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Rh external object which claims his reverence intervenes to check his purpose. The hesitancy must therefore come from within; accordingly the collision is found not in opposing moral principles, but in the personal character of Hamlet. His soul is not organized to perpetrate this deed of horror; consequently, wavering in his resolution, and overwhelmed with disgust at the world and at life, he perishes in the consummation of his revenge. So marvellous is the skill with which the character of Hamlet is drawn, so absorbing the interest which it awakens, that in studying it we are apt to forget the fundamental idea which underlies the drama, the dénouement of which, like that of the several members of the Oresteia, sets forth the great law of retribution, and vindicates the moral order of the Divine government.

In the third member of the trilogy, the poet, while making his drama subservient to objects connected with the political state of Athens, nevertheless subordinates these local interests to the exposition of higher truth. Among these political objects the most important was the defence of the Areopagus, the existence of which was threatened by the growing ascendency of the democracy. It would be difficult to imagine a more impressive means of recommending this tribunal to the reverence of the Athenians than thus to introduce the celestial powers as assisting at its inauguration. Of far higher significance, however, is the ethical conception which underlies the drama. The word Erinys in Greek has been defined to mean "the feeling