We see, then, the signification which there was in his speech to Ophelia : ' You
should not have believed me ; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we
shall relish of it.'

[Page 144.] As a heritage, then, Hamlet has that hatred of underhand cunning
and treachery, that sincerity of nature, which justify Laertes in describing him as
' free from ell contriving ;' and as a heritage, also, he has that faculty for dissimula-
tion which is evident in his character. • • • • Strange as it may seem, we not un-
commonly observe the character of the mother, with her emotional impulses and
subtle but scarce conscious shifts, in the individual when young, while the calm de-
liberation and conscious, determination of the father come out more plainly as he
grows older. Setting aside any necessity which Shakespeare might think himself
under to follow the old play, it is in Hamlet's inherited disposition to dissimulation
that we find the only explanation of his deliberately feigning madness, when, to all
appearances, policy would have been much better served if he had not so feigned.
But he has a love of the secret way for its, own sake ; to hoist the engineer with his
own petard is to him a most attractive prospect; and he breaks out into positive
exultation at the idea of outwitting Rosencrants and Guildenstern, with whom he
was to go to England.
