But, upon deeper study, the view now proposed
suggested itself, and seemed to render every thing as it should be.
We say that this view suggested _itself_, because it did not arise
directly from any one of the numerous passages which can be quoted in
its support; it originated in a general feeling of what seemed to be
wanting to the completion of the entire effect; a circumstance which
has been stated at length from the persuasion that it is of itself no
mean presumption in favour of the opinion which it is the aim of this
paper to establish.
Let us proceed to examine the validity of a position, which, if it
deserves any attention at all, may certainly claim an investigation
more than usually minute. We shall commence by giving an analysis of
the first Act, wherein will be considered, successively, every
passage which may appear to bear either way upon the point in
question.
The inferences which we believe to be deducible from the first scene
can be profitably employed only in conjunction with those to be
discovered in the third. Our analysis must, therefore, be entered
upon by an attempt to ascertain the true character of the impressions
which it was the desire of Shakspere to convey by the second.
This scene is almost exclusively occupied with the narrations of the
"bleeding Soldier," and of _Rosse_.
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