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A' 
 
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 The First Quarto Edition of Hamlet, 
 
 1603. 
 
 TWO ESSAYS 
 
 TO WHICH 
 
 THE HARNESS PRIZE 
 
 Was Awarded, 1880. 
 
 I.—By C. H. HERFORD, B.A., \ 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 Y 
 
 II.—By W. H. WIDGERY, B.A., 
 
 ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 (THE ABOVE WERE DECLARED EQUAL IN MERIT.) 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER and CO., 
 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1880. 
 
T r\cJ- 
 
 The First Quarto Edition of Hamlet. 
 
 1603. 
 
 TWO ESSAYS 
 
 TO WHICH 
 
 THE HARNESS PRIZE 
 
 Was Awarded, 1880. 
 
 I.—By C. H. HERFORD, B.A., x 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 II.—By W. H. WIDGERY, B.A., 
 
 st. John’s college, Cambridge. > 
 (THE ABOVE WERE DECLARED EQUAL IN MERIT.) 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER and CO., 
 
 15, WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1880. 
 
LIBRARY I IN IV. OF 
 *! '.tv. n UABbLINA 
 
 CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE LODGE, 
 
 APRIL 7, 1880. 
 
 HARNESS PRIZE 
 
 ADJUDGED TO 
 
 C. H. HERFORD, B.A., Trinity College } 
 
 \rPq. 
 
 W. H. WIDGERY, B.A,, St. John's College J 
 
 E. H. Perowne, Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 “The Examiners , in making their award , do 
 hot necessarily accept the theories proposed by 
 the successful candidates 
 
HARNESS PRIZE-ESSAYS, 
 
 l88o. 
 
 The First Quarto Edition of Hamlet , 
 
 1603. 
 
 Essay I. 
 
 BY 
 
 C. H. HERFORD, B.A, 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chap. I.— Introduction. 
 
 I. 
 
 Authenticity of Qj 
 
 Chap. II.— i. Corruptions. 
 
 Chap. III.— ii. Evidences of Authenticity 
 
 a CORRESPONDENCES WITH F OR Q„ 
 
 b CHANGES IN NAMES. 
 
 C „ „ CHARACTERS . . . 
 
 d ,, „ DRAMATIC PROPRIETY 
 
 e „ „ STRUCTURE . . . . 
 
 f „ „ POETICAL QUALITIES . 
 
 Chap. IV.— iii. Equivocal Evidences . . 
 
 II. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 
 18 
 
 28 
 
 29 
 
 3 ° 
 
 33 
 
 49 
 
 55 
 
 58 
 
 62 
 
 Chap. V.—Shakspere’s Share in 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 7 2 
 
THE 
 
 FIRST QUARTO OP HAMLET. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION * 
 
 DURING the earlier months of the year 
 1602, a play called the Revenge of Hamlet 
 Prince of Denmark, composed not long be¬ 
 fore, by William Shakspere, upon the basis 
 of an older play, is performed by the Lord 
 Chamberlain’s servants. On July 26, 1602, 
 a version of it, taken from notes of the per¬ 
 formance—the lacunae being to some extent 
 filled up afterwards from memory—is entered 
 in the Stationers’ Register. In the following 
 year, 1603, it is piratically printed and pub- 
 
 # In the following Essay, for brevity, 0 : is used for 
 ‘ the first Quarto,’ 0 2 for the second, F, Ff,for ‘the 1 st 
 folio,’ ‘ folios,’ Oq for 0 2 and later quartos. In quoting 
 Q 1? its peculiar spelling, where immaterial, is dis¬ 
 regarded. 
 
IO 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 lished. The actors, resenting the extremely 
 imperfect manner of its production, resolve 
 to print the “ true and perfect copy” in their 
 possession. Before, however, this is done, 
 the author takes the opportunity to make a 
 thorough revision of it, altering certain 
 names, making numerous changes, omissions 
 and additions, &c., and greatly improving 
 both its dramatic and its poetic qualities. 
 Accordingly in the next year, 1604,—the 
 delay being caused by these changes,— 
 the Tragic Hystorie of Hamlet, “ enlarged to 
 nearly as much again as it was, according to 
 the true and perfect copy,” is given to the 
 world. 
 
 Such is, in my judgment, the truth about 
 the somewhat complicated literary questions 
 which, since the discovery of the first quarto 
 in 1823, have been in continual controversy 
 around it. “ Small, barbarously cropped, 
 and very ill-bound,” it emerged from the 
 “closet” in which Sir Henry Bunbury was so 
 fortunate as to find it, into the fierce light 
 which beats upon all such treasure-trove in 
 the age of antiquarianism and Shakspere- 
 worship. It was reprinted with great care 
 and at great expense. Thanks to its con- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I I 
 
 servation in the antiquary’s chest, the criti¬ 
 cism of the 18th century did not reach it. 
 It was denied to Rowe and Theobald as a 
 promising field for conjectural emendation, 
 and to Voltaire as an unsurpassed witness of 
 the “ drunken savage.” Its discussion was 
 henceforth necessary for every editor of the 
 19th century. England and Germany, each 
 with its characteristic direction of critical ap¬ 
 proach,—the verbal and linguistic criticism 
 in which the previous age had been strong, 
 as well as the aesthetic criticism to which 
 the Romantic school in the present had 
 given such stimulus,—both these left their 
 mark in the prefaces and prolegomena of 
 this period of Shaksperean study. 
 
 The tangled lines of controversy which 
 are traversed in these works, may be referred 
 to two central questions. On the one hand, 
 what is the relation of Oj to the final play ; 
 are the differences due to changes made by 
 the author, or to the misunderstandings, 
 mistakes, and interpolations of a reporter : in 
 a word, was the earlier play improved, or has 
 the later been corrupted ? On the other hand, 
 assuming that the original of Q x was sub¬ 
 stantially different from the final play, was 
 
IIAMLET : 
 
 I 2 
 
 any other than Shakspere the author of any 
 part: and in either case, what was the date ? 
 In the following Essay these two questions 
 will be dealt with separately. 
 
