a struggle that is not yet brought to an end, are, in that drama,
represented on the stage. The poet shows, by making the gifted
Prince perish, on which side every serious thinker ought to place
himself. That these intentions of Shakspere were understood by his more
intelligent contemporaries and friends, we shall prove when we come to
the camp of his adversaries, at whose head a Roman Catholic stood,
who launches out in very marked language against the derision of
Montaigne as contained in the character of Hamlet.

The noblemen who went to the theatre for the sake of the intellectual
attractions (the fairer sex being still excluded from acting on the
stage and therefore not forming a point of attraction) were initiated
into the innermost secret of what authors meant by their productions.
Dekker, in his 'Gulls Horn Book' (c. 6), reports that 'after the play
was over, poets adjourned to supper with knights, where they, in private,
unfolded the secret parts of their drama to them.'

As in no other of his plays, there is in Shakspere's 'Hamlet'--the drama
richest in philosophy--a perfect wealth of life. Argument is pitted
against argument; every turn of a phrase is a missile, sharp, and
hitting the mark. In not a few cases, the aim and object is no longer
recognisable. Here and there we believe we shall be able to shed the
light of day upon some dark passages of the past.

To the doughty friends of Shakspere, this French Knight of the Order of
St. Michael, who says [60] that, if his freedom were in the least
encroached upon, or 'if the laws under which he lives threatened
merely the tip of his finger, he would at once betake himself to
any other place to find better ones;' but who yet lets everything
around him go out of joint without offering a helping hand for repair,