mafs of thought which they had to exprefs. Thus, Give me a bow, might be expreffed by one word; Give me food, by another; I faw a friend, an enemy, a beaft, a man, a woman, by as many different words; no distinction being made between noun and verb, agent or fubject, mood or accident. But the inconvenience of such a language would foon be felt and gradually remedied; and the first and most natural step would be to employ the fame word for give, whatever was to be given, one word for fee, whatever was feen, and to employ different nouns to denote the substances given or feen. But this implies the previous exercise of a faculty of a higher order than that of dividing the voice, or forming articulate founds. The fame power that has made us Megores, hath alfo taught us to divide our thoughts. Indeed, without this nobler faculty, which feems to be denied to all the inferior animals, and is fcarce perceptible in man during the firft months of his life, the other would be of little value. Several animals have learnt to divide the voice, or to articulate, better than many unfortunate individuals of our own fpecies, who were deficient in the proper organs of voice and speech; but none of them have ever learned to make use of speech as we do. They probably always, and children for fome time, make no attempt to separate or analyse their thoughts. Till that be done, which our fuperior faculties foon enable us to do, the very fundamental notions of the parts of fpeech cannot be conceived, grammatical language cannot be contrived, nor even if it were prefented to us ready made, in all the perfection of the Greek of DEMOSTHENES, could it be either learned or employed.

ON the former fuppofition, (page 247.) the moods of verbs. must be conceived to be added to them in the course of the formation or improvement of language.

On the latter fuppofition, they must be conceived to be retained in language, and to be a remnant of a very rude polyfylVOL. II.

I i

labic

labic state of it, which, though inconvenient on the whole, had fome advantages.

SOME expreffions occafionally employed in this Differtation, may seem to favour or to imply the former supposition. But that is not meant. Neither hypothefis is affumed in the reafoning. Thofe expreffions have always been employed with caution and distrust, and merely in compliance with cuftom, a deviation from which might have feemed to imply the oppofite hypothefis, and would have required a new, and, in some measure, an embarrassed and uncouth mode of expreffion.

BOTH hypothefes are equally indifferent to this Theory of the Moods of Verbs, which is independent of all hypotheses, and does not extend to the biftory of the first appearance of moods, nor to the question, whether they be added to language in its progrefs, or retained in it when perhaps many other inflections were laid aside. They may be partly both, or their history may be different in different languages. All that is attempted in this Theory of the Moods of Verbs, is only to investigate the nature and import of them more accurately than had been done before, and to fhew what valuable, and almost indifpenfible purposes they actually ferve in the communication of thought.

VII.

VII. An ESSAY on the CHARACTER of HAMLET, in SHAKESPEARE's Tragedy of HAMLET. By the Reverend Mr THOMAS ROBERTSON, F. R. S. EDIN. and Minifter of Dalmeny.

ΤΗ

[Read by Mr DALZEL, Secretary, July 21. 1788.]

HE Character of HAMLET, has been variously judged of by critics, and what might be expected, it has been still more variously reprefented by performers upon the stage. SHAKESPEARE himself feems to have apprehended that this would happen; and that injustice would be done to a hero, who probably, in his estimation, ranked higher than any other that he has brought into the drama.

WHEN HAMLET was dying, he appears, upon this account, to have made him fpeak as follows to HORATIO.

HORATIO, I am dead;

Thou liv'ft'; report me and my cause aright

To the unfatisfied.

Oh good HORATIO, what a wounded name,

Things ftanding thus unknown, fhall live behind me.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

Abfent thee from felicity a while,

To tell my tale.

HAMLET was here in a fituation in which men in general fpeak truth; and he was befides speaking to a confidential

friend, who could not be impofed upon; a friend who, from the strongest poffible attachment to him, had been about to put an end to his own life, but was restrained from his purpose, in order to explain to a "harth world," the story of HAMLET, after he was no more.

AND when HAMLET dies, HORATIO pronounces this eulogium :

Now cracks a noble heart! good night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels fing thee to thy rest.

SHAKESPEARE, in these paffages, not only refers to the particular part which HAMLET had acted, with respect to the ufurper, (which he calls HAMLET's caufe) and which, upon being explained, would vindicate what he had done. He plainly intimates by the mouth of HORATIO, his own idea of HAMLET's character, in all other refpects; as not only heroic and fplendid, but perfectly confiftent, amiable and just; and further, from the danger that HAMLET himself, as well as his cause, might be expofed to the cenfure of the unfatisfied, he seems strongly to infinuate, that the character could not be comprehended, unless an enlarged view were taken of it, and of the different fituations in which it had been placed.

HAMLET'S conduct in having put the king to death, was, in a great measure, already justified, in the very hearing of the lords, and other attendants upon the court, who were witnesses to it. The queen, who had just expired in their fight, had faid fhe was "poifoned." HAMLET had called out villany!" Even LAERTES, the treacherous opponent of HAMLET, had declared, "the king, the king's to blame-It is a poison tem"pered by himself." And HAMLET, upon ftabbing the king, had expressly charged him with "murder." All this passed in the presence of the court, who would hence be led to view the king as guilty of having poisoned the queen, and therefore as

juftly

justly put to death by her fon. It is true indeed, the king had intended to poifon, not the queen, but HAMLET; but neither the court, nor HAMLET himself, knew this; none but LAERTES was privy to it; and as he immediately expired without faying more, the fecret was to laft for ever.

HAMLET, therefore, could have but little cause to fear that he should leave a wounded name behind him for thus revenging his mother's death. What troubled him, was the thought that pofterity would condemn him for not having, before that time, revenged the murder of his father. This was the reproach with which he had often charged himself; for at the beginning he had refolved to act quite otherwise, and had exprefsly promifed to his father's ghost, with the utmost speed to avenge the murder.

Haste me to know it (faid he in the first act) that I with wings as swift

As meditation or the thoughts of love,

May fweep to my revenge.

His fervent defire now therefore, was, that HORATIO, who knew all, might furvive him, not merely to reveal the murder of his father, but to make known to all men the infinite indignation which this excited in him, and the plan of vengeance which he had laid. HORATIO, for this purpose, would describe the two great and leading features in the character of HAMLET, pointed out by the finger of SHAKESPEARE himself, that "noble heart," and that " sweetness," with which at once he was distinguished. Upon the latter of these two, HORATIO would particularly explain the scheme of counterfeiting madnefs, which that sweetness had fuggefted; and which, at the same time, would fave HAMLET from paffing for a real madman in the opinion of pofterity.

As