 Two solutions of the problem how is 
 related to Q 2 , correspond to two schools of 
 criticism—we might almost say two types 
 of mind—which have left their mark upon 
 all controversies of the kind. A mind that 
 delights in analysing the simple into the 
 manifold, harmony into discords, order into 
 confusion ; a memory that dwells upon and 
 exaggerates all the broken and unconnected 
 lights and shadows of the motley picture 
 thus committed to it ; an imagination whose 
 somewhat limited scope allows no very com¬ 
 prehensive realization of the possibilities of 
 a single mind, and readily yields to that 
 surly pessimism whereby a critic whose ex¬ 
 perience has lain chiefly in MS. corruptions 
 is led to charge all faults upon the defective 
 intellect of the copyist,—this is the type of 
 the first school. On the other side stands 
 the school which opposes to this Aristotelian 
 analytic, the Platonic bias towards unity and 
 order : men less experienced in textual 
 antiquarianism than in the character and 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 13 
 
 ideas of poets ; ingenious in solving incon¬ 
 gruities, and often indeed perversely dis¬ 
 covering subtle intention in minute fragments 
 and wrecks of thought, or inspiring with 
 internal meaning the result of mere external 
 malice or stupidity. This school is apt to 
 find authenticity in the omission of the 
 Torso ; the former to deny it to the slightest 
 eccentricity it finds in the perfect statue. 
 
 Having regard now merely to this com¬ 
 paratively narrow field of Hamlet criticism, 
 the men who have most nearly approached 
 these two types have been, in England 
 Collier and Knight, in Germany Tycho 
 Mommsen. Knight has given the most 
 elaborate exposition of the one type, Momm¬ 
 sen the most trenchant and thorough repre¬ 
 sentation of the other. Probably if the 
 question were to be settled by authority, 
 Mommsen’s cause would have the greater 
 claims to success. Knight’s enthusiasm for 
 Shakspere was not of that critical temper 
 which rejects every unworthy element of the 
 genuine text, it was rather of a receptive 
 kind, and threw about many a poor phrase 
 a glamour which forbade him to believe that 
 mere corruption had introduced it into that 
 
14 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 glorious company. His fanatical deference 
 to the first Folio shewed him in fact to be 
 no critic of the first order. Mommsen, on 
 the other hand, was, if we may so express 
 it, too much of a critic. He was so familiar 
 with the ample possibilities of unintelligent 
 error, that he believed scarcely anything 
 beyond its power. He quite understood the 
 mental habits of the copyist, who at once 
 wants capacity to understand his MS, and 
 reverence to trust it: the crude and ele¬ 
 mentary connexion of thought which he 
 expects to find, and if he does not find, will 
 make : the grotesque attempts to piece out 
 subtle transitions by foisting in irrelevant 
 stupidities; the blunders he will introduce 
 into difficult phrases, where he has not cast 
 them out altogether : the misplacement, for 
 example, of verses which an earlier copyist 
 omitted and wrote below, and the omission 
 of them by a later one because misplaced 
 and therefore nonsensical. But Mommsen 
 has, it appears to me, overshot the mark, 
 by failing to recognise the signs of design 
 among not a few of the deviations he con¬ 
 demns. Knight, on the other hand, looks 
 too exclusively from this point of view. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 15 
 
 Behind the text of the earlier Quarto he 
 discerns the unblurred image of a youthful 
 Shakspere, and almost ignores that shadow 
 of a ruder cast, whose coarse profile mingles 
 with and distorts the curves of his, and 
 makes the whole the strange compound of 
 splendour and deformity which it is. 
 
 The same view of Knight, in so far as it 
 supposes Qj to be based upon a Shak- 
 sperean early sketch, has met with consider¬ 
 able assent, especially that of Elze, who 
 has a.dded two somewhat fantastic reasons 
 for assuming such a sketch. Delius is 
 equally convinced that the original of Qj is 
 not the final Hamlet ; though less decidedly 
 assigning it as a whole to Shakspere. 
 
 Staunton and Dyce express similar 
 views, though without amplifying them. On 
 the other side, besides Collier, who sup¬ 
 poses that the reporter supplied his omissions 
 either from memory or by the employment 
 of inferior writers to assist him, we find 
 Grant White (Introd. to Hamlet), sup¬ 
 posing that these deficiencies were sup¬ 
 plied from an old play of Hamlet. The 
 Cambridge Editors, on the other hand, 
 though still denying any other original than 
 
HAMLET : 
 
 I 6 
 
 Q 2 , attribute a corrupting process to the eye r 
 instead of the ear, and account for the accu¬ 
 racy of some portions by the supposition of 
 clandestine inspection of the original MS. 
 In their Clarendon Press Ed., finally, the 
 same editors took another view: viz. that 
 Oj represents a play in course of revision by 
 Shakspere, and retaining with much of his 
 w r ork a great deal that is alien. Finally, in 
 his recent valuable introduction, Mr. FUR- 
 NIVALL regards the work as wholly Sliak- 
 sperean, and assigns it to about the year 
 1602. More will subsequently be said upon 
 these theories. 
 
 In passing from this historical sketch to 
 the critical investigation of the Quarto which 
 is our proper business, we may remark in 
 the first place how fertile it is in diverse 
 and indeed contradictory suggestions. Half 
 a dozen theories about its origin might be 
 plausibly supported and refuted from its 
 pages. One scene suggests faithful copying: 
 the next, notes of what was imperfectly heard 
 at first, imperfectly understood when heard, or 
 imperfectly spelt when understood. The 
 errors of printers, copyists, and reporters are 
 mixed together: of unique passages, some 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 1 / 
 
 seem full of the rich charm of the young 
 Shakspere, while others are bald and poor : 
 dozens of lines in succession are composed in 
 faultless verse: dozens of others are lame or 
 wholly without rhythm. The critic constantly 
 finds himself asking, How could the man who 
 wrote this, write that ? It appears to me that 
 he has commonly erred in seeking for his 
 difficulty too simple a solution ; and that 
 we have here a mass of phenomena for 
 which only a complex set of causes will 
 account. We shall at least hope to make it 
 clear that the original of Q x was something 
 scarcely less different from Q 2 than it is 
 from Q v and to indicate in the main lines 
 what this original was. We shall not be able, 
 in discussing its relation to Q 2 , to give the 
 palm to any one theory, but shall merely 
 indicate two or three most probable views, 
 to decide between which would be at once 
 pedantic and of little consequence. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CORRUPTIONS. 
 
 I SHALL in the first place lay down all the 
 features which can certainly be referred to 
 corruption of any kind, elimination of which 
 must precede the attempt to compare the 
 original with Q r Now it is not difficult 
 to trace certain points in the mental con¬ 
 dition of the reporter to whom great part at 
 least is owing. He had no ear for verse and 
 was deficient both in reading and in general 
 intelligence. To begin with the fiist head. 
 
