d daughter of the north,
whose heart seems to vibrate to the passion she has inspired, more
conscious of being loved than of loving; and yet, alas! loving in the
silent depths of her young heart far more than she is loved.

When her brother warns her against Hamlet's importunities--

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy of blood,
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward not permanent, sweet not lasting,
The perfume and the suppliance of a minute--
No more!

she replies with a kind of half consciousness--

No more but so?

LAERTES.

Think it no more.

He concludes his admonition with that most beautiful passage, in which
the soundest sense, the most excellent advice, is conveyed in a strain
of the most exquisite poetry.

The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd:
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

She answers with the same modesty, yet with a kind of involuntary
avowal, that his fears are not altogether without cause:--

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like the puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.[40]

When her father, immediately afterwards, catechizes her on the same
subject, he extorts from her, in short sentences, uttered with bashful
reluctance, the confession of Hamlet's love for her, but not a word of
her love for him. The whole scene is managed with inexpressible
delicacy: it is one of those instances, common in Shakspeare, in which
we are allowed to perceive what is passing in the mind of a person,
without any consciousness on their part. Only Ophelia herself is unaware
that while she is admitting the extent of Hamlet's courtship, she is
also betraying how deep is the impression it has made, how entire the
love with which it is returned.

POLONIUS.

What is between you? give me up the truth!

OPHELIA.

He hath, my lord, of late, made many tender