at the play, and perhaps to provoke an open accusation),[62] has attempted to hush up the circumstances of Polonius’s death, and has given him a hurried and inglorious burial.  The fury of Laertes, therefore, is directed in the first instance against the King:  and the ease with which he raises the people, like the King’s fear of a judicial enquiry, shows us how purely internal were the obstacles which the hero had to overcome.  This impression is intensified by the broad contrast between Hamlet and Laertes, who rushes headlong to his revenge, and is determined to have it though allegiance, conscience, grace and damnation stand in his way (IV. v. 130).  But the King, though he has been hard put to it, is now in his element and feels safe.  Knowing that he will very soon hear of Hamlet’s execution in England, he tells Laertes that his father died by Hamlet’s hand, and expresses his willingness to let the friends of Laertes judge whether he himself has any responsibility for the deed.  And when, to his astonishment and dismay, news comes that Hamlet has returned to Denmark, he acts with admirable promptitude and address, turns Laertes round his finger, and arranges with him for the murder of their common enemy.  If there were any risk of the young man’s resolution faltering, it is removed by the death of Ophelia.  And now the King has but one anxiety,—­to prevent the young men from meeting before the fencing-match.  For who can tell what Hamlet might say in his defence, or how enchanting his tongue might prove?[63]

Hamlet’s return to Denmark is due partly to his own action, partly to accident.  On the voyage he secretly possesses himself of the royal commission, and substitutes for it another, which he himself writes and seals, and in which the King of England is ordered to put to death, not Hamlet, but Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  Then the ship is attacked by a pirate, which, apparently, finds its intended prize too strong for it, and makes off.  But as Hamlet ‘in the grapple,’ eager for fighting, has boarded the assailant, he is carried off in it, and by promises induces the pirates to put him ashore in Denmark.

In what spirit does he return?  Unquestionably, I think, we can observe a certain change, though it is not great.  First, we notice here and there what seems to be a consciousness of power, due probably to his success in counter-mining Claudius and blowing the courtiers to the moon, and to his vigorous action in the sea-fight.  But I doubt if this sense of power is more marked than it was in the scenes following the success of the ‘Murder of Gonzago.’  Secondly, we nowhere find any direct expression of that weariness of life and that longing for death which were so marked in the first soliloquy and in the speech ‘To be or not to be.’  This may be a mere accident, and it must be remembered that in the Fifth Act we have no soliloquy.  But in the earlier Acts the feelings referred to do not appear merely in soliloquy, and I incline to think