l Torricelli, the ghost-seers were in a state of cold or chilling damp
from without, and of anxiety inwardly. It has been with all of them as
with Francisco on his guard,--alone, in the depth and silence of the night;
"'twas bitter cold, and they were sick at heart, and _not a mouse
stirring_." The attention to minute sounds,--naturally associated with the
recollection of minute objects, and the more familiar and trifling, the
more impressive from the unusualness of their producing any impression at
all--gives a philosophic pertinency to this last image; but it has likewise
its dramatic use and purpose. For its commonness in ordinary conversation
tends to produce the sense of reality, and at once hides the poet, and yet
approximates the reader or spectator to that state in which the highest
poetry will appear, and in its component parts, though not in the whole
composition, really is, the language of nature. If I should not speak it,
I feel that I should be thinking it;--the voice only is the poet's,--the
words are my own. That Shakespeare meant to put an effect in the actor's
power in the very first words--"Who's there?"--is evident from the
impatience expressed by the startled Francisco in the words that
follow--"Nay, answer me: stand and unfold yourself." A brave man is never
so peremptory, as when he fears that he is afraid. Observe the gradual
transition from the silence and the still recent habit of listening in
Francisco's--"I think I hear them"--to the more cheerful call out, which a
good actor would observe, in the--"Stand ho! Who is there?" Bernardo's
inquiry after Horatio, and the repetition of his name and in his own
presence indicate a respect or an eagerness that implies him as one of the
persons who are in the foreground; and the scepticism attributed to him,--

"Horatio says, 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,"--

prepares us for Hamlet's after eulogy on him as one whose blood and
judgment were happily commingled. The actor should also be careful to
distinguish the expectation and gladness of Bernardo's "Welcome, Horatio!"
from the mere courtesy of his "Welcome, good Marcellus!"

Now observe the admirable indefiniteness of the first opening out of the
occasion of all this anxiety. The preparation informative of the audience
is just as much as was precisely necessary, and no more;--it begins with
the uncertainty appertaining to a question:--

"_Mar._ What, has _this thing_ a