Page 306.
The Prince's Resolution upon his going to his Mother, is beautifully express'd, and suitable to his Character.
Page 306, 307.
What Rosincrantz says of the Importance of the King's Life, is express'd by a very just Image.
Page 307.
The King's seeming so very much touch'd with a Sense of his Crime, is supposed to be owing to the Representation he had been present at; but I do not well see how Hamlet is introduced so as to find him at Prayers. It is not natural, that a King's Privacy should be so intruded on, not even by any of his Family, especially, that it should be done without his perceiving it.
Page 309.
Hamlet's Speech upon seeing the King at Prayers, has always given me great Offence. There is something so very Bloody in it, so inhuman, so unworthy of a Hero, that I wish our Poet had omitted it. To desire to destroy a Man's Soul, to make him eternally miserable, by cutting him off from all hopes of Repentance; this surely, in a Christian Prince, is such a Piece of Revenge, as no Tenderness for any Parent can justify. To put the Usurper to Death, to deprive him of the Fruits of his vile Crime, and to rescue the Throne of Denmark from Pollution, was highly requisite: But there our young Prince's Desires should have stop'd, nor should he have wished to pursue the Criminal in the other World, but rather have hoped for his Conversion, before his putting him to Death; for even with his Repentance, there was at least Purgatory for him to pass through, as we find even in a virtuous Prince, the Father of Hamlet.
Page 310.
Enter the Queen and Polonius, and afterwards Hamlet.