phrase, is that in which he marks the right motive of beha viour towards inferiors, and indeed towards all men.
To
Polonius's assurance that he will use the players according to their desert, the princely thought, in homely garb, is, “Odd's bodikin, man, much better: Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping ! Use them after your own honour and dignity : the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.” Although he freely mocks the old lord chamberlain him self, he will not permit others to do so. His injunction to the player, “Follow that lord, and look you mock him not,” not only indicates that the absurdities of Polonius are glaring, but that there is less real malice in Hamlet's heart towards the
old man than he assumes the appearance of Hamlet decides upon the use he will make of the players with a promptitude that shews that his resolve, “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,” is but the inactivity of an
over-reflective melancholic mind, and that there is energy enough in him to seize any real occasion. Hamlet's soliloquy, “O, what a rogue and peasant slave am It’ resembles with a difference the one following his inter view with the Captain : “How all occasions do inform against me.” The latter one, after he has obtained satisfactory proof of his uncle's guilt, is far the least passionate and vehement, justifying in some degree the remark of Schlegel, that “in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to
retrograde.” There is, however, an important distinction be tween these two soliloquies. The passionate outburst of the first has been stimulated by emotional imitation. The feigned passion of the player has touched the most sensitive chord of feeling, and given occasion to the vehemence of his angry self rebuke. The account of the soldier's temper, “greatly to find quarrel in a straw, when honour's at the stake,” sets him calmly to reflect and philosophize upon the motives of action. F
