delicate; on the contrary, he carried on his belly a large
portmanteau well-rounded by the swell of the digesting nutriment.

That our honored prince was a fat man, is proved by his own confession,
as well as by the evidence of the queen. Tossed about in a hot desert of
doubt and despair, he exclaims in one of his incomparable soliloquies:

'_Oh! that this too, too solid flesh_ WOULD MELT!'

What thin man would melt away even in the hot solstice of June? In the
fencing scene, (Act IV.,) his flabby muscles are soon fatigued, and the
queen exclaims:

'_He's fat, and scant of breath:
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows_.'

However, to be serious, it must be confessed that there are splendid
traits in the mental character of the prince; every grandeur or folly
can be found in him. From the lowest pit of despair, his soul debates
the question of suicide as a logical proposition, forgetting the divine
prohibition against 'self-slaughter.' Eloquence, genius, and brilliant
fancies, are constantly manifested, and also a gorgeous imagination.

It may be mentioned, incidentally, that Hamlet's character has been
contrasted with that of Orestes, the Greek, who, when he arrived at
years of manhood, avenged his father's death by assassinating his
mother, Clytemnestra, and her adulterer, OEgisthus. In other words, he
avenged a crime by a crime.

And now let us drop these serious comments, and return to the more
humorous side of our theory--the plumpness of the prince, overlooked as
a mere accident, by critics and actors. It is a physiological propriety
that he should be of a phlegmatic temperament--a temperament often
united to an acute intellect, but also, to a sluggish and heavy person.
A weak, wavering inactivity, fickleness of purpose, a keen sensibility,
or sensitiveness, are also noticeable; while the subtlety of his
theories is sharply penetrating, and forms the keystone to the arch of
his character.

Truly, Hamlet's intellect is that of a giant; his strength of will,
that of a child. He has, so to speak, no executive talent. He is the
doubting philosopher, the subtle metaphysician, the self-analyzer,
always 'thinking too precisely upon the event.' He sees so far into the
consequences of human action that he is fearful of taking decided steps.
He has the nerve to kill neither his uncle nor himself, although he
debates the latter question with great dexterity. He never _effected_
any one of the plans upon