Hamlet displays craft also (but still a justifiable craft,) in his device of the play, “to catch the conscience of the king.” And when he has succeeded, he triumphs in this proof of his own skill, with a very natural vanity. “Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, (if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me,) etc., get me a fellowship in a cry of players?” In his interview with his mother, (the picture scene,) he dwells chiefly on her _want of discernment_; and, at the conclusion of the scene, alluding to his “two schoolfellows,” he boasts that he will “delve one yard below their mines, and blow them at the moon;” a feat which he very fully accomplishes. But after all he feels and acknowledges that he is a mere instrument in the hands of a higher power. Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us, There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will. And when Horatio endeavors to dissuade him from fencing with Laertes, because he acknowledges a foreboding of evil he replies: “Not a whit, we defy augury; there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.” These solemn sentiments were a fit prelude to the tragic fate upon which he was rushing. Polonius frequently boasts of his own discernment. As when he says to the king: Hath there been such a time (I’d fain know that,) That I have positively said _’tis so_; When it proved otherwise. And though he was mistaken as to the cause of Hamlet’s madness, he reasoned justly on the subject, and erred in his conclusion only because there was a supernatural cause at work, which he could not penetrate. The king also dwells on the same topic (skill or _management_,) in many places, and especially in his several conversations with Laertes. But I must hasten to a conclusion; hoping that I have awakened sufficient interest in the reader’s mind to induce him to pursue the subject with the play before him; and assuring him that he will find the theme in some one of its various phases, ever present; from the _sentinel’s challenge_ at the beginning, to the speech of Fortinbras on _propriety_ at the end; in the love-letter of Hamlet; in the carol of Ophelia; in the doggerel song of the old grave-digger; and every where else. A glance at the progress of the play will show that the theme, like the plot and the characters, is gradually developed. A brief notice of the contents of each act will make this apparent. _Act first._—This act is wholly occupied with matters of an _inquisitive_ character, and lectures on _reserve_ and _prudence_.