THE local illustrations of this play are from original sketches by C. F. Sargent, for the Pictorial edition. The architecture and scenery are more nearly those of the poet's age than that of the period of the drama : but the designs cannot claim the merit of most of the similar embellishments of this edition-that of suggesting to the reader some idea of the poet's own conception of the scenes which he filled with the ever-living creations of his mind. They are transferred to the present edition, chiefly on account of the interest they possess from being connected (in Mr. Knight's language) "with the supposed scenes of Hamlet's history, and with the popular traditions which have most likely sprung from the European reputation of the drama." As Shakespeare has placed the period of his drama during the term of the Danish power over England, the costume, in strictness, should be that of the age of Canute, which differed little in Denmark from that of the contemporary Anglo-Saxons. The outline of Canute and his Queen, from a nearly contemporary drawing, exhibits the royal dress; while the spirited sketch of the "angry parle" with "the sledded Polacks on the ice," by Harvey, delineates the arms and armour of the time with antiquarian accuracy. Still there is little or nothing in the drama to connect it closely with the precise costume of any period: the poet thought not of it; and provided the artist or the actor throws it back from any immediate association with our own age, the spectator is not disturbed by any incongruity, more than the reader is by the anachronism of the firing of cannon at the royal banquet. The ordinary old English dress and armour of the 15th and 16th centuries, have been found, for every purpose of art, to answer all the demands of the most sluggish imagination, and the most fastidious criticism. They were indeed, probably, very nearly the costume in which his characters passed before the mind's eye of the poet himself. He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice. 'Tis strange. Mar. Thus, twice before, and just at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch. Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not; But in the gross and scope of mine opinion, Why this same strict and most observant watch Hor. Did forfeit with his life all those his lands, Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same cov'nant Is the main motive of our preparations, Ber. think, it be no other, but e'en so: Hor. A-mote it is to trouble the mind's eye. In the most high and palmy state of Rome," A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets : As, stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Re-enter Ghost. But, soft! behold! lo, where it comes again! If there be any good thing to be done, If thou art privy to thy country's fate, Or, if thou hast uphoarded in thy life For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death, Hor. Mar. 'Tis gone. 'Tis here! 'Tis here! [Exit Ghost. We do it wrong, being so majestical, Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew. Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock. Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long: And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad; The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is that time. |