Volume Ii Part 26 (2/2)

Laertes is a 'good' character, but, &c. (WARBURTON.)

Mercy on Warburton's notion of goodness! Please to refer to the seventh scene of this act;--

I will do it; And for this purpose I'll anoint my sword, &c.

uttered by Laertes after the King's description of Hamlet;--

He being remiss, Most generous, and free from all contriving, Will not peruse the foils.

Yet I acknowledge that Shakspeare evidently wishes, as much as possible, to spare the character of Laertes,--to break the extreme turpitude of his consent to become an agent and accomplice of the King's treachery;--and to this end he re-introduces Ophelia at the close of this scene to afford a probable stimulus of pa.s.sion in her brother.

'Ib.' sc. 6. Hamlet's capture by the pirates. This is almost the only play of Shakspeare, in which mere accidents, independent of all will, form an essential part of the plot;--but here how judiciously in keeping with the character of the over-meditative Hamlet, ever at last determined by accident or by a fit of pa.s.sion!

'Ib.' sc. 7. Note how the King first awakens Laertes's vanity by praising the reporter, and then gratifies it by the report itself, and finally points it by--

Sir, this report of his Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy!--

'Ib.' King's speech:

For goodness, growing to a _pleurisy_, Dies in his own too much.

Theobald's note from Warburton, who conjectures 'plethory.'

I rather think that Shakspeare meant 'pleurisy,' but involved in it the thought of _plethora_, as supposing pleurisy to arise from too much blood; otherwise I cannot explain the following line--

And then this _should_ is like a spendthrift sigh, That hurts by easing.

In a st.i.tch in the side every one must have heaved a sigh that 'hurt by easing.'

Since writing the above I feel confirmed that 'pleurisy' is the right word; for I find that in the old medical dictionaries the pleurisy is often called the 'plethory.'

Ib.

'Queen'. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.

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