'Even Hamlet, who has made a pretty considerable mess of things, and occasioned the death of at least three innocent people, and two more insignificant ones, dies fairly well pleased with himself' ('Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca'; Selected Essays, 1932).
The odd distinction between the innocent and the insignificant has already been commented on. Mr. Eliot's general complaint about the death-scenes of Elizabethan tragic heroes, whose apologias he ascribes to the influence of Seneca, ignores the historical fact that this was an age of public executions in which men were judged by the courage and dignity with which they met public death, and when it was thought proper that at this supreme moment of their lives they should submit their case to the judgement of their fellow men. The best comment on Othello's last speech and Hamlet's entrusting of his cause to Horatio is provided by Sidney's Musidorus and Pyrocles in their condemned cell: 'In this time, place and fortune, it is lawfull for us to speak gloriously.'