 T Errors of A very slight inspection reveals the strange 
 hearing, &c. perversity w j t h which he has confused the 
 
 arrangement of verses, not merely where he has 
 previously corrupted the words, but even where 
 they are perfect,''" and still more strangely 
 where they are rimed (Sc. xiv. 24-6) : 
 
 .... and you shall 
 
 Quickly find, Hamlet being here, 
 
 Things fell not to his mind— 
 
 and at Sc.xvi. 32 he writes the same verse two 
 
 different ways within half a dozen lines. For 
 
 * II. 60-65. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 19 
 
 the most part, however, rimed verses preserve 
 him : eg., in the whole of the Play and not 
 seldom after an interval of confusion, the 
 rimed couplet which so often terminates a 
 speech enables him to end it evenly. He 
 betrays the same defect in another way by 
 continually writing prose as verse.* Only 
 on very few occasions does he venture into 
 prose, f And yet the use of prose was far 
 from being an innovation of Shakspere’s. 
 Equally unequivocal are the signs of his 
 limited culture. Numerous passages have 
 become nonsense through his small acquaint¬ 
 ance with words. Sometimes it may be that, 
 as the Cambridge Editors contend, the errors 
 resemble those of a transcriber rather than 
 of a reporter : they instance courage for 
 comrade (Sc. iii. 31), to which may be 
 added ghost for quest (Sc. xvi. 43), and 
 Pellon for Pelion (Sc. xvi. 143). For the 
 most part, however, they are decidedly mis¬ 
 takes of hearing. Such are, eg., invclmorablc 
 for invulnerable (Sc. i. 11 o), impudent for im¬ 
 potent (Sc. ii. 2), vessels for eisel (Sc. xvi. 
 154), ceremonies for cerements (Sc. iv. 26), 
 probably guise for gules (Sc. vii. I 5 2 )> 
 
 # VI. passim. + Sc. XVI. 92. Sc. XVI. 18. 
 
 B 2 
 
20 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 epiteethe and epitithe for epitaph (Sc. vii. 
 187), calagulate for coagulate (Sc. vii. 154), 
 and rather comically in Sc. ix. 138 :— 
 
 “ K. What do you call the name of the 
 play ? H\ Mouse trap : Mary how [?] 
 trapically ”—for tropically ; a probably quite 
 unconscious pun. Sometimes the meaning 
 of whole phrases is affected, as young good 
 Cornelia , ‘for you good Cornelius’ (Sc. ii. 5), 
 
 ‘ it is some noble parentage ,’ for personage 
 (Sc. xvi. 126), and still more curiously 
 (Sc. vii. 133) with tongue envenom'd speech,, 
 for “with tongue in venom steeped.” Or 
 inversions: “we here have writ to Fortinbras, 
 nephew of old Norway”. . . . cf. the follow¬ 
 ing passage : “ we here despatch . . as 
 
 bearers of these greetings to old Norway 
 (ii. init.). 
 
 In the matter of proper names he is on 
 the whole fairly satisfactory. But the names 
 of the more romantic figures of ancient times 
 were familiar enough to even the ground¬ 
 lings of the Elizabethan age—as is testified 
 by the frequent allusions to them in popular 
 plays. Julius Csesar is the subject of at 
 least half a dozen incidental passages in 
 Shakspere alone : and Alexander was still, 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 2 I 
 
 as in the middle ages, the yet more famous 
 type of a great conqueror. Dido and SEneas 
 were familiar figures. Even Hecate was 
 blended with the popular mythology. Our 
 reporter breathed like so many more the 
 faint odour of antiquity which the Renais¬ 
 sance had diffused into even the most com¬ 
 mon and unsophisticated air. Indeed he is 
 quite equal to an occasional classical word 
 or phrase ; the chorus of ix. 146, the quietus 
 of the soliloquy stand fast : hie et ulhqiie of 
 the ghost scene suffers no perdition at his 
 hands. Nay, he may sometimes be charged 
 even with pedantic rigour, as when he substi¬ 
 tutes the ergo of the doctor’s thesis for the 
 argal of the clown’s brow-beating casuistry. 
 He is, however, unfortunate in his rendering 
 of Polonius’ eulogium on the actors :— 
 “ Seneca cannot be too heavy nor Plato 
 (Plautus) too lightand comes wholly to 
 grief over the “ Arganiau beast;” and for 
 Pelion and Ossa, Gosell and Pcllon “ flourish 
 side by side” in common corruption. 
 
 Of names of characters in the play most 
 of the divergences are probably due to the 
 original : but perhaps Rossencraft and Guil- 
 denstone are ’ mere errors of the reporter. 
 
22 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Shakspere, it is true, made no difficulty, in? 
 the early part of his career, of introducing 
 English characters into foreign scenery, but 
 this practice was almost confined to the 
 humorous scenes of his Romantic dramas ; 
 and even here he gradually abandoned it. 
 Cf. The Aguecheeks, Bottoms, Nathaniels of 
 his early Romantic dramas with the Gonzalos 
 and Stephanos of the one great Romantic 
 drama of his later period. 
 
 In the second place let us examine the 
 2. Errors of errors of memory and understanding as op- 
 
 Memory,&c. J fa r 
 
 posed to mere errors of perception, which 
 abundantly strew the pages, e.g. (i. 88.) 
 
 “ did forfeit with his life all those 
 His lands which he stood seazecl of by the conqueror,” 
 
 for to. He apparently understood seazed of 
 ( = possessed of) as = taken from him : and 
 so forgetting the dependence of to on for¬ 
 feited\ connected “ the conqueror ” with the 
 wrong verb. 
 
 “ or if thou hast extoi'ted in thy life 
 or hoarded treasure in the womb of earth,” 
 
 (for Jioarded extorted treasure'). 
 
 “ And others that received it in like kind to me 
 Cried in the top of their judgments” 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 23 
 
 lor, 
 
 “ Others whose judgments cried in the top of mine.” 
 
 (vii. 135). 
 
 So (vii. 222) where after imagining him¬ 
 self the victim of various hypothetical insults, 
 he cries 
 
 “ Sure I should take it ; or else I have no gall 
 or by this I should have fatted &c., 
 
 where the or of the following line which 
 might well be pronounced while the reporter 
 was still writing the first line, evidently sug¬ 
 gested the change. Again 
 
 “ Is’t possible a young maid’s life (wits 0. 2 ) 
 
 Should be as mortal as an old man’s sawe” (life Q 2 )— 
 
 (xiii. 69). 
 
 I now pass to a group of facts which 
 are rather attributable to the general diffi¬ 
 culty of reporting a long speech exactly 
 than to any special defect of the reporter. 
 
 Such are the obvious imperfect verses ; 
 the half lines, three-quarter lines, and lines 
 which are apparently regulated by an ex¬ 
 ternal measure of length only,—unrhythmic 
 collocations of a fixed number of inches. 
 We have already considered the cases of 
 mere ill arrangement, the line, &c., being 
 complete; we are now dealing with the 
 
24 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 4. Defective 
 sense con¬ 
 nexion. 
 
 cases where the hurry of reporting has caused 
 the omission of a part of the verse. It 
 often happens that we can discover the 
 exact extent of the omission, where, e.g., a 
 broken line occurs between two sets of per¬ 
 fect verses (whether written as such or not) ; 
 or even between tw r o single ones. 
 
