second version of the story has received much
softening in its details, and much philosophical
illustration in the super-added reflections—
in fact, had evidently been touched up for the
sake of a moral application. It is preceded
with an argument, and attended with
marginal indices, all affecting the profound and
solemn—setting forth how "the desire of
rule causeth men to become traytors and
murtherers," with "the miserable condition
of such as rule over others," and how
"Romulus, for small or no cause, killed his
brother:" adding thereto, the opinion of
Cicero, the ambitious and seditious orator of
Rome, who, in his Paradoxes, "supposed the
degrees and steps to heaven, and the ways to
vertue, to consist in the treasons, ravishments,
and massacres committed by him that
first layd the foundations of that citty."  All
this is but the prelude to other classical
statements, concerning Tarquin the Elder,
Servius Tullius, Absolon and David, and the
Sultans Zelin and Soliman; concluding with
pertinent remarks on "the slowness of God's
judgments," ventured on the authority of
Plutarch Opuscules, and which may be
accepted as an apology for Hamlet's own tardy
manner of taking revenge for his father's
murder.

* See an article at page 372 of the present Volume,
entitled Touching the Lord Hamlet.

I will now mark a few of the differences
between the statements of Saxo-Grammaticus
and those of Belleforest, from whose Histoires
Tragiques the aforesaid novel or hystorie is
taken—premising that the novels of
Belleforest began to be published in fifteen
hundred and sixty-four, and included the story
of Amleth, under the following title: "Avec
quelle ruse Amleth, qui depuis fut Roy de
Dannemarch, vengea la mort de son pere
Horvvendile, occis par Fengon, son frere, et
autre occurrence de son histoire."

The assumption of madness on the part of
young Hamlet is dignified by the novelist
with classic references. Accordingly we
are instructed, that though the apparently
demented nephew of the usurper "had beene
at the schoole of the Romane Prince, who,
because hee counterfeited himselfe to bee a
foole, was called Brutus, yet hee imitated his
fashions and his wisdome."  He made indeed
"sport to the pages and ruffling courtiers
that attended in the court of his uncle and
father-in-law;" nevertheless, "the young
prince noted them well enough, minding one
day to bee revenged in such manner, that the
memorie thereof should remaine perpetually
to the world." For the justification of
Brutus' conduct we are then referred
marginally to Titus Livius and Halicarnassus,
whom we are directed to read. Whereupon
to this instance, the author adds the example
of King David, "that counterfeited the madde
man among the petie kings of Palestina to
preserve his life from the subtill practices of
those kings." I note these particulars
because in them are suggestions to the poet,
whether Kyd or Shakspeare, for the dramatic
elevation ot the subject. Shakspeare derived
from such his notion of the famous scene
between him and Ophelia (act three, scene
one). Those who were of "quicke spirits,"
and had begun to suspect that under Hamlet's
seeming "folly there lay hidden a greate
and rare subtilty," lost no time in counselling
"the king to try and know, if it were possible,
how to discover the intent and meaning
of the young prince; and they could find no
better nor more fit invention to intrap him,
than to set some faire and beawtifull woman
in a secret place, that with flattering speeches
and all the craftiest meanes she could use,
should purposely seek to allure his mind."
But Hamlet had a friend, who, by timely
warning, saved him from the snare. "He
gave Hamblet intelligence in what danger he
was like to fall, if by any meanes he seemed
to obaye, or once like the wanton toyes and
vicious provocations of the gentlewoman sent
thither by his uncle. Which much abashed
the prince, as then wholy beeing in affection
to the lady, but by her he was likewise
informed of the treason, as being one that from
her infancy loved and favoured him, and
would have been exceedingly sorrowfull for
his misfortune, whome shee loved more than
herselfe." In all this (and more that I do
not quote), we have the two episodes of
Horatio and Ophelia distinctly foreshadowed.
The scene of this incident is a solitary place
within the woods, the one evidently in which
Saxo-Grammaticus locates the absurd
equestrian adventure related by him, but for which
Belleforest, like a true Frenchman, appears
to have substituted an amorous temptation.
That of Hamlet's interview with his mother
immediately follows; but there is, in his
account, no Hamlet "dancing upon the straw,
clapping his hands, and crowing like a cock;"
but the unfortunate counsellor of the king
hides himself behind the veritable arras of
the play.

Yet the imitations of chanticleer are not
altogether omitted; they are cunningly
modified. Hamlet, "craftie and politique,"
according to Belleforest, when "within the
chamber, doubting some treason, and fearing
if he should speake severely and wisely to
his mother touching his secret practices, he
should be understood, and by that means
intercepted, used his ordinary manner of
dissimulation, and began to come like a cocke,
beating with his armes (in such manner as
cockes use to strike with their wings) upon
the hanging of the chamber; whereby feeling
something stirring under them, he cried,
A rat, a rat!" &c. The speech thereafter
made by Hamlet to his mother is, in the
novel and improved version, quite a finished
oration, extending to several pages, and, with
some coarseness, containing not a few poetic
suggestions. The following paragraph is
good; and reminds us of a passage in Milton,
as well as of the comparison between the
two brothers in Shakspeare's tragedy.