character of Hamlet!]

[Footnote 9: --the mental faculty of running hither and thither: 'We
look before and after.' _Shelley: To a Skylark_.]

[Footnote 10: --the forgetfulness of such a beast as he has just
mentioned.]

[Footnote 11: --the _consequences_. The scruples that come of thinking
of the event, Hamlet certainly had: that they were _craven_ scruples,
that his thinking was too precise, I deny to the face of the noble
self-accuser. Is that a craven scruple which, seeing no good to result
from the horrid deed, shrinks from its irretrievableness, and demands at
least absolute assurance of guilt? or that 'a thinking too precisely on
the event,' to desire, as the prince of his people, to leave an un
wounded name behind him?]

[Footnote 12: This passage is the strongest there is on the side of the
ordinary misconception of the character of Hamlet. It comes from
himself; and it is as ungenerous as it is common and unfair to use such
a weapon against a man. Does any but St. Paul himself say he was the
chief of sinners? Consider Hamlet's condition, tormented on all sides,
within and without, and think whether this outbreak against himself be
not as unfair as it is natural. Lest it should be accepted against him,
Shakspere did well to leave it out. In bitter disappointment, both
because of what is and what is not, both because of what he has done and
what he has failed to do, having for the time lost all chance, with the
last vision of the Ghost still haunting his eyes, his last reproachful
words yet ringing in his ears, are we bound to take his judgment of
himself because it is against himself? Are we _bound_ to take any man's
judgment because it is against himself? I answer, 'No more than if it
were for himself.' A good man's judgment, where he is at all perplexed,
especially if his motive comes within his own question, is ready to be
against himself, as a bad man's is sure to be for himself. Or because he
is a philosopher, does it follow that throughout he understands himself?
Were such a man in cool, untroubled conditions, we might feel compelled
to take his judgment, but surely not here! A philosopher in such state
as Hamlet's would understand the quality of his spiritual operations
with no more certainty than another man. In his present mood, Hamlet
forgets the cogency of the reasons that swayed him in the other; forgets
that his uppermost feeling then was doubt, as horror, indignation, and
conviction are upper