 Corresponding to these deficiencies in the 
 formal structure are the occasional defective 
 connexions of the sense. Such are the 
 omissions which are indicated by| awkward¬ 
 nesses of all kinds, from absolute breaks in 
 the syntactical connexion to mere harsh and 
 abrupt juxtaposition. 
 
 “at whose sight 
 
 The happy smile and the accursed damned”—(vi. 124) 
 
 where the last clause is incomplete. Laertes’ 
 words over the distracted Ophelia, 
 
 “ Thoughts afflictions torments worse than hell,”— 
 
 (xiii. 89) 
 
 for 
 
 Thoughts and afflictions, passion, hell itself 
 She turns to favour and to prettiness. 
 
 Cf. too xi. 170 seq. and the abrupt opening 
 of the Queen’s description of Ophelia’s drowit- 
 ing, xv. 40 seq. :—which is throughout 
 strangely grotesque and awkward. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 25 
 
 We reserve for the moment the discussion 
 of the hypothesis of systematic additions by 
 a reviser or poetaster, or of passages added 
 from the older play. That the reporter 
 himself made such additions must at once 
 be negatived. The extraordinary deficiencies 
 which have been illustrated, forbid the sup¬ 
 position that he was capable of composing 
 original verses so formally correct and often 
 subtly and even organically appropriate as 
 the majority of those which distinguish Q x 
 from Q 2 . We may however with high pro¬ 
 bability attribute to him various superfluous 
 exclamations which give a childish iteration 
 of emphasis to many strong bits of dialogue: 
 —exclamations not systematically inserted, 
 but rather the spontaneous contribution of a 
 mind attempting to add the vigour of ejacu¬ 
 lation to the expressiveness of simple words. 
 Sometimes an additional word will occur 
 within the line :— 
 
 “ Scorned of the right rich, the rich curst of the poor:” 
 
 (vi 127.) 
 
 I that: 
 
 5. Idle Ex¬ 
 clamations. 
 
 “ I that O this conscience doth make cowards of us 
 all (vi. 138.) 
 
2 6 
 
 HAMLET I 
 
 Why : 
 
 “ Why what a dunghill, idiote slave am I 
 (Why) these players here draw water from eyes. 
 
 For Hecuba, (why) what is Hecuba to him, or he to 
 Hecuba.” (vii. 207, 209.) 
 
 So, xi. 82, 86, 
 
 “ (Why) doe you nothing heare 
 “ why see the king my father ” &c. 
 
 Ay inary : 
 
 “ To sleep, to dream : ay marry, there it goes 
 Pol. What read you ? 
 
 Ham. Mary most vile heresie.” Q x . (vii. 20.) 
 
 Cf. “ Slanders, sir,” 0 2 . 
 
 I'll warrant you: 
 
 “ I’ll warrant you he’ll stay till you come ” 
 
 He’ll stay till you come. 0 2 . 
 
 (Hamlet of Polonius dead.) 
 
 The clumsy and probably vulgar expres¬ 
 sion “ drinking drunk ” occurs twice in Q v 
 v. 22, x. 23. 
 
 Sometimes the expression instead of being 
 vulgar is grotesquely polite: e.g., the Queen’s 
 description of Ophelia’s drowning : 
 
 “ For a while her clothes spread wide abroad 
 Bore the young lady up.” 
 
 Similarly, though less comically 
 
 “ Nay, then, there’s some likelihood a gentleman! s 
 death may outlive [his] memorie” (a great man’s, 0 2 ). 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 27 
 
 Again, we may assign to the reporter 
 various repetitions of words such as would 
 easily arise when a little slowness in writing 
 was combined with a little carelessness in 
 revising. The writer being behind the 
 speaker confused the word he was listening 
 to with that he was writing, and then re¬ 
 peated it in its right place. 
 
 Eg., Satyricall satyre, (vii. 20) ; obediently 
 obeyed me (vi. 87) ; looke you how pale he 
 lookes (xi. 86) ; then venom to thy venom 
 (xviii. 93). 
 
 Transference of speeches between persons 
 little distinguished ; eg. Guildenstern and 
 Rosencrantz. In II. ii., Sc. vii., 
 
 Ham. Were you not sent for ? 
 
 Guild. Qi. i what say you ? 
 
 Ros. Q 2 . J 
 
 So again, vii. 61, and 64—67, Guildenstern 
 takes the place of Rosencrantz. 
 
 This error would clearly be especially 
 natural to one who merely watched and 
 listened to the drama. 
 
 In a few places the text is apparently J 
 misarranged. 
 
 1. Hamlet’s speech (xvi. 143) is given to 
 Laertes. 
 
 6. Repeti¬ 
 tions. 
 
 7. Speeches 
 transferred. 
 
 I. Text dis¬ 
 turbed. 
 
28 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 2. Possibly, in ix. 69—72 ; where the 
 King’s single speech contains two questions, 
 to which Hamlet’s single speech contains 
 two answers. 
 
 K. How now son Hamlet, how fare you, 
 shall we have a play ? 
 
 H. I’faith the chameleon’s dish, not capon crammed 
 (sic.) feed a the air. I father. 
 
 Perhaps the pairs of questions and answers 
 were originally separated. 
 
 3. v. 14, 15 ; and vi. 122-5 ; lines in¬ 
 verted. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EVIDENCES OF AUTHENTICITY. 
 
 I HAVE now discussed those features of Qj 
 which, as the result of mere careless report¬ 
 ing or transcription, may be eliminated from 
 further consideration. I proceed in the same 
 way to set forth the features which may 
 be regarded as authentic and genuine. 
 Hitherto we have dealt with all the signs of 
 ignorance, of imperfect memory, of limited 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 29 
 
 grasp, which distinguish a rude revision from 
 an original : we are now to search out the 
 marks which distinguish an original from 
 a masterly revision ;—the distinct, if less 
 conspicuous, mental grasp, the presence of 
 a faculty which may arrange less perfectly, 
 but still does arrange ; the predominance of 
 a law which, though lower, is still law 
 and not confusion. Sometimes the contrast 
 is in dramatic, sometimes in poetic qualities : 
 it is in the degree of subtle characterisation, 
 of artistic structure, of perfect fitness in 
 all the incidents and circumstances of the 
 scene, of ideal grace and nobility in expres¬ 
 sion. 
 
