e thrilling intonations and louder outcries to meet and match the
tumult of the storm. This greatest of all tragedies is written beyond
the compass of the human voice, and can only be fully represented on
that ideal stage, where, instead of hoarse lament and husky indignation,
we hear each of us the tones that most impress and affect us, and can
command the true degrees of feeling in their illimitable scale.

But in "Hamlet" the inadequacy of the stage is of another kind. It leads
to a general displacement of motive, and change of focus, the hero's
character being obscured in the attempt to make it effective. And for
this to some extent the stage itself, as a place of popular
entertainment, and not the actor, is at fault. Some such ambiguity as
this seems, indeed, only natural, when we recall the circumstances
attending the composition of the play.

By common consent of the best authorities, "Hamlet" represents the work
of many years. I make no conjectures, but content myself with Mr.
Dowden's statement of the case:--"Over 'Hamlet,' as over 'Romeo and
Juliet,' it is supposed that Shakespeare laboured long and carefully.
Like 'Romeo and Juliet,' the play exists in two forms, and there is
reason to believe that in the earlier form, in each instance, we possess
an imperfect report of Shakespeare's first treatment of his theme,"[4]
We know also that Shakespeare had before him, at least as early as 1589,
an old play in which "a ghost cried dismally like an oyster wife,
'Hamlet! Revenge!'" and Shakespeare worked upon this until from what was
probably a rather sorry melodrama he produced the most intellectual play
that keeps the stage. And the very sensational character of the piece
enabled him to steal into it the results of long and deep meditation
without hazard to its popularity. He seems to have withdrawn Hamlet from
time to time for a special study, and then to have restored and
readjusted the hero to the play, touching and modulating, here and
there, character and incident in harmony with the new expression. In
this way a new direction and significance would be given to the plot,
but in a latent and unobtrusive way, so as not to weaken the popular
interest. This leads to the ambiguity of which I have spoken. The new
thought is often not earnestly but ironically related to the old
material, and the spiritual hero seems almost to stand apart from the
rude framework of the still highly sensational theatrical piece. This
h