II.ii.86-167 (205,8) My liege, and Madam, to expostulate] This account
of the character of Polonius, though it sufficiently reconciles the
seeming inconsistency of so much wisdom with so much folly, does not
perhaps correspond exactly to the ideas of our author. The commentator
Warburton makes the character of Polonius, a character only of manners,
discriminated by properties superficial, accidental, and acquired. The
poet intended a nobler delineation of a mixed character of manners and
of nature. Polonius is a man bred in courts, exercised in business,
stored with observations, confident of his knowledge, proud of his
eloquence, and declining into dotage. His mode of oratory is truly
represented as designed to ridicule the practice of those times, of
prefaces that made no introduction, and of method that embarrassed
rather than explained. This part of his character is accidental, the
rest is natural. Such a man is positive and confident, because he knows
that his mind was once strong, and knows not that it is become weak.
Such a man excels in general principles, but fails in the particular
application. He is knowing in retrospect, and ignorant in foresight.
While he depends upon his memory, and can draw from his repositories of
knowledge, he utters weighty sentences, and gives useful counsel; but as
the mind in its enfeebled state cannot be kept long busy and intent, the
old man is subject to sudden dereliction of his faculties, he loses the
order of his ideas, and entangles himself in his own thoughts, till he
recovers the leading principle, and falls again into his former train.
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