interferes, our sense of it is influenced by the fact that Shakespeare
uses current religious ideas here much more decidedly than in _Othello_
or _King Lear_. The horror in Macbeth's soul is more than once
represented as desperation at the thought that he is eternally 'lost';
the same idea appears in the attempt of Claudius at repentance; and as
_Hamlet_ nears its close the 'religious' tone of the tragedy is deepened
in two ways. In the first place, 'accident' is introduced into the plot
in its barest and least dramatic form, when Hamlet is brought back to
Denmark by the chance of the meeting with the pirate ship. This incident
has been therefore severely criticised as a lame expedient,[84] but it
appears probable that the 'accident' is meant to impress the imagination
as the very reverse of accidental, and with many readers it certainly
does so. And that this was the intention is made the more likely by a
second fact, the fact that in connection with the events of the voyage
Shakespeare introduces that feeling, on Hamlet's part, of his being in
the hands of Providence. The repeated expressions of this feeling are
not, I have maintained, a sign that Hamlet has now formed a fixed
resolution to do his duty forthwith; but their effect is to strengthen
in the spectator the feeling that, whatever may become of Hamlet, and
whether he wills it or not, his task will surely be accomplished,
because it is the purpose of a power against which both he and his enemy
are impotent, and which makes of them the instruments of its own will.

Observing this, we may remember another significant point of resemblance
between _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_, the appearance in each play of a
Ghost,--a figure which seems quite in place in either, whereas it would
seem utterly out of place in _Othello_ or _King Lear_. Much might be
said of the Ghost in _Hamlet_, but I confine myself to the matter which
we are now considering. What is the effect of the appearance of the
Ghost? And, in particular, why does Shakespeare make this Ghost so