which sanctioned a high and capital crime could be enforced in a court of law; and in fine, would have addressed an argument to the reason and understanding of the court which might render a consideration of this case by the tribunal unnecessary.

But no good plea to the plaintiff's cause of action was made on the trial, and the court was, and I fear that the whole world has been deceived by Portia's subterfuge. We must, therefore, regard Shylock as a badly used man. After all, he was no worse than many creditors and note shavers of this day, who only demand the life blood of their victims; and if on the pleas before the court he was entitled to judgment, like them he should have had it. Doubtless in private life Shylock was a very honest and well-behaved gentleman, not a mere mountebank as he is sometimes represented on the stage, but a vigorous and energetic man of the world, shrewd, sagacious, and long-sighted in business, honored on 'change, respected by his friends, and a pattern of prudence and morality. And then, perhaps, he was only carrying on a joke, a kind of Jew d'esprit, conceived in a moment of amiable eccentricity, and never to be executed. If not a joke, however, the judgment of Judge Portia should be set aside, and a new trial with costs, should, in my opinion, have been ordered.

HAMLET A FAT MAN.

I have seen on the stage several Hamlets, more or less successful in that sublime dramatic creation of Shakespeare, to say nothing of small-calfed personifica

tions at private fancy balls. Young Booth, in these days, is doubtless the most ideal and accurate interpreter of the great Dane; although Mrs. Kemble's rendition is certainly beyond the reach of hostile criticism.

In this paper I propose to consider Hamlet not as he is represented on the stage, but as he is described in the original text. At the theater, he usually appears as a dark-complexioned, black-haired, beetle-browed, and slender young man, wearing an intensely gloomy wig, eyebrows corked into the blackness of preternatural bitterness, while on thin and romantic legs, imprisoned in black silk tights, he struts across the stage, the counterfeit presentment of the veritable prince.

I once read a brief line or two in a work by Goethe, alleging that Hamlet was a fat man. At first I was inclined to regard this as a joke of the majestic German. Later reflection induced me to examine this surmise in detail, and to conclude finally that the theory is true, and that the enigma of Hamlet's character can be solved through calculations of pinguitude.

Eüpnxa. Perfect tense, indicative mood, I have found it. In fact, the whole Hamlet problem must be regarded in an obese, or adipose point of view. The Prince of Denmark is not the conventional Hamlet of the theater, nor the Hamlet of Shakespeare. He was a Northman, and like the greater number of the inhabitants of Northern Europe, was, doubtless, a blue-eyed and flaxen-haired blonde. My lord was far from appearing thin or delicate; on the contrary, he carried on his belly a large portmanteau well-rounded by the swell of the digesting nutriment.

That our honored prince was a fat man, is proved by his own confession, as well as by the evidence of the queen. Tossed about in a hot desert of doubt and despair, he exclaims in one of his incomparable soliloquies :

"Oh! that this too, too solid flesh WOULD MELT. What thin man would melt away even in the hot solstice of June? In the fencing scene (Act iv), his flabby muscles are soon fatigued, and the queen exclaims:

"He's fat, and scant of breath:

Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows."

However, to be serious, it must be confessed that there are splendid traits in the character of the prince; every grandeur or folly can be found in him. From the lowest pit of despair, his soul debates the question of suicide as a logical proposition, forgetting the divine prohibition against self-slaughter. Eloquence, genius, and brilliant fancies, are constantly manifested, and also a gorgeous imagination.

It may be mentioned, incidentally, that Hamlet's character has been contrasted with that of Orestes, the Greek, who, when he arrived at years of manhood, avenged his father's death by assassinating his mother, Clytemnestra, and her adulterer, Egisthus. In other words, he avenged a crime by a crime.

And now let us drop these serious comments, and return to the more humorous side of our theory — the plumpness of the prince, overlooked as a mere accident, by critics and actors. It is a physiological propriety

that he should be of a phlegmatic temperament-a temperament often united to an acute intellect, but also, to a sluggish and heavy person. A weak, wavering inactivity, fickleness of purpose, a keen sensibility, or sensitiveness, are also noticeable; while the subtlety of his theories is sharply penetrating, and forms the keystone to the arch of his character.

Truly, Hamlet's intellect is that of a giant; his strength of will, that of a child. He has, so to speak, no executive talent. He is the doubting philosopher, the subtle metaphysician, the self-analyzer, always 'thinking too precisely upon the event.' He sees so far into the consequences of human action that he is fearful of taking decided steps. He has the nerve to kill neither his uncle nor himself, although he debates the latter question with great dexterity. He never effected any one of the plans upon which he had deliberated. Any one who reads Hamlet, under the influence of this theory, will see that it is confirmed by every incident in the tragedy.

A series of accidents hurried the prince to the final catastrophe. His was a lovely, great and noble nature; but it lacked one element of heroism-strength of will. It was an exquisite touch in the mighty poet to make Hamlet gross in figure, as he was phlegmatic, inactive, and irresolute in temperament. Had he been a thin, brown, choleric, and nervous man, the tragedy would have ended in the first act. Had he been a fiery Italian, instead of a doubting, deliberating Dane; had he been of a passionate, or yellow complexion, instead of a calm blonde; had he possessed a wiry, high-strung,

and nervous constitution; had he, in a word, proved himself a man of action, and not a man of metaphysical tendencies, his sword would have soon cut the perplexing meshes which surrounded him, and he would have executed instant vengeance upon the authors of his misfortune and disgrace. Else he would have put an end to a life too wretched to be endured.

The conventional critic may smile at the conceit of a fat Hamlet, but I am satisfied that my theory is amply sustained by the text, as well as by the true solution of the alleged knotty points of Shakespeare's mental character, over which the ponderous but inflated brain of Dr. Johnson stultified itself. He accuses the Avon bard of introducing spirits, ghosts, myths, and fairies; of being guilty of exaggerations, absurdities, vulgar expressions, and other naughtiness. (Boswell's Johnson, vol. IV, pp. 258, etc.) All of which proves that the doctor was sometimes prejudiced, ill-natured, jealous, and ponderously silly on certain points.

But they who have cracked the kernel of this grand tragedy, and formed a just conception of the real disposition and peculiarities of the true hero, must admire and appreciate the marvelous skill of the great bard who understands the relations between physiology and the passions, and can analyze the temperament physical, as well as dissect the soul immortal.