recognise the Ophelia and Horatio of Shakspeare. A second plot was
attended with equal want of success. It was concerted by Fengo that the
queen should take her son to task in a private conversation, vainly
flattering himself that the prince would not conceal his true state from
the pleadings of a mother. Shakspeare has adopted every part of this
scene, not only the precise situation and circumstances, but the
sentiments and sometimes the very words themselves. The queen's
apartment was the appointed place of conference, where the king, to
secure certain testimony, had previously ordered one of his courtiers to
conceal himself under _a heap of straw;_ so says the historian; and
though Shakspeare, in unison with the refinement of more modern times,
changes that rustic covering for the royal tapestry, yet it was even as
Saxo Grammaticus relates it. In those primitive ages, straw, hay, of
rushes, strewed on the floor, were the usual carpets in the chambers of
the great. One of our Henrys, in making a progress to the north of
England, previously sent forward a courier to order _clean straw_
at every house where he was to take his lodging. But to return to the
subject.

The prince, suspecting there might be a concealed listener, and that it
was the king, pursued his wild and frantic acts, hoping that by some
lucky chance he might discover his hiding-place. Watchful of all that
passed in the room, as he dashed from side to side, he descried a little
movement of the uneasy courtier's covering. Suddenly Hamlet sprung on
his feet, began to crow like a cock, and flapping his arms against his
sides, leaped upon the straw; feeling something under him, he snatched
out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism
of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner in which
he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we
must suppose that it was not merely a wanton act, but done the more