The moral perfection of this character has been called in question, we think, by those who did not understand it. It is more interesting than according to rules; amiable tho not faultless. The ethical delineations of "that noble and liberal casuist"—as Shakespeare has been well called—do not exhibit the drab-colored Quakerism of morality. His plays are not copied either from "The Whole Duty of Man" or from "The Academy of Compliments!" We confess we are a little shocked at the want of refinement in those who are shocked at the want of refinement in Hamlet. The neglect of punctilious exactness in his behavior either partakes of the "license of the time," or else belongs to the very excess of intellectual refinement in the character, which makes the common rules of life, as well as his own purposes, sit loose upon him. He may be said to be amenable only to the tribunal of his own thoughts, and is too much taken up with the airy world of contemplation, to lay as much stress as he ought on the practical consequences of things. His habitual principles of action are unhinged and out of joint with the time. His conduct to Ophelia is quite natural in his circumstances. It is that of assumed severity only. It is the effect of disappointed hope, of bitter regrets, of affection suspended, not obliterated, by the distractions of the scene around him! Amidst the natural and preternatural horrors of his situation, he might be excused in delicacy from carrying on a regular courtship. When "his father's spirit was in arms," it was not a time for the son to make love in. He could neither marry Ophelia, nor wound her mind by explaining the cause of his alienation, which he durst hardly trust himself to think of. It would have taken him years to have come to a direct explanation on the point. In the harassed state of his mind, he could not have done much otherwise than he did. His conduct does not contradict what he says when he sees her funeral:
I loved Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] From the "Characters of Shakespeare's Plays."
THOMAS DE QUINCEY
Born in 1785, died in 1859; son of a wealthy merchant; studied at Oxford without taking a degree; settled at Grasmere, near Coleridge and Wordsworth, about 1808; losing his fortune, sought literary work in London in 1821; contracted at Oxford the opium habit, under which at one time he took 340 grains daily; made his opium experiences the basis of an essay entitled "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," published in 1821; wrote for many periodicals and eventually settled in Edinburgh; his collected works comprize many volumes.