the Seal of the Fisherman. I have heard from those who were acquainted with that estimable and uncomplaining man that he married for love. His wife was a person of considerable attractions, of an inquiring turn of mind, and of uncommon energy of character. In her care of his household there was nothing of which he might with reason complain. She kept a sharp look-out over all those matters in which the prudent housewife delights to show her skill; her table was worthy to receive regal legs beneath its shining mahogany and spotless cloth, and I have even heard that her husband never had occasion to curse mentally over the lack of a shirt-button. Yet was Giles Grundy, Esquire, one of the most miserable of men. Of what avail was it to him that his wife could preserve quinces, if she could not preserve her own peace of mind? What did it matter how well she cured hams, if she always failed so miserably in curing her tongue? What profit was it that her accounts with her butcher and grocer were always correctly kept, if her accounts of all her neighbours constantly overran and kept her and her spouse in a perpetual state of moral bankruptcy? What difference did it make how well she took care of her own family, if they were to be kept in an unending turmoil by her solicitude concerning that of every body else?
If you had visited Mrs. Grundy, and remarked the brightness of the door-knocker, the stair-rods, the andirons, and every other part of her premises that was susceptible of polish, and the scrupulous cleanliness that held absolute sway around her, you would have sworn that she was gifted with the hundred arms of Briareus: if you had listened for fifteen minutes to her observations of men and things, you would have had a conviction amounting to absolute certainty that she possessed the eyes of Argus. Nobody ever doubted that she was a most religious person. She attended to all her religious duties with most edifying exactness. She was always in her seat at church, and could tell you, to a bonnet ribbon, the dress of every person who honoured the sacred edifice with his or her presence. If you would know who of the congregation were so lacking in fervour of spirit as to neglect to bow in the creed, or to commit the impropriety of nodding during the sermon, Mrs. Grundy could give you all the information you could wish. She carried out the divine precept to the letter: she watched as well as prayed. But her religion did not waste itself in mere devotional ecstasy; it took the most attractive form of religion—that of active benevolence. And her pious philanthropy was not of that exclusively telescopic character that looks out for the interests of the Cannibal Islands and the king thereof, and cannot understand that there is any spiritual destitution nearer home. She subscribed, it is true, to support the missionaries with their wives and numerous children, who were devoted to the godly work of converting the Chinese and the Juggernauts; but she did something also in the way of food and flannel for the victims of want in her own neighbourhood. She established a sewing circle in the parish where she lived, and never appeared happier than when busily engaged with her female companions in their weekly task and talk. I am afraid that there was other sowing done in that circle besides plain sewing. The seeds of domestic unhappiness and strife were carried from thence into all parts of the parish. Reputations as well as garments took their turn among those benevolent ladies, and were cut out, and fitted, and basted, and sewed up, and overcast. The sewing circle was Mrs. Grundy's confessional. Do not misapprehend me—I would not asperse her character by accusing her of what are known at the present day as "Romanizing tendencies"; for she lived long before the "scarlet fever" invaded the University of Oxford and carried off its victims by hundreds; and nobody ever suspected her of any desire to tell her own offences in the ear of any human being. No, she detested the Roman confessional in a becoming manner; but she upheld, by word and example, that most scriptural institution, the sewing circle—the Protestant confessional, where each one confesses, not her own sins, but the sins of her neighbours. Mrs. Grundy's success with her favourite institution encouraged others to emulate her example; and now sewing circles are common wherever the mother tongue of that benevolent lady is spoken. It must in justice be acknowledged that there are few institutions of human invention which have departed from the spirit of their original founder so little as the sewing circle.