he sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune
and refining on his own feelings, and forced from the natural bias of his
disposition by the strangeness of his situation. He seems incapable of
deliberate action, and is only hurried into extremities on the spur of the
occasion, when he has no time to reflect, as in the scene where he kills
Polonius, and again, where he alters the letters which Rosencrans and
Guildenstern are taking with them to England, purporting his death. At
other times, when he is most bound to act, he remains puzzled, undecided,
and sceptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost, and
finds out some pretence to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness
again. For this reason he refuses to kill the King when he is at his
prayers, and by a refinement in malice, which is in truth only an excuse
for his own want of resolution, defers his revenge to a more fatal
opportunity, when he shall be engaged in some act "that has no relish of
salvation in it."

"He kneels and prays.
And now I'll do't, and so he goes to heaven,
And so am I reveng'd: _that would be scann'd_.
He kill'd my father, and for that,
I, his sole son, send him to heaven.
Why this is reward, not revenge.
Up sword and know thou a more horrid time,
When he is drunk, asleep, or in a rage."

He is the prince of philosophical speculators; and because he cannot have
his revenge perfect, according to the most refined idea his wish can form,
he declines it altogether. So he scruples to trust the suggestions of the
ghost, contrives the scene of the play to have surer proof of his uncle's
guilt, and then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions,
and the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet he is
sensible of his own weakness, taxes himself with it, and tries to reason
himself out of it.

"How all occasions do inform against me.
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast; no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To rust in us unus'd. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event,--
A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom,
And ever three parts coward;--I do not know
Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do;
Sith I have