But none the less dear to us art thou, O Hamlet! and none the less valued and understood by the men of to-day. We love thee like a brother. Thy melancholy is ours, thy wrath is ours, thy contemptuous wit avenges us on those who fill the earth with their empty noise and are its masters. We know the depth of thy suffering when wrong and hypocrisy triumph, and oh! thy still deeper suffering on feeling that that nerve in thee is severed which should lead from thought to victorious action. To us, too, the voices of the mighty dead have spoken from the under-world. We, too, have seen our mother wrap the purple robe of power round the murderer of "the majesty of buried Denmark." We, too, have been betrayed by the friends of our youth; for us, too, have swords been dipped in poison. How well do we know that graveyard mood in which disgust and sorrow for all earthly things seize upon the soul. The breath from open graves has set us, too, dreaming with a skull in our hands!

[1]

OPHELIA.
"To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more."

MEPHISTOFELES.
"Was machst Du mir
Vor Liebchens Thür
Kathrinchen, hier
Bei frühem Tagesblicke?
Lass, lass es sein!
Er lässt dich ein
Als Mädchen ein
Als Mädchen nicht zurücke."

[XVII]

HAMLET'S INFLUENCE ON LATER TIMES

If we to-day can feel with Hamlet, it is certainly no wonder that the play was immensely popular in its own day. It is easy to understand its charm for the cultivated youth of the period; but it would be surprising, if we did not realise the alertness of the Renaissance and its wonderful receptivity for the highest culture, to find that Hamlet was in as great favour with the lower ranks of society as with the higher. A remarkable proof of this tragedy's and of Shakespeare's popularity in the years immediately following its appearance, is afforded by some memoranda in a log-book kept by a certain Captain Keeling, of the ship Dragon, which, in September 1607, lay off Sierra Leone in company with another English vessel, the Hector (Captain Hawkins), both bound for India. They run as follows:—

"September 5 [At "Serra Leona">[. I sent the interpreter, according to his desier, abord the Hector, whear he brooke fast, and after came abord mee, wher we gave the tragedie of Hamlett.

"[Sept.] 30. Captain Hawkins dined with me, wher my companions acted Kinge Richard the Second.

"31. I envited Captain Hawkins to a ffishe dinner, and had Hamlet acted abord me: wch I permitt to keepe my people from idlenes and unlawfull games, or sleepe."