 Apart however from this broad field of 
 criticism, there is a minor yet more specific 
 criterion of authenticity, which we will dis¬ 
 cuss first. Many of the readings of Q x 
 agree with those of the Folio where they 
 diverge from Q.„ and agree with 0 2 where 
 they differ from the Folio. In these cases it 
 is highly probable that a common original 
 underlies both: that these readings therefore 
 of Q l are genuine. Here are several, (1) 
 agreeing with Folio only.* 
 
 * According to Delius’ collation. 
 
 I. 
 
 Readings 
 common to 
 Folio or Q 2 . 
 
30 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Q t and Ff. 
 or he to Hecuba 
 We’ll een to it like French 
 falconers. 
 
 This not to do . . . swear. 
 Three thousand crowns 
 But who, O who had seen 
 the mobled queen, 
 may be a devil; and the 
 devil hath power. 
 (Stage direction: “Priest” 
 Question it, Horatio 
 
 Q 2 &c. 
 
 or he to her. II. ii. (539) 
 . . . like friendly falc. ib. 
 
 (This—do om.) I. v. fin. 
 
 Threescore th. cr. II. ii. 
 But who, a woe &c. II. ii. 
 
 May be a deale; and the 
 deale &c. II. ii. fin. 
 
 “Doctor” V. i. 206. 
 
 Speak to it, H. I. i. 45. 
 
 (2) Q, agrees with Q 2 , &c., not with Ff. 
 
 My lord I will take my My honourable lord I will 
 leave of you. most humbly take my leave. 
 
 II. ii. 214. 
 
 In one case Oj is plainly right, where both 
 Q 2 and F are wrong. 
 
 God yield you (O x ) God dild you (0 2 ) 
 
 God dil’d you (Ff). 
 
 ^ IL r To consider now the cases in which the 
 
 Changes ot 
 
 Dramatis extent and nature of divergence is the only 
 Per othSs. and clue to the solution. There is in the first 
 place a class of variations, which, although 
 no dramatic or poetic superiority can ac¬ 
 count for the reading of Q 2 , are in nowise 
 attributable to the blundering reporter of 
 I refer to the alterations of the names of 
 characters :—a feature so obvious that the 
 advocates of exclusive corruption have been 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 31 
 
 compelled to notice it, while often passing over 
 diversities more profound. Besides Corambis 
 and Montano , with the already discussed 
 forms Rossencraft and Gilder stone , we find 
 the Play-king Gonzago and his queen turned 
 into the duke Albertus* and his “dutchess 
 and he is murdered not in Vienna but—per¬ 
 haps through some reminiscence of tales 
 of gold-thirst and murder—in the Eldorado 
 region of “ Guyana;” (ix. 140). In other cases, 
 characters bearing a name in Q 2 are de¬ 
 scribed by their occupations merely. Thus, 
 Francisco and Bernardo become “2 Centinels, ” 
 and Osric a “ braggart Gentleman; ” just as 
 Gregory and Sampson and Abram in the Q 2 
 of Romeo and Juliet (1 599 ) appear simply as 
 “Serving men of the Mountagues,” of the “Ca- 
 polets,” in Q„ of 1597,—an edition of which 
 Mommsen takes the same view as of the work 
 before us. Little weight is of course to be 
 attached to these vague descriptive names: 
 a title which appeared in the MS. of the 
 play merely to indicate the speaker, would 
 necessarily be unknown to a mere reporter. 
 Neither Francisco nor Osric is mentioned 
 
 * It is remarkable that in III. ii. 212, Gonzago is 
 called duke. 
 
32 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 in the dialogue, and Bernardo only once. 
 In other cases it is less easy to deny the 
 authenticity. Collier and Grant White do 
 not attempt to do so : Shakspere may have 
 “ at first introduced these names, and after¬ 
 wards thought fit to reject them ” (Collier) : 
 —or he changed them in the second edition 
 in order to blot out the associations of the 
 piratical first (Grant White). Mommsen, 
 however, ingeniously attempts to assimilate 
 these cases to the vaguer substitutions we have 
 mentioned; supposing Corambis and Montano 
 to be mere wrong interpretations of Cor. 
 for Courtier and Man— i.e. Polonius’ man— 
 respectively. He probably assumes that 
 these abbreviations were found in those 
 notes of the performance upon which, in 
 his view, Qj was based : it is, however, 
 strange in that case, that the name Montano 
 should occur twice in the dialogue in pas¬ 
 sages corresponding to those which in 0 2 
 speak of Reynaldo, and a third time in a 
 line peculiar to the earlier edition. The 
 first and third of these passages (v. i. 3). 
 
 “ Montano, here, these letters to my son ... 
 
 And bid him ply his learning, good Montano” 
 
 there is no reason to suppose either corrupt 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 or interpolated : the verse is easy and flow¬ 
 ing, and the matter in no way irrelevant. 
 Verse 5, though slightly corrupt, corresponds 
 closely to verse 3 of Q„: (“ You shall do very 
 well Montano”—“ You shall do very wisely 
 good Reynaldo”). Similarly, Corainbis occurs 
 at least twice in apparently genuine verse : 
 eg. (xiii. 6) :— 
 
 “And this mischance of old Corambis’ death.” 
 
 It will probably therefore appear that Momm¬ 
 sen’s suggestion is more ingenious than con¬ 
 clusive. 
 
 To proceed to more important differ¬ 
 ences. And first, of those which arise from 
 a changed dramatic intention,—a modifica¬ 
 tion in the design as well as an improvement 
 in the drawing of a character. These appear 
 to me to be more numerous than has hitherto 
 been pointed out. Scarcely one of the 
 principal actors, in fact, is without some fea¬ 
 ture which deviates from the more consum¬ 
 mate limning of Q 2 , and yet is such as only 
 the studious pencil and not the careless blur 
 could produce. To begin with the Queen. 
 Her fundamentally different attitude towards 
 Claudius has often been pointed out. The 
 
 C 
 
 hi. 
 
 Changed 
 motif of 
 characters. 
 
 1.The Queen. 
 
34 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 veil which in Q„ is studiously made to con¬ 
 ceal the precise measure of her complicity in 
 the murder is abruptly rent in the earlier 
 version. She pointedly declares,—in verse 
 somewhat crude and prosaic (xi. 2, 3) :— 
 
 “ I swear by heaven 
 I never knew of this most horrid murder.” 
 
 And to Hamlet’s emphatic request for aid 
 in his projected revenge (xi. 102, 3), gives 
 an equally emphatic consent (xi. 104, 7). 
 Cf. also the passage (xiv. 10), 
 
 “ Then I perceive there’s treason in his lookes 
 That seem’d so sugar’d o’er with villanie 
 But I will soothe and please him for a time,” &c. 
 
