Hamlet is, through the whole play, rather an instrument than an
agent. After he has, by the stratagem of the play, convicted the
King, he makes no attempt to punish him, and his death is at last
effected by an incident which Hamlet has no part in producing.

The catastrophe is not very happily produced; the exchange of
weapons is rather an expedient of necessity, than a stroke of art.
A scheme might easily have been formed, to kill Hamlet with the
dagger, and Laertes with the bowl.

The poet is accused of having shewn little regard to poetical justice,
and may be charged with equal neglect of poetical probability.
The apparition left the regions of the dead to little purpose; the
revenge which he demands is not obtained but by the death of him
that was required to take it; and the gratification which would
arise from the destruction of an usurper and a murderer, is abated
by the untimely death of Ophelia, the young, the beautiful, the
harmless, and the pious.




OTHELLO

ACT V. SCENE vi. (v. ii. 63-5.)

Oh perjur'd woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
And mak'st me call, what I intent to do,
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.