decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse
was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he
was now alone with his mother, in a most awful manner he turns upon her,
and avows his madness to be assumed; he reproaches her with her wicked
deeds and incestuous marriage; and threatens a mighty vengeance upon the
instigator of her crime.

In the historian we find that the admonitions of Hamlet awakened the
conscience of the queen, and recalled her to penitence and virtue. The
king, observing the change, became doubly suspicious of the prince; and
baffling some preliminary steps he took to vengeance; Hamlet was
entrapped by him into an embassy to England. He sent along with him two
courtiers, who bore private letters to the English monarch, requesting
him, as the greatest favour he could confer on Denmark, to compass, by
secret and by sure means, the death of the prince as soon as he landed.
Hamlet, during the voyage, had reason to suspect the mission of his
companions; and by a stratagem obtaining their credentials, he found the
treacherous mandate; and changing it for one wherein he ordered the
execution of the two lords, he quietly proceeded with them to the
British shore. On landing, the papers were delivered, and the king,
without further parley, obeyed what he believed to be the request of his
royal ally; and thus did treason meet the punishment due to its crime.
The daughter of the king being charmed with the person and manners of
the foreign prince, evinced such marks of tenderness, that Hamlet could
not but perceive the depth of his conquest. He was not insensible to her
attractions; and receiving the king's assent, in the course of a few
days led her to the nuptial altar. Amidst all joys, he was, however,
like a perturbed ghost that could not rest; and before many suns had
rose and set, he obtained a hard wrung leave from his bride, once more
set sail, and appeared at Elsineur just in time to be a witness of the