 In Q 2 , Hamlet requires of her merely the 
 promise of secrecy and to abstain from the 
 King’s bed. He thinks of her as half his 
 enemy, and can exact merely the passive 
 comradeship of silence and modesty, not the 
 active complicity of contrivance and daring. 
 He dares not even breathe a word to her of 
 his intended vengeance. Indeed it is note¬ 
 worthy that he hardly ever refers to it at all 
 except when alone ; with the reserve of self¬ 
 distrust he shrinks from strengthening in 
 other minds anticipations which may be 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 35 
 
 unfulfilled. It is probable that the lines in 
 Q 2 (IV. v. 17, 20) 
 
 “To my sick soul as sin’s true nature is,” &c.; 
 
 are meant to add another touch to the 
 blacker suggestions of the mystery which 
 shrouds her. Note too the more frequent 
 utterances of affection for Hamlet which in 
 •Q l break from her ; e.g. (vi. 29) :— 
 
 Cor. I have found 
 
 The very depth of Hamlet’s lunacy 
 Queen. God grant he hath. (Not in Q 2 .) 
 
 and (viii. 21—3) 
 
 King. . . . Gertrude, you’ll see this play ? 
 
 Queen. My lord I will, and it joyes me at the soul 
 He is inclin’d to any kind of mirth. 
 
 Hence in various ways a more intimate re¬ 
 lation is suggested between Hamlet and his 
 mother. She is more closely bound in affec¬ 
 tion, and the moral gulf which parts them is 
 less profound. 
 
 The position of the Queen is in another The King. 
 way affected by a slight remodelling of the 
 character of the King. The first Q exhibits 
 him in various respects deficient in the 
 majesty which, notwithstanding Hamlet’s 
 abuse of the “ vice of kings,” the “ king of 
 
 C 2 
 
36 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 shreds and patches,”—unquestionably clothes 
 him in the second. In the former the 
 familiarity which he frequently uses towards 
 Hamlet, and especially the strange form of 
 address “ sonne, princely sonne Hamlet” 
 ( passim ), suggest a character more capable 
 of the unkingly meanness of hypocrisy and 
 fear than the reserved and dignified Claudius 
 of O,. He appears more desirous to con¬ 
 ciliate the man he has injured, less resolute 
 in pursuing a policy of watchful enmity. 
 His one attempt at an understanding (I. ii.) 
 is extremely cautious and restrained. He 
 speaks throughout, as in the previous address 
 to the court at large, in a style of ingenious 
 and apposite, yet frigid argumentation ; and 
 only in the last line does he tentatively 
 repeat the new title,—(“ our chiefest courtier 
 cousin and our son”)—which had previously 
 drawn from Hamlet the sarcastic comment, 
 about one “a little more than kin and less than 
 kind.” After this scene there is no further 
 attempt at familiarity : nor does Hamlet on 
 his part ever call his uncle “ father” except 
 in the ironical passage IV. iii. Cf. the formal 
 address “ my lord” in I. ii. 67. The reserve 
 of mutual suspicion grows up between them 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 37 
 
 Hamlet suspects the King, and the King 
 suspects him of suspicion. They distinctly 
 avoid addressing one another. Hence it is 
 natural that the Queen, who in Q : is com¬ 
 paratively insignificant beside the King, 
 should to some extent take his place in 
 communicating with Hamlet, and that he 
 should on his part address his mother instead 
 of his uncle. Thus in I. ii. 68—73, it is the 
 Oueen who enforces the more veiled and 
 indirect suggestion of the King 
 
 “ How is it that the clouds still hang on you ?” 
 
 with the emphatic appeal in which all dis¬ 
 guise and, as Hamlet thought, all modesty, 
 is thrown off:— 
 
 “ Good Hamlet, throw thy nighted colour off,” &c. 
 
 And the three following speeches, until the 
 King intervenes with the piece of strained 
 rhetoric we have referred to, take place 
 between them alone. In Q v on the other 
 hand, the Queen speaks only in the single 
 couplet at the close. The important speech 
 of Hamlet, the first explanation he has 
 deigned to offer of his behaviour, is ad¬ 
 dressed to the King : — 
 
 “ My lord, kis not the sable suit I wear,” &c. 
 
38 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 Again, in harmony with his reserve when 
 Hamlet is present is his greater coldness, 
 when he is absent, in speaking of him. Eg., 
 the phrase “and we (are) most sorry for him” 
 (Sc. vi.) is eliminated from the more obvi¬ 
 ously cold address of Q 2 II. ii. init. which 
 corresponds. 
 
 Again, in it is the King who explains 
 to Laertes after the grave-scene the transi¬ 
 ency of Hamlet’s “ wild humour,” in words 
 which, in a beautifully elaborated form, are 
 assigned in Q 2 to the Queen :— 
 
 “ Forbear, Laertes, now is he mad as the sea, 
 
 Anon as mild and gentle as a Dove.” xvi. 161. 
 
 In other relations too, the King of Oj is less 
 reserved in the expression of feeling than his 
 maturer counterpart in Q 2 . “ Pretty Ophelia!” 
 is the most compassionate word which the 
 spectacle of that unhappy maiden in her 
 distraction calls from him. “ Alas dear 
 heart!” he cries in the earlier version, 
 with an appreciable loss of that super¬ 
 ficial air of dignity which the Stoic and 
 the Roman in us cause us to find in self 
 repression. 
 
 That other kind of dignity too which is 
 added to a man by the deference and 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 39 
 
 obeisances of others, is made to invest the 
 Claudius of Q 2 in somewhat larger measure. 
 Cf. the unceremonious address of Corambis 
 in vii. 6, 7 :— 
 
 “ Send you those gentlemen, let me alone 
 To find the depth of this, away, be gone !” 
 
 Also the more courtly motif of Laertes" 
 request for leave to return to Paris, in 
 where it appears that the cause of 
 sojourn in Denmark was the coronation of 
 Claudius, not the funeral of Hamlet. Pos¬ 
 sibly too the brusque and sudden entry of 
 Laertes on his rebellious return is not the 
 result of corruption, and the elaborate arti¬ 
 fice by which this brusqueness is avoided 
 in Q 2 is deliberately designed in order that 
 the dignity of a king may be less im¬ 
 paired. 
 
 Finally, the guilt of the King is distinctly 
 greater in Q r Even the less important 
 position of the Queen beside him and her 
 non-complicity in her husband’s death, serve 
 to concentrate upon his head the guilt which 
 in Q 2 she is felt rather than known in some 
 degree to share. But a further diminution 
 of his “heavy audit” is in the later version 
 made at the expense of Laertes. For the 
 
40 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 I 
 
 suggestion of poisoned rapiers which there 
 proceeds from that somewhat attitudinising 
 impersonator of Nemesis, is in the device 
 of the King (xv. 21 seq.) :— 
 
 “ Among the foils shall a keen rapier lie 
 Steeped in a mixture of deadly poison.” 
 
