and marries his brother's wife. In the second chapter we are informed, "how Hamlet counterfeited the madman, to escape the tyranny of his uncle, and how he was tempted by a woman (through his uncle's procurement), who thereby thought to undermine the Prince, and by that means to find out whether he counterfeited madness or not." In the third chapter we learn, "how Fengon, uncle to Hamlet, a second time to entrap him in his politic madness, caused one of his councillors to be secretly hidden in the Queen's chamber, behind the arras, to hear what speeches past between Hamlet and the Queen; and how Hamlet killed him, and escaped that danger, and what followed.” It is in this part of the action that Shakspere's use of this book may be distinctly traced. Capell says, "Amidst this resemblance of persons and circumstances, it is rather strange that none of the relater's expressions have got into the play and yet not one of them is to be found, except the following, in Chapter III., where Hamlet kills the counsellor (who is described as of a greater reach than the rest, and is the Poet's Polonius) behind the arras: here, beating the hangings, and perceiving something to stir under them, he is made to cry out-'a rat, a rat,' and presently drawing his sword thrust it into the hangings, which done, pulled the counsellor (half dead) out by the heels, made an end of killing him." In the fourth chapter Hamlet is sent to England by Fengon, "with secret letters to have him put to death;" and while his companions slept, Hamlet counterfeits the letters "willing the King of England to put the two messengers to death." Here ends the resemblance between the history and the play. The Hamlet of the history returns to Denmark, slays his uncle, burns his palace, makes an oration to the Danes, and is elected king. His subsequent adventures are rather extravagant. He goes back to England, kills the king of that country, returns to Denmark with two English wives, and, finally, falls himself through the treachery of one of these ladies.

It is scarcely necessary to point out how little these rude materials have assisted Shakspere in the composition of the great tragedy of Hamlet. He found, in the records of a barbarous period, a tale of adultery and murder and revenge. Here, too, was a rude indication of the character of Hamlet. But what he has given us is so essentially a creation from first to last, that it would be only tedious to point out the lesser resemblances between the drama and the history. That Shakspere adopted the period of the action as related by Saxo Grammaticus, there can be no doubt. The following passage is decisive :-

"And, England, if my love thou hold'st at aught,
(As my great power thereof may give thee sense;

Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us) thou may'st not coldly set
Our sovereign process."

We have here a distinct indication of the period before the Norman Conquest, when England was either under the sovereignty of the Northmen, as in the time of Canute, or paid tribute to the Danish power.

SCENES.

THE local illustrations which we have given of this play are from original sketches made by Mr. G. F. Sargent. Those of buildings, have, of course, no association with the period of the action. But they possess an interest; being in some degree connected with the supposed scenes of Hamlet's history, and with the popular traditions which have most likely sprung from the European reputation of Shakspere's Hamlet. For example, we have this passage in Coxe's Travels: " Adjoining to a royal palace, which stands about half a mile from Kronberg, is a garden which curiosity led us to visit; it is called Hamlet's Garden, and is said, by tradition, to be the vary spot where the murder of his father was perpetrated." The vignette at the end of the fifth act shows a sequestered part of this garden, which is called "Hamlet's Grave." Mr. Inglis, in an agreeable volume published in Constable's Miscellany, describes his anxiety to see this garden, upon the evening of his arrival at Elsinore. "The sentinel," he says, "to whom I addressed myself, laid aside his musket, and himself conducted me to the enclosure." The Castle of Kronborg, or Kronenburg, in the immediate neighbourhood of Elsinore, is a fortification which is invariably associated with Shakspere's Hamlet. Mr. Inglis learnt that very few travellers visited Elsinore; but that "occasionally passengers in English vessels which happened to be lying to, and sometimes also passengers in French vessels,

landed at the castle, owing to its connexion with Hamlet and Shakspere." A Danish translation of Hamlet, he learnt, was often acted at Elsinore. We present, therefore, to our readers what the few passengers who visit Elsinore land to see, walking up to the castle, as Mr. Inglis did, thinking all the way "of Hamlet and Ophelia, and the murdered King." The engraving at the head of Act I. is a view of the platform at the Castle of Kronborg; that at the head of Act III. the Palace of Kronborg, within the fortifications. We have also given a general view of Elsinore; and a view of an old church and churchyard there. The view of the Palace of Rosenberg, which is at Copenhagen, is introduced to exhibit the residence of a Danish noble in the time of Shakspere.

