Revenge is a strictly personal afiair, having nothing in common yvith punisAmen/^
which satisfies the simple sense of justice. And where does the Ghost or Hamlet
speak of punishment merely, and of the necessity of a previous unmasking ? It is

* This and the preceding volume, Dr Struvb's, come to hand while these pages are going throu^
the press. The printers are upon me, and I cannot stop to read the volumes through. From the
former I have selected the most striking passage that has caught my eye; of the latter I have not
had time even to cut the leaves. The few pages, however, that I have read here and there, give
promise of an essay of unusual power, and of forebodings to the soundness of Wbrdbr's theory.
Probably under any circumstances but few extracts could have been made from Dr Baumcart's
volume, so much of it is, professedly, criticism on criticism, which, as is stated in the Preface to
Vol. I, has been excluded in the selection of extracts. £0.
BAUMGART 393

revenge alone that the Ghost calk for, and swift revenge that Hamlet promises
There is not a word about handing the King over to punishment, nor of punishment
at ally but the first word with which Hamlet again recalls the warning of the Ghosl.
is a call upon himself, his own passion, that it may drive him at last to the ven-
geance which he has postponed.
