But he gives the one as a father, and is sincere in it;
he gives the other as a mere courtier, a busy-body, and is
accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent. In short,
Shakespeare has been accused of inconsistency in this and other
characters, only because he has kept up the distinction which there
is in nature, between the understandings and the moral habits of
men, between the absurdity of their ideas and the absurdity of their
motives. Polonius is not a fool, but he makes himself so. His folly,
whether in his actions or speeches, comes under the head of
impropriety of intention.
We do not like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all,
Hamlet. There is no play that suffers so much in being transferred
to the stage. Hamlet himself seems hardly capable of being acted.
Mr. Kemble unavoidably fails in this character from a want of ease
and variety. The character of Hamlet is made up of undulating lines;
it has the yielding flexibility of 'a wave o' th' sea'. Mr. Kemble
plays it like a man in armour, with a determined inveteracy of
purpose, in one undeviating straight line, which is as remote from
the natural grace and refined susceptibility of the character as the
sharp angles and abrupt starts which Mr. Kean introduces into the
part. Mr. Kean's Hamlet is as much too splenetic and rash as Mr.
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