IT has been conjectured, and with sufficient reason, by Mr. Strutt and other writers on the subject of costume, that the dress of the Danes during the tenth and eleventh centuries differed little, if anything, in shape from that of the Anglo-Saxons; and although from several scattered passages in the works of the Welsh bards and in the old Danish ballads, we gather that black was a favourite colour, we are expressly told by Arnold of Lubeck, that at the time he wrote (circa 1127), they had become " wearers of scarlet, purple and fine linen;" and by Wallingford, who died in 1214, that "the Danes were effeminately gay in their dress, combed their hair once a day, bathed once a week, and often changed their attire." Of their pride in their long hair, and of the care they took of it, several anecdotes have been preserved. Harold Harfagre, i. e. Fairlocks, derived his name from the beauty of his long-flowing ringlets, which are said to have hung down to his girdle, and to have been like silken or golden threads: and these precious curls he made a vow to his mistress to neglect till he had completed the conquest of Norway for her love.* A young Danish warrior going to be beheaded begged of an executioner that his hair might not be touched by a slave, or stained with his blood. In the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, we find—

"The long-haired one, illustrious in battle,

The bright lord of the Danes : "

and the Knyghtlinga Saga describes Canute's hair as profuse.

In a MS. register of Hide Abbey, written in the time of Canute, that monarch is represented in a tunic and mantle, the latter fastened with cords or ribands, and tassels. He wears shoes, and stockings reaching nearly to the knees, with embroidered tops, or it may be chausses or pantaloons, with an embroidered band beneath the knee; for the drawing being uncoloured leaves the matter * Torfæus, Hist. Nor.

↑ Jomswinkinga Saga in Bartholinus.

in doubt.

When Canute's body was examined at Winchester in 1766, it was adorned with several gold and silver bands, and a wreath or circlet was round the head. A jewelled ring was upon one finger, and in one of his hands a silver penny. * Bracelets of massive gold were worn by all persons of rank, and their most sacred oath before their conversion to christianity was by their "holy bracelet;" a sacred ornament of this kind being kept on the altars of their gods, or worn round the arm of the priest. Scarlet was the colour originally worn by the kings, queens, and princes of Denmark. In the ballad of Childe Axelvold we find that as soon as the young man discovered himself to be of royal race, he "put on the scarlet red;" and in the ballad of "Hero Hogen and the Queen of Danmarck," the queen is said to have rode first "in red scarlet," the word red being used in both these instances to distinguish the peculiar sort of scarlets, as in those times scarlet, like purple, was used to express any gradation of colour formed by red and blue, from indigo to crimson. It thus happens, curiously enough, that the objections of the queen and Claudius to the appearance of Hamlet in black, are authorized, not only by the well-known custom of the early Danes, never to mourn for their nearest and dearest relatives or friends, but also by the fact, that, although black was at least their favourite, † if not, indeed, their national colour, Hamlet, as a prince of the blood, should have been attired in the royal scarlet. Of the armour of the Danes at the close of the tenth century we have several verbal descriptions. By the laws of Gula, said to have been established by Hacon the Good, who died in 963, it is ordered that every possessor of six marks should furnish himself with a red shield of two boards in thickness, a spear, an axe, or a sword. He who was worth twelve marks, in addition to the above, was ordered to procure a steel cap; whilst he who had eighteen marks was obliged to have also a coat of mail, or a tunic of quilted linen or cloth, and all usual military weapons, amongst which the bipennis, or doublebladed axe, was the most national. The Danish helmet, like the Saxon, had the nasal, which in Scandinavia is called nef-biòrg (nose-guard), and to which the collar of the mail-hood, which covered the chin, was frequently hooked up, so as to leave little of the face unguarded except the eyes.

*Archælogia, Vol. III.

+ Black bordered with red is to this day common amongst the northern peasantry.