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A DRAMATIC CRITIC
learning have their highest exemplification.
No character in Shakespeare, with the
possible exceptions of King John and King
Lear, asks, " in the true performing of it,"
such variety, penetration, subtilty, and
sensitiveness of mind as the accomplished
Prince of Denmark. Simply to understand
his plainer speech is much, for Hamlet's
meaning does not often lie near the sur-
face. But to follow all the twists and turns
of his swift-pacing wit, even before it
shows the disorder of real or pretended
disease; to feel, as the condition precedent
of reproducing them, the contrasting glow
and gloom of his wondrous imagination;
to justify his incoherence by exhibiting the
missing links of thought which his indiffer-
ence or ecstasy so often drops; to display
the deep affectionateness which the keener
intuition discovers under all his masks; to
show the superfine sanity which constantly
characterizes his wildest utterances, and
yet to indicate his dangerous nearness to
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