s, by whom he despatched letters to the English court, which in
that time was in subjection and paid tribute to Denmark, requiring for
special reasons there pretended, that Hamlet should be put to death as
soon as he landed on English ground. Hamlet, suspecting some treachery,
in the night-time secretly got at the letters, and skilfully erasing
his own name, he in the stead of it put in the names of those two
courtiers, who had the charge of him, to be put to death: then sealing
up the letters, he put them into their place again. Soon after the ship
was attacked by pirates, and a sea-fight commenced; in the course of
which Hamlet, desirous to show his velour, with sword in hand singly
boarded the enemy's vessel; while his own ship, in a cowardly manner,
bore away, and leaving him to his fate, the two courtiers made the best
of their way to England, charged with those letters the sense of which
Hamlet had altered to their own deserved destruction.

The pirates, who had the prince in their power, showed themselves
gentle enemies; and knowing whom they had got prisoner, in the hope
that the prince might do them a good turn at court in recompense for
any favour they might show him, they set Hamlet on shore at the nearest
port in Denmark. From that place Hamlet wrote to the king, acquainting
him with the strange chance which had brought him back to his own
country, and saying that on the next day he should present himself
before his majesty. When he got home, a sad spectacle offered itself
the first thing to his eyes.

This was the funeral of the young and beautiful Ophelia, his once dear
mistress. The wits of this young lady had begun to turn ever since her
poor father's death. That he should die a violent death, and by the
hands of the prince whom she loved, so affected this tender young maid,
that in a little time she grew perfectly distracted, and would go about
giving flowers away to the ladies of the court, and saying that they
were for her father's burial, singing songs about love and about death,
and sometimes such as had no meaning at all, as if she had no memory of
what happened to her. There was a willow which grew slanting over a
brook, and reflected its leaves on the stream. To this brook she came
one day when she was unwatched, with garlands she had been making,
mixed up of daisies and nettles, flowers and weeds together, and
clambering up to hang her garland upon the boughs of the willow, a
bough broke, and p