The fifth act of this play, which consists of but one scene, appears to have been intended by the poet to remove the painful impressions incident to the nature of his previous plot; it is light, elegant, and beautifully written, and, though the main business of the drama finishes with the termination of the fourth act, it is not felt as an incumbrance, but on the contrary is beheld and enjoyed as a graceful, animated, and consolatory close to one of the most perfect productions of its author.
15. Hamlet: 1597. That this tragedy had been performed before 1598 is evident from Gabriel Harvey's note in Speght's edition of Chaucer, as quoted by Mr. Malone[391:B]; and, from the intimations of time brought forward by Mr. Chalmers[391:C], we are induced to adopt the era of this gentleman, placing the first sketch of Hamlet early in 1597, and its revision with additions in 1600.[391:D] Soon after which, namely, on the 26th of July, 1602, it was entered on the Stationers' book, the first edition hitherto discovered being printed in the year 1604.
No character in our author's plays has occasioned so much
discussion, so much contradictory opinion, and, consequently, so much perplexity, as that of Hamlet. Yet we think it may be proved that Shakspeare had a clear and definite idea of it throughout all its seeming inconsistencies, and that a very few lines taken from one of the monologues of this tragedy, will develope the ruling and efficient feature which the poet held steadily in his view, and through whose unintermitting influence every other part of the portrait has received a peculiar modification. We are told, as the result of a deep but unsatisfactory meditation on the mysteries of another world, on "the dread of something after death," that
—— "thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."[392:A]
Now this pale cast of thought and its consequences, which, had not Hamlet been interrupted by the entrance of Ophelia, he would have himself applied to his own singular situation, form the very essence, and give rise to the prominent defects of his character. It is evident, therefore, that Shakspeare intended to represent him as variable and indecisive in action, and that he has founded this want of volition on one of those peculiar constitutions of the mental and moral faculties which have been designated by the appellation of genius, a combination of passions and associations which has led to all the useful energies, and all the exalted eccentricities of human life; and of which, in one of its most exquisite but speculative forms, Hamlet presents us with perhaps the only instance on theatric record.