Hamlet tells them not to seem too wise about it. The theory of premeditated madness rests upon this passage, and upon one other, which will be noticed. But suppose that Shakspeare did at first entertain a purpose, borrowed from the old chronicle, of disguising Hamlet in some unusual vein, the psychological necessities of his character decided what that vein must be, as they also decided against the old chronicle in the matter of introducing a ghost. And Hamlet's mental quality is really shown by the vein into which it imperatively runs. He was overmastered and completely occupied by this mood of indignation at all the villainous cants of a smiling world. The temper grew so compactly beneath Shakspeare's pen that he could not interpolate into it any amateur simulations. The poet would not, if he could, have so diluted the terribly gathering sincerity which left that epithet of "antic" beached high up and disqualified for floating on its tide. On Elsinore's platform, Hamlet felt that the sudden complication would put him into strange behavior; he did not know exactly what, but he perceived it coming on. Such a man estimates himself more shrewdly than the crowd imagines. He was aware of a mind that over-refined and idealized, and of a disposition to avoid too close realities. Any hint of nature or society sufficed to sequester him in a monologue. But now he felt some modification passing through him; it is scarcely yet articulate, but it is inevitable to a man of his quality. Hamlet may call his mood by whatever phrases suit the different emergencies; but, in the main, it is the breaking-up of his mind's customary exercise into ironical scorn at discovering the rottenness of Denmark. The Greek word εἱρωνεἱα, whence our Irony is derived with its special meaning, had not yet been modernly grafted on the Saxon stem. Ben Jonson says:-- "Most Socratic lady! Or, if you will, ironick!" For the words _irony_, _ironick_, were at first used in English, and quite sparingly, to express the method of Socrates in conducting an argument; that is, by eliciting from an opponent his own refutation by asking him misleading questions. The words, in any sense, are not found in Shakspeare. Lord Bacon, in one instance, uses _irony_ nearly in the modern sense; and that is Socratic only so far as a thing is said with an intent the reverse of its ostensible meaning.