There seems to have been in Hamlet, so far as regards the commands of the
apparition, an almost perpetual conflict between impulse and reason, each
in its turn being predominant. The desire for revenge is at times so
great that it is only by the strongest effort of will he resists
precipitate action, then, losing no pretext to find causes for its
exercise, overpowering the dictates of his penetrative genius. It is not
rashness in Hamlet on one occasion and procrastination on another, but a
power of instantaneous action that could be controlled by the very
briefest period of reflection, the great feature in his intellect being a
preternaturally rapid reflective power, and men of genius almost
invariably do meditate before action.
Among the numerous unsupported conjectures respecting this tragedy may be
mentioned that, when Shakespeare drew the characters of, 1. Hamlet; 2.
Horatio; 3. Claudius; 4. The Queen, he had in his mind, 1. The Earl of
Essex or Sir Phillip Sydney or himself; 2. Lord Southampton or Fulke
Greville; 3. The Earl of Leicester; 4. Mary, Queen of Scots. Although
some of these suggestions are ingeniously supported, there is not one of
them which rests on any kind of real evidence or external probability.
Burbage was the first actor of Hamlet in Shakespeare's tragedy.
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