ng. In such cases,
passion combines itself with the indefinite alone. In this mood of his
mind the relation of the appearance of his father's spirit in arms is made
all at once to Hamlet:--it is--Horatio's speech in particular--a perfect
model of the true style of dramatic narrative;--the purest poetry, and yet
in the most natural language, equally remote from the ink-horn and the
plough.

_Ib._ sc. 3. This scene must be regarded as one of Shakespeare's lyric
movements in the play, and the skill with which it is interwoven with the
dramatic parts is peculiarly an excellence of our poet. You experience the
sensation of a pause without the sense of a stop. You will observe in
Ophelia's short and general answer to the long speech of Laertes the
natural carelessness of innocence, which cannot think such a code of
cautions and prudences necessary to its own preservation.

_Ib._ Speech of Polonius (in Stockdale's edition):--

"Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase),
Wronging it thus, you'll tender me a fool."

I suspect this "wronging" is here used much in the same sense as
"wringing" or "wrenching," and that the parenthesis should be extended to
"thus."

_Ib._ Speech of Polonius:--

... "How prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows:--these blazes, daughter," &c.

A spondee has, I doubt not, dropped out of the text. Either insert "Go to"
after "vows";--

"Lends the tongue vows: Go to, these blazes, daughter"--

or read--

"Lends the tongue vows:--These blazes, daughter, mark you"--

Shakespeare never introduces a catalectic line without intending an
equivalent to the foot omitted in the pauses, or the dwelling emphasis, or
the diffused retardation. I do not, however, deny that a good actor might,
by employing the last mentioned means--namely, the retardation, or solemn
knowing drawl--supply the missing spondee with good effect. But I do not
believe that in this or any other of the foregoing speeches of Polonius,
Shakespeare meant to bring out the senility or weakness of that
personage's mind. In the great ever-recurring dangers and duties of life,
where to distinguish the fit objects for the application of the maxims
collected by the experience of a long life, requires no fineness of tact,
as in the admonitions to his son and daughter, Polonius is uniformly made
respectable. But if an actor were even capable of catching these shades in
the character, the pit and the gallery would be malcontent at