 Upon the whole, then, the King of the 
 Uter version is, by a variety of refined 
 Vouches,-—-not random ones, but facing as it 
 were towards a central unity of purpose which 
 determines them,—enlarged in kingly digr 
 nity and elevation. He is more removed 
 from the unmitigated coarseness of the 
 Fengon of Saxo Grammaticus and the 
 Hystorie. He falls more short of the com¬ 
 plete hypocrite ; condescends with more 
 difficulty and restraint to practise cunning 
 kindness where he hates ; has less of low¬ 
 bred facility in playing a false part ; and 
 betrays himself more readily by the laboured 
 ingenuity of his language. These are 
 touches of the high art which allows no 
 contrast to be too absolute ; which relieves 
 the unvaried shadows of the young painter 
 with subtle half-lights, and tones down his 
 glaring whites with delicate shade. 
 
 Let us next consider Hamlet himself. I 
 
 3 . Hamlet. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 41 
 
 have already spoken of the heightened re¬ 
 serve which in O, belongs to his relation to 
 
 «v2 o 
 
 Claudius as well as to Claudius’ relation 
 to him. The familiar title “ father ” is, in 
 truth, still more undignified in his case than 
 its correlative is for the King. 
 
 A more important and suggestive change 
 is concerned with the question, so often dis¬ 
 cussed, of Hamlet’s mental attitude towards 
 the supernatural. The mystery of Hamlet’s 
 hesitation has been solved in two principal 
 ways. One school, that of Schlegel and 
 Coleridge, have attributed it to a paralysis 
 of will through excessive reflexion, — “a 
 craven scruple of thinking too precisely on 
 the event.” By the other the ultimate 
 medium of obstruction has been found in 
 theological doubt. Such ground as there is 
 for the latter, view is found certainly in the 
 later rather than in the earlier version. It 
 appears, however, best to regard the “ ques¬ 
 tioning of the supernatural,”—(or rather 
 perhaps of the more peculiarly Catholic doc¬ 
 trines, not of theism)—as simply an effect 
 rather than the cause of his hesitation : he 
 instinctively grasps at every suggestion of 
 his versatile genius, which can serve as an 
 
42 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 excuse for deferring the stroke which will 
 end his bondage, with the King’s life. But 
 in the Soliloquy (III. i.—ii. of QJ, no such 
 consciousness of inertia turns aside the 
 logical course of his analysis. He falls into 
 a vein of reflexion that does not disturb 
 this underlying stratum, and pursues it to a 
 conclusion which checks the impulse to self¬ 
 slaughter born of an oppressed consciousness. 
 Here, then, nature works freely: and here 
 doubt, the natural attitude of a mind never 
 weary of analysing and never satisfied with 
 its analysis, is wholly appropriate. While 
 Q 2 as I have said marks this, Qj gives a 
 version of the soliloquy which is probably 
 the most suggestive of its many variations. 
 
 Quite typical is the substitution for 
 
 “ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come ” 
 in Q 2 , of this in Q t : 
 
 “ For in that dream of death when we awaked 
 
 To the later Hamlet the future world lies,, 
 in truth, in the uncertain light of dreams: 
 his predecessor imagines it with the greater 
 realism of the waking world. Very signifi¬ 
 cant from this point of view are the two 
 lines, omitted in 0„:— 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 43 
 
 “ And borne before an everlasting judge 
 
 .at whose sight 
 
 The happy smile and the accursed damn’d ”— 
 
 though the first clause is probably wrong 
 (? happy for righteous ), and the second cer¬ 
 tainly incomplete. In the “ dream” light of 
 Q 2 these suggestions of a theological scheme 
 are barely hinted as “the dread of something 
 after death,”—and the “ other ills we know 
 not of.” No doubt these expressions occur 
 likewise in O v as well as “ the undiscovered 
 country from whence no passenger ever re¬ 
 turn’d ” (the lines are erroneously inverted). 
 Perhaps an inconsistency might be discerned 
 in this blending of professed ignorance with 
 implied knowledge. It appears however 
 scarcely the degree of inconsistency which 
 ought to be attributed to corruption : jather 
 it belongs to the mental attitude natural to 
 an age which had brought mediaeval faith 
 and modern speculation into conflict. 
 
 One other passage bears a similar note. 
 His dying words in Q 1} —“ heaven receive 
 my soule ”—are replaced in Q 2 by that 
 brief sentence,—“ the rest is silence ;” the 
 beauty of which is certainly derived from no 
 suggestion of another world. He is think- 
 
44 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 mg of his body alone that will soon be still, 
 of that little “ organ ” whose excellent music 
 will henceforth cease, and for which he prays 
 no renewal among heavenly harmonies. It 
 is Horatio who adds: “And flights of angels 
 sing thee to thy rest.” Nothing is less like 
 the conventional dying speech than the dying 
 speech of Hamlet. 
 
 In the second place there are in traces 
 slight, yet distinct, of that Hamblet of Saxe 
 and the Hystorie, who is at least as much 
 concerned to recover his inheritance as to 
 avenge his father. Such a trace is found in 
 the original version of the great soliloquy of 
 II. ii., at vii. 210: “His father murdred 
 and the crown bereft him!' In Q 2 the murder 
 and incest of Claudius are. so much more 
 
 t 
 
 prominent than his usurpation, that this 
 phrase, afterwards cut out, suggests at once 
 the old Hamblet who triumphantly succeeds 
 to the throne of Claudius and makes an 
 oration,—not at all in the style of the 
 soliloquies — to’ his rejoicing countrymen. 
 There is, however, one passage which appa¬ 
 rently involves an exception. It is V. ii. 62 
 seq .,—in the colloquy with Horatio which 
 follows his return and immediately precedes 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 45 
 
 the finale. He is aware that his time is 
 now limited : that he must either act or 
 perish. He attempts to whet his resolution 
 by displaying all the overwhelming grounds 
 for the deed. Naturally enough he includes 
 one which, though little to him, would be 
 counted of great weight by the moral sense 
 of men at large :—the exclusion of himself 
 from the throne. 
 
 “ Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon 
 
 He that hath kill’d my king and stain’d my mother 
 
 Popp’d in between the election and my hopes,” &c. 
 
