Two

Prospero or time teaches Caliban language, etc. threads are noticeable in the play. One thread is that by which we are let into the magic of time and nature; and the other is a purely human side alone. Through the masque Shakespeare has undoubtedly given us as a corollary the different stages of man's progress. Agriculture alone, the blessings of the union of mind and labour in knowledge, are successively pictured leading up to the highest idealism and Carlyleism. Those who fail to realize the nature of Shakespeare's "Tempest" must be blind indeed. In Miranda we have the human intellect, that "wonder," of which Prospero is master in "a full poor cell." Thus Shakespeare has interwoven in his play several aspects of evolution. He has pictured mind as a psychological growth alone, and led human development into something higher out of a Caliban up to the finding of Ferdinand. But with all this we are not concerned, except so far as they prove Shakespeare to have been an evolutionist and a Darwinian. Therefore we may say, with some likelihood, that in Othello Shakespeare has pictured that struggle between past and present which was so wondrously commenced during Shakespeare's life, and which is still working itself out at the present day.

APPENDIX.

A FEW GENERAL REMARKS.

We would here deprecate any too close interpretation being assigned to our interpretation of Hamlet. We rather wish to have exemplified the scheme, the plot, the subject-matter, than the exact Hamlet of our Poet. The latter would be too great an assumption. Whether we take Hamlet as the growth of rationalism, resulting from the revival of learning and the Reformation, or simply as truth, the principle involved remains the same. Hamlet is humanity, in historical continuity and development. This is all we insist upon. To affix too narrow a signification to any of the characters is not our intention; and when such a broad subject as History is in question, the mind must indeed fill up the vacuum. We have only called the dramatis personæ truth, error, certainty, or indifference, to illustrate what we believe Shakespeare's meaning. If we have gone into detail where we should not, it is rather in the hope of suggestion and of showing how every line might be rationalized. The characters of Shakespeare are far too collective in essence to be exhausted in any words.

As regards Ophelia, we can come to no certain conclusion. No more is heard of her after her burial in the play. Whether the hope of Laertes, that violets might spring

from her unpolluted flesh, is fulfilled we know not. The play of Othello seems to us to deal more directly with this subject.

With regard to Hamlet's madness, we hope we have made its nature pretty clear to the student. In respect of Hamlet's banishment to England, his capture by a pirate, and his return to Denmark, we would venture to suggest that our Poet would have been clearer and (it seems) done better, to have made our hero accompany the courtiers to England, and, after having seen them killed by a slow and insidious death, to have returned with Fortinbras in conquest from England. We have as high an authority as Goethe on our side, who evidently took the same view. But probably Goethe erred, as we do, from want of real insight. And we believe further elucidation will only redound to Shakespeare's perfection in every detail.

HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF HAMLET.

The historical and real nature of the tragedy cannot be argued away. The student can say with Fabian in "Twelfth Night":

"Fab. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment and reason. Sir To. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor."

The proofs of the historical nature of Hamlet are abundant. First. The references to Wittenberg.

Secondly. The names of Baptista, Lucianus, Bernardo. Thirdly. The introduction of Fortinbras, and the identity in the Churchyard-scene, of the birth of Fortinbras, Clown, and Hamlet at the same time.

Fourthly. Their actual identity of birth in the beginning of the play.

Fifthly. The harmony shown in the relations of Ophelia and Laertes to Polonius, by their continuity and their conduct and action towards Hamlet.

Sixthly. The steady progress of Hamlet and his irresolution. Also the incentives to action he gets from what really are impulses to progress in life, but which cannot be explained rationally otherwise, viz. the march of Fortinbras (growth of liberty).

Seventhly. The ready and easy way the play falls into historical parallelism; but refuses any rationalism otherwise.