Again, that he talks wisely at one time and foolishly at another; that his
advice to Laertes is very excellent, and his advice to the King and Queen
on the subject of Hamlet's madness very ridiculous. But he gives the one
as a father, and is sincere in it; he gives the other as a mere courtier,
a busy-body, and is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In
short, Shakspeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other
characters, only because he has kept up the distinction which there is in
nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of men, between
the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their motives. Polonius
is not a fool, but he makes himself so. His folly, whether in his actions
or speeches, comes under the head of impropriety of intention.

We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all, HAMLET.
There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage.
Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted. Mr. Kemble
unavoidably fails in this character from a want of ease and variety. The
character of Hamlet is made up of undulating lines; it has the yielding
flexibility of a "wave o' th' sea." Mr. Kemble plays it like a man in
armour, with a determined inveteracy of purpose, in one undeviating
straight line, which is as remote from the natural grace and refined
susceptibility of the character, as the sharp angles and abrupt starts
which Mr. Kean introduces into the part. Mr. Kean's Hamlet is as much too
splenetic and rash as Mr. Kemble's is too deliberate and formal. His
manner is too strong and pointed. He throws a severity, approaching to
virulence, into the common observations and answers. There is nothing of
this in Hamlet. He is, as it were, wrapped up in his reflections, and only
_thinks aloud_. There should therefore be no attempt to impress what he
says upon others by a studied exaggeration of emphasis or manner; no
_talking_ at his hearers. There should be as much of the gentleman and
scholar as possible infused into the part, and as little of the actor. A
pensive air of sadness should sit reluctantly upon his brow, but no
appearance of fixed and sullen gloom. He is full of weakness and
melancholy, but there is no harshness in his nature. He is the most
amiable of misanthropes.

ROMEO AND JULIET

ROMEO AND JULIET is the only tragedy which Shakspeare has written entirely
on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his first play,