the theories therefore seem rather to perplex than to explain. Undoubtedly the cause of this is that they seek the solution of the riddle in the effect on Hamlet's relations to Ophelia of prior incidents in the play, his father's murder, his mother's marriage to the murderer, and the ghostly mission of revenge. But there are in the situation at the end of Act I of 'Hamlet' and wholly unconnected with these incidents, all the elements of a tragedy, few and simple, but profoundly significant. Thus, we have a prince who is an ardent lover, a court lady who has as ardently returned his love, the lady's sudden and unexplained refusal to see or hear from him, her ambitious and time-serving courtier father, and for a King a "remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain." Let but a spark of jealous suspicion reach such a mixture, and there must be an explosion; with a war-hardened Othello-like titanic rage and murder, but with the softer Hamlet renunciation and reproach, and with poor Ophelia, who represses her feelings always, heart-break, insanity, and death. Now, Hamlet is pictured as one of the most suspicious of men, and in particular at this juncture about his mortal enemy the King. In addition, he is very proud and very revengeful, as he admits, and there is every indication that he has been passionately fond of Ophelia. When therefore she persistently denies herself to him in private, though doubtless a regular attendant at the functions of the court, his suspicions are excited, his pride wounded, his anger aroused; and, with "the pangs of despis'd love" in his heart, and in his mind a tumult of conflicting thoughts, he suddenly presents himself before her, resolved to know the truth. "What damned moments counts he o'er Who dotes, yet doubts,--suspects, yet fondly loves." In Quarto I she says: "He found me walking in the gallery, all alone"; that is, in the gallery of the King's palace,--(compare lines 673 and 803),--and of course within reach of the King; and, though Shakespeare afterwards transferred this scene to her chamber in her father's house, it may not be overlooked that the remarkable interview of which Ophelia tells was conceived originally as occurring on the impulse of the moment and under stress of feeling caused apparently, by Hamlet's unexpected and dumbfoundering discovery: