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COXE’S TRAVELS IN DENMARK. 295
delighted with receiving the minuteft accounts of their health, amufements, and educa-
tion. Having obtained their portraits, fhe placed them in her molt retired apartment ;
often anoftrephized them as if prefent *, and addreffed them in the tendereft manner.
Adjoining to the royal palace, which ftands about Nalf a mile from Cronborg, is a
garden which curiofity led us to vifit; it is called Hamlet’s Garden, and is faid, by tra-
dition, to be the very {pot where the murder of his father was perpetrated. The houfe
is of modern date, and fituated at the foot of a fandy ridge near the fea; the garden
occupies the fide of the hill, and is laid out in terraces rifing one above another. El-
finore is the fcene of Shakefpeare’s Hamlet; and the original: hiftory from which that
divine bard derived the principal incidents of his play is founded on facts, but fo deeply
buried in remote antiquity, as render it difficult to difcriminate truth from fable. Saxo-
Grammiaticus, who flourifhed in the twelfth century, is the earlieft hiftorian of Denmark
who relates the adventures of Hamlet. His account is extrated, and much altered, by
Belleforeft, a French author; an Enelifh tranflation of whofe romance was publifhed
under the title of the “ Hiftorye of Hambiet ,” and from this tranflation Shakefpeare
formed the ground-work of his play, though with many alterations and additions.
As Saxo-Grammaticus is an author whofe works are in the hands of but few perfons,
and as I never met with an Englifh tranflation, it cannot be unacceptable to give a fhort
fketch of Hamlet’s hiftory, as recorded in the Danifh Annals {, that the reader may
compare the original character with that delineated by Shakefpeare.
Long before the introduion of chriftianity into Denmark, Horwendillus, prefect, or
King of Jutland, was married to Geruthra, or Gertrude, daughter of Ruric King of
Denmark, by whom he had a fon, called Amlettus, or Hamlet. I*engo murders his
brother Horwendillus, marries Gertrude, and afcends the throne. Hamlet, to avoid
his uncle’s jealoufy, counterfeits folly ; and is reprefented as fuch an abhorrer of falfe-
hood, that, though he conitantly frames the molt evafive and even abfurd anfwers, yet
artfully contrives never to deviate from truth. Fengo, fufpecting the reality of his mad-
nefs, endeavours, by various methods §, to difcover the real ftate of his mind : amongit
oihers, he departs from Elfinore, concerts a meeting between Hamlet and Gertrude,
concluding that he would not withhold his fentiments from his own mother, and orders
* I received this anecdote from a perfon at Zell, who had more than once overheard this affeSting ad -
drefs. ;
+ The only copy I ever faw of this work is in the library of Trinity college, Cambridge, in the curious
colleétion relative to the School of Shakefpeare, given by the late Mr. Capell to that fociety. . It ism black
letter, entitled, the Hiftory of Hamblet; imprinted by Richard Bradocke for Thomas Pavier.—The heads
of the chapters are given in Mr. Capell’s pofthumous work, the School of Shakefpeare, vol. il. p. g93 and
a few extraéts in Malone’s Supplement to Johnfon’s and Stevenfon’s Shakefpeare.
{ Sax. Gram. lib. iit. and iv. :
§ Among other attempts, Fengo ordered his companions to leave him in a retired fpot, and a young
woman was placed in his way, with a view to extort from him a confeffion that his folly was counterfeited.
Hamlet would have fallen into the fnare, if a friend had not fecretly conveyed to him intelligence of this
treachery : he carried the woman to a more fecret place, and obtained her promife not to betray him, which
the readily gave, as fhe had been brought up with him from her infancy. Being afked, on his return home,
if he had indulged his paffion, he anfwered in the affirmative ; but rendered himfelf not believed by the molt
artful fubterfuges, which, though true, feemed evidently to mark a difordered underftanding, and by the
politive denial of the woman. ‘ Upon this woman,’? as Capell obferves, ‘* is grounded Shakefpeare’s
Ophelia; and his deliverance from this fnare by a friend, fuggefted his Horatio:’’—‘ Vhe rude outlines,”
as Mr. Malone remarks, ‘¢ of thofe characters.”? ‘* But in this piece there are no traits of the character of
Polonius: there is, indeed, a counfellor, and he places himfelf in the Queen’s chamber behind the arras ;
but this is the whole. The ghoft of the old Hamlet is likewife the offspring of our author’s creative ima-
gination.”” Sce Capell’s School of Shakefpeare, vol. iii. p. 20; and Malone’s Supplement, p. 353.
a courtier
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