Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/90

80 the spectator be aroused for an obviously one-sided struggle. The external situation is similarly distorted for the needs of this hypothesis. On which side the people would have been in any conflict is clearly enough perceived by Claudius, who dare not even punish Hamlet for killing Polonius. (Act IV, Sc. 3.)

and again in Act IV, Sc. 7,

The ease with which the people could be roused against Claudius is well demonstrated after Polonius' death, when Laertes carried them with him in an irresistible demand for vengeance, which would promptly have been consummated had not the king convinced the avenger that he was innocent. Here the people, the "false Danish dogs" whose loyalty to Claudius was so feather-light that they gladly hailed as king even Laertes, a man who had no sort of claim on the throne, were ready enough to believe in the murderous guilt of their monarch without any shred of supporting evidence, when the accusation was not even true, and where no motive for murder could be discerned at all approaching in weight the two powerful ones that had actually led him to kill his brother. Where Laertes succeeded, it is not likely that Hamlet, the darling of the people, would have failed. Can we not imagine the march of events during the play before the court had Laertes been at the head instead of Hamlet; the straining observation of the fore- warned nobles, the starting-up of the guilty monarch who can bear the spectacle no longer, the open murmuring of the audience, the resistless impeachment by the avenger, and the instant execution effected by him and his devoted friends? Indeed, the whole Laertes episode seems almost to have been purposely woven into the drama so as to shew the world how a pious son should really deal with his father's murderer, how possible was the vengeance under these particular circumstances, and by contrast to illuminate the ignoble vacillation of Hamlet whose honour had been doubly wounded by the same treacherous villain.

Most convincing proof of all that the tragedy cannot be