The Ghost ought to appear in a complete suit of armour: I should not contend that it be “steel,” though the text so advises us, because this would be pherhaps superfluous on account of the distance; but it should be a splendid and entire suit of warlike panoply,—burnished tin we will say. The effect might be heightened, if necessary, by a thin, gauzy, sombre raiment thrown over the armour, which would give a cloudy, indefined to the figure; but by attending to the first of always keeping in the back ground, this part of the paraphernalia might be dispensed with. A crest of black and waving plumes would confer altitude and majesty where these qualifications rarely exist, scilicet, in the persons of ghost-players in general, who are for the most part fat little fellows of about five feet and an inch, with Canopus bellies and bandy legs.
Here Mr. Umbra is throughout quite at fault, and I must take the liberty of proving him to be so. But to the last sentence in the extract I must first reply, as it clearly proves that the author’s notion of the Ghost is not such as a sensible man should entertain; it is to my understanding a covert objection to the comfortable and reasonable corpulence of the spirit, an objection which I will oppose so long as I have an ounce of flesh on my bones. I do solemnly assert that the Ghost in Hamlet ought to be fat, weighty, and impressive—not a thing to ride feather weight for a silver cup,—but a person that might “go to scale,” and not be found wanting in the lists: a substantial, good, ghost! In the first place, to go back to the ghost’s original, it is very clear from evidence on record that Hamlet’s father was a man of rather a corpulent turn. His habits bespeak it. He describes himself as having been sleeping in his orchard—“his custom always of an afternoon,”—now we all know that men who sleep after dinner, are not your puny, wiry fellows,—but rogues that run to belly,—varlets that have considerable linings to their waistcoats. Old Mr. Hamlet was just one of these. His son, in referring to his picture, exclaims, “Could you on this fair mountain leave,” &c. This mountain could have but one explanation! Besides, Hamlet himself, who may be expected to take after his father, is mentioned as being “fat and scant of breath,” that is, pursy, like his parent;—full, and puffy at a little exertion. Having thus proved the ghost's original to have been, in existence, a gentleman of aldermanic person and propensities, I come to justify a transfer of the suet to his ethereal image. The ghost is described to Hamlet as “a figure like your father”—Horatio says, “I knew your father; these hands are not more like;” and, on its first appearance, Marcellus asks of Horatio “Is it not like the King?” to which the reply is “as thou art to thyself!” Hamlet knows his parent the moment the Ghost enters—and could all these speeches and confirmations be borne, if a poor silent withered anatomy of a man were to glide in “no more like my father, than I to Hercules!” The idea of a thin ghost is not to be endured. It is monstrous!
I agree not either with Mr. Umbra in his mode of apparelling our spirit. Why should “a ghost wear no flaring colours whatever”?—Suppose the old King Hamlet in his life-time to have admired a crimson scarf, or to have been partial to a loose cloak; would it be reasonable or fair in us to have expected his spirit to forsake a favourite colour or jacket? Oh no! “Let him,” says Mr. Umbra, meaning the Ghost, “be as dark and as dismal as an alchemist or an undertaker.” Zounds! (for I get nearly out of patience) Zounds! I say, how would such a dowdy spirit have been known as the King? What a pretty figure would such a long stick of slate pencil cut before the following description of his late lamented Majesty.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow,
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars to threaten and command;
A station like the Herald Mercury
New lighted on a Heaven-kissing hill;
A combination, and a form indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
Is a King, thus admirably fashioned, to be libelled by a gloomy old pope of a ghost, as Mr. Umbra would endeavour to make him? I do agree, I admit, with Mr. Umbra in this, that the dress ought to be armour—but I protest against its brightness being rendered sombre by gauze,—or the warlike panoply being “read at a
