From the essay on the “Sublime and Naïve in Belles-Lettres.”

NO one is more happy in taking advantage of the commonest circumstances and making them sublime, by a fortunate turn, than Shakespeare. The effect of this species of the sublime must necessarily be stronger the more unexpectedly it surprises us and the less prepared we are to anticipate such weighty and tragic consequences from such trivial causes. I will give one or two examples of this out of “Hamlet.” The King institutes public entertainments in order to dissipate the melancholy of the Prince. Plays are performed. Hamlet has seen the tragedy of “Hecuba.” He appears to be in good humor. The company leaves him; and now mark with astonishment the tragic consequence which Shakespeare knows how to draw from these trivial common circumstances. The prince soliloquizes:—

	“Oh! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
	Is it not monstrous that this player here,
	But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
	Could force his soul so to his own conceit,
	That from her working all his visage wanned;
	Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,
	A broken voice and his whole function suiting
	With forms to his conceit! And all for nothing!
	For Hecuba!
	What ’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba,
	That he should weep for her? What would he do
	Had he the motive and the cue for passion
	That I have?”

What a master trait! Experience teaches that persons afflicted with melancholy find unexpectedly in every occasion, even in entertainments, a transition to the prevailing idea of their grief; and the more it is attempted to divert them from it, the more suddenly they fall back. This experience guided the genius of Shakespeare wherever he had to depict melancholy. His “Hamlet” and his “Lear” are full of these unexpected transitions causing terror to the spectator.

  In the third act, Guildenstern, a former confidant of Hamlet, at the instigation of the king endeavors to sound him and to ascertain the secret cause of his melancholy. The prince detects his purpose and resents it.

	Guild.—O my lord! if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.
	Ham.—I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
	Guild.—My lord, I cannot.
	Ham.—I pray you.
	Guild.—Believe me I cannot.
	Ham.—I do beseech you.
	Guild.—I know no touch of it, my lord.
	Ham.—’Tis as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
	Guild.—But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
	Ham.—Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing do you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. ’S blood! do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe! Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me you cannot play upon me.

    None but Shakespeare must venture to introduce such common matters upon the stage, for no one but he possesses the art to use them. Must not the spectator, in this case, be as much amazed as Guildenstern, who feels the superior address of the Prince, and withdraws, covered with shame?

  If the artist wishes to give us, in his work, a clear and sensible proof of those perfections which he possesses in the highest degree, he must direct his attention to the highest beauties which can animate his description. The little touches of the pencil, it is true, attest the finishing hand of the master, his diligence and his care to please. But it is not in them, certainly, that we are to look for the sublime which deserves our admiration. Admiration is a tribute which we owe to extraordinary gifts of mind. These are what we call genius in the strictest sense. Accordingly, wherever, in a work of art, there are found sensible marks of genius, there we are ready to accord to the artist the admiration which is his due. But the unimportant adjuncts, the last finish—that which belongs indeed to the picture, but does not constitute an essential part of the picture—exhibits too plainly the diligence and the care which it has cost the artist; and we are accustomed to deduct so much from genius as we ascribe to diligence.