_Hamlet_ is founded on much the same Tale with the _Electra_ of
_Sophocles_. In each of 'em a young Prince is engag'd to revenge the death
of his father, their mothers are equally guilty, are both concern'd in the
murder of their husbands, and are afterwards married to the murderers.
There is in the first part of the _Greek_ Tragedy, something very moving
in the grief of _Electra_; but as Mr. _D'Acier_ has observ'd, there is
something very unnatural and shocking in the Manners he has given that
Princess and _Orestes_ in the latter part. _Orestes_ embrues his hands in
the blood of his own mother; and that barbarous action is perform'd, tho'
not immediately upon the stage, yet so near, that the audience hear
_Clytemnestra_ crying out to _AEgysthus_ for help, and to her son for
mercy: While _Electra_, her daughter, and a Princess, both of them
characters that ought to have appear'd with more decency, stands upon the
stage and encourages her brother in the parricide. What horror does this
not raise! _Clytemnestra_ was a wicked woman, and had deserv'd to die;
nay, in the truth of the story, she was kill'd by her own son; but to
represent an action of this kind on the stage, is certainly an offence
against those rules of manners proper to the persons, that ought to be
observ'd there. On the contrary, let us only look a little on the conduct
of _Shakespear_. _Hamlet_ is represented with the same piety towards his
father, and resolution to revenge his death, as _Orestes_; he has the same
abhorrence for his mother's guilt, which, to provoke him the more, is
heighten'd by incest: But 'tis with wonderful art and justness of
judgment, that the Poet restrains him from doing violence to his mother.
To prevent any thing of that kind, he makes his father's Ghost forbid that
part of his vengeance.

But howsoever thou pursu'st this Act,
Taint not thy mind; nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother ought; leave her to Heav'n,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

This is to distinguish rightly between _Horror_ and _Terror_. The latter
is a proper passion of Tragedy, but the former ought always to be
carefully avoided. And certainly no dramatick Writer ever succeeded better
in raising _Terror_ in the minds of an audience than _Shakespear_ has
done. The whole Tragedy of _Macbeth_, but more especially the scene where
the King is murder'd, in the second Act, as well as this Play, is