so very much touch'd with a Sense of his Crime, is
supposed to be owing to the Representation he had been present at; but I
do not well see how _Hamlet_ is introduced so as to find him at Prayers.
It is not natural, that a King's Privacy should be so intruded on, not
even by any of his Family, especially, that it should be done without
his perceiving it.

Page 309.

Hamlet's Speech upon seeing the King at Prayers, has always given me
great Offence. There is something so very Bloody in it, so inhuman, so
unworthy of a Hero, that I wish our Poet had omitted it. To desire to
destroy a Man's Soul, to make him eternally miserable, by cutting him
off from all hopes of Repentance; this surely, in a Christian Prince, is
such a Piece of Revenge, as no Tenderness for any Parent can justify. To
put the Usurper to Death, to deprive him of the Fruits of his vile
Crime, and to rescue the Throne of _Denmark_ from Pollution, was highly
requisite: But there our young Prince's Desires should have stop'd, nor
should he have wished to pursue the Criminal in the other World, but
rather have hoped for his Conversion, before his putting him to Death;
for even with his Repentance, there was at least Purgatory for him to
pass through, as we find even in a virtuous Prince, the Father of
_Hamlet_.

Page 310.

_Enter the Queen and_ Polonius, _and afterwards_ Hamlet.

We are now come to a Scene, which I have always much admired. I cannot
think it possible, that such an Incident could have been managed
better, nor more conformably to Reason and Nature. The Prince, conscious
of his own good Intentions, and the Justness of the Cause he undertakes
to plead, speaks with that Force and Assurance which Virtue always
gives; and yet manages his Expressions so as not to treat his Mother in
a disrespectful Manner. What can be expressed with more Beauty and more
Dignity, than the Difference between his Uncle and Father! The Contrast
in the Description of them both, is exquisitely fine: And his inforcing
the Heinousness of his Mother's Crime with so much Vehemence, and her
guilty half Confessions of her Wickedness, and at last her thorough
Remorse, are all Strokes from the Hand of a great Master in the
Imitation of Nature.

His being obliged to break off his Discourse by the coming in of his
Father's Ghost once more, adds a certain Weight and Gravity to this
Scene, which works up in the Minds of the Audience all the Passions
which do the greatest H