but it does not occur to him that this peculiar circumstance can be anything but a defect in Shakespeare’s management of the plot.  Seeing, they saw not.  Henry Mackenzie, the author of The Man of Feeling, was, it would seem, the first of our critics to feel the ‘indescribable charm’ of Hamlet, and to divine something of Shakespeare’s intention.  ‘We see a man,’ he writes, ’who in other circumstances would have exercised all the moral and social virtues, placed in a situation in which even the amiable qualities of his mind serve but to aggravate his distress and to perplex his conduct.’[32] How significant is the fact (if it be the fact) that it was only when the slowly rising sun of Romance began to flush the sky that the wonder, beauty and pathos of this most marvellous of Shakespeare’s creations began to be visible!  We do not know that they were perceived even in his own day, and perhaps those are not wholly wrong who declare that this creation, so far from being a characteristic product of the time, was a vision of

                  the prophetic soul
     Of the wide world dreaming on things to come.

But the dramatic splendour of the whole tragedy is another matter, and must have been manifest not only in Shakespeare’s day but even in Hanmer’s.

It is indeed so obvious that I pass it by, and proceed at once to the central question of Hamlet’s character.  And I believe time will be saved, and a good deal of positive interpretation may be introduced, if, without examining in detail any one theory, we first distinguish classes or types of theory which appear to be in various ways and degrees insufficient or mistaken.  And we will confine our attention to sane theories;—­for on this subject, as on all questions relating to Shakespeare, there are plenty of merely lunatic views:  the view, for example, that Hamlet, being a disguised woman in love with Horatio, could hardly help seeming unkind to Ophelia; or the view that, being a very clever and wicked young man who wanted to oust his innocent uncle from the throne, he ‘faked’ the Ghost with this intent.

But, before we come to our types of theory, it is necessary to touch on an idea, not unfrequently met with, which would make it vain labour to discuss or propose any theory at all.  It is sometimes said that Hamlet’s character is not only intricate but unintelligible.  Now this statement might mean something quite unobjectionable and even perhaps true and important.  It might mean that the character cannot be wholly understood.  As we saw, there may be questions which we cannot answer with certainty now, because we have nothing but the text to guide us, but which never arose for the spectators who saw Hamlet acted in Shakespeare’s day; and we shall have to refer to such questions in these lectures.  Again, it may be held without any improbability that, from carelessness or because he was engaged on this play for several years, Shakespeare