But in addition to all the other excellencies of Hamlet's speech concerning the wassel-music--so finely revealing the predominant idealism, the ratiocinative meditativeness, of his character--it has the advantage of giving nature and probability to the impassioned continuity of the speech instantly directed to the Ghost. The 'momentum' had been given to his mental activity; the full current of the thoughts and words had set in, and the very forgetfulness, in the fervour of his argumentation, of the purpose for which he was there, aided in preventing the appearance from benumbing the mind. Consequently, it acted as a new impulse,--a sudden stroke which increased the velocity of the body already in motion, whilst it altered the direction. The co-presence of Horatio, Marcellus, and Bernardo is most judiciously contrived; for it renders the courage of Hamlet and his impetuous eloquence perfectly intelligible. The knowledge,--the unthought of consciousness,--the sensation,--of human auditors,--of flesh and blood sympathists--acts as a support and a stimulation 'a tergo', while the front of the mind, the whole consciousness of the speaker, is filled, yea, absorbed, by the apparition. Add too, that the apparition itself has by its previous appearances been brought nearer to a thing of this world. This accrescence of objectivity in a Ghost that yet retains all its ghostly attributes and fearful subjectivity, is truly wonderful. 'Ib.' sc. 5. Hamlet's speech:-- O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell?-- I remember nothing equal to this burst unless it be the first speech of Prometheus in the Greek drama, after the exit of Vulcan and the two Afrites. But Shakspeare alone could have produced the vow of Hamlet to make his memory a blank of all maxims and generalized truths, that 'observation had copied there,'--followed immediately by the speaker noting down the generalized fact, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain! Ib. 'Mar'. Hillo, ho, ho, my lord! 'Ham'. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come bird, come, &c.