 The case in II. ii. is quite different. Here 
 it is not the opinion of men in general, but 
 his own feeling which is in question. He 
 has just seen the Player weep over his part : 
 for nothing ,—“ for Hecuba.” “ What would 
 he do and if he had my loss ?” and then he 
 calls up the particulars of the wrongs which 
 —not as before the common moral sense of 
 men might suppose him to feel, or justify or 
 excuse him for feeling, or for avenging, but 
 those which he, Hamlet, does actually feel ; 
 —the Hamlet who unites all kingly qualities 
 with so singular an absence of worldliness. 
 In the third place, the keen susceptibility of 
 conscience which marks Hamlet in both 
 
4 6 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 versions, is in the latter exalted in a few 
 passages into an almost feminine tenderness 
 of heart. This is especially seen in the 
 episode of Polonius’ concealment and death. 
 In the Hystorie , this incident forms the second 
 of the three attempts of the King to “ intrap 
 Hamlet in his politic madness,” the first being 
 the almost unrecognisable germ of the inter¬ 
 view with Ophelia which is witnessed by the 
 King and her father,— “ lawful espials ;”— 
 while the despatch of Hamlet to England is 
 the much closer rendering of the third. The 
 second stands between these in degree of 
 resemblance to itsShaksperean representative. 
 Hamlet enters with his “wonted dissimula¬ 
 tion,” feels round the arras, finds Polonius, 
 kills him and draws him out by the heels. 
 He then treats his body in a manner 
 suggested by savage, exultation, and which the 
 writer of the Hystorie pleases the more brutal 
 of his readers by describing in full detail. 
 It is noteworthy that the line in (xi, 7) 
 
 Hamlet. “ I’ll tell you, but first we’ll make all right” 
 
 is a distinct trace of the preliminary “ beating 
 with his arms upon the hangings of the 
 chamber” which leads to the discovery of 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 47 
 
 Corambis ; and not less so, that in O, it does 
 not lead to his discovery, which is brought 
 about just as in O., . 
 
 The brutality of the Hero of the Hystorie 
 is entirely removed in ; but in Q 2 we 
 find in two passages the suggestion of the 
 tenderness I have spoken of. He weeps 
 over the body— cf (IV. i. 24, 7) : and 
 grieves over the part of avenger which the 
 accident has thrust upon him. He himself 
 is stricken by the blow he dealt. 
 
 “ Since heaven has pleased it so 
 To punish this by me, and me with this.” 
 
 There are various other more doubtful 
 indications of a change of motif in Hamlet’s 
 character : which may be briefly stated. 
 
 1. Diminution of extravagance of thought 
 to which his soliloquies no doubt incline, but 
 to which they occasionally approach more 
 nearly in Q 1( than in Q 2 . Thus—1st soli¬ 
 loquy (II. 55 seq) begins thus :— 
 
 “ Oh that this too much griev'd and sallied flesh 
 Would melt to nothing, or that the universal 
 Globe of heaven would turn all to a chaos.” 
 
 Here the latter clause must be pronounced 
 not indeed altogether irrational, as more 
 severe critics regard it ; but certainly wild 
 
48 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 and extravagant ; and foreign to the fine 
 sense of proportion of Shakspere’s Hamlet, 
 who would have been the last to wish his 
 oppressive consciousness to be blotted out by 
 the ruin of a world. 
 
 2. Again there are innumerable passages 
 in which the profound contemplativeness of 
 Hamlet is found in Q 2 only. These have 
 been especially dwelt upon by Knight’s 
 school. The evidence is here rather equi¬ 
 vocal, since it is' plausibly urged that a dull 
 reporter would naturally omit these, from 
 not understanding them. Still, full compre¬ 
 hension of the matter is certainly not needed 
 in order to report it: and it is especially diffi¬ 
 cult to apply this argument to a work in which 
 his ill comprehension of a passage appears 
 in numerous cases to have no wise hindered 
 the reporter from writing down whatever he 
 could make of it. We should expect the 
 difficult and abstract passages to be repre¬ 
 sented in the hands of such a reporter, not 
 by a blank, but by a collection of rather 
 incoherent fragments, jumbled together. 
 
 3. Hamlet’s madness has appeared to 
 Knight to be more strongly marked in 0 1( 
 than in Q 2 . He founds this upon (1) Ophelia’s 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 49 
 
 description of him : (2) upon the King’s words, 
 
 “ he hath lost the very heart of all his sense” 
 and finally (3) upon Polonius’s description of 
 it in VI. 90 seq. and II. ii. 146 seq. It 
 should be observed that the latter passage is 
 probably confused ; the sadness of the fourth 
 stage is about identical with the melancholy 
 of the first. 
 
 Let us next discuss the cases in which Oj, 
 and Q 2 differ in the degree of what may 
 be called dramatic propriety in the action 
 or in speech. Here also we shall find 
 changes not more explicable as the work 
 of a printer’s reporter, than are the changes 
 of motif which we have just reviewed. Con¬ 
 sider first the alterations in the circumstances 
 or the action of the scene. 
 
 (1). One of the most important of these 
 occurs towards the end of Sc. xi (IV. i. 
 init). Hamlet has just disappeared with 
 the dead body of Polonius, and Ger¬ 
 trude is alone. There enter to her the 
 “ King and lordes,” in presence of whom 
 she publicly explains the conduct of Hamlet, 
 his madness, and rough treatment of her “ as 
 one forgetting that I was his mother.” 
 
 But in Q 3 this rather undignified publi- 
 
 D 
 
 IV. 
 
 Dramatic 
 
 propriety. 
 
50 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 cation of her griefs is avoided, and at the 
 opening of Act IV.—the corresponding scene 
 —the “ Lords are pointedly requested to 
 withdraw.”- 
 
 (2). Equally marked is the change in Sc. 
 vi. (II. ii). In Oj Corambis and Ofelia 
 together enter the presence of the king and 
 queen, and before her he expounds his 
 discovery that the root of Hamlet’s mad¬ 
 ness is love. Probably this is done in order 
 to assist the next scene where her presence 
 is required for the interview with Hamlet 
 which occurs in this place in O r 
 
 There is however a certain impropriety 
 in the procedure, which 0 2 avoids. Polonius 
 sets forth his theory to the private ears of his 
 sovereign ; and the interview with Ophelia is 
 deferred to the next act. Accordingly we 
 find inserted in Q 2 , immediately before 
 Polonius takes his leave, the words “ I will 
 leave him and suddenly contrive the means 
 of meeting between him and my daughter” 
 whereby at the same time a reason is sup¬ 
 plied for Polonius’s sudden departure. Mr. 
 Grant White regards the change of position 
 of the scene with Ophelia as a mistake of 
 the copyist, who (he says) has made Ophelia 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 51 
 
 present (vi. 11 5, &c.) when she is not on the 
 stage. But he is attributing his own blunder 
 to the coypist. (See stage direction, at 
 vi. 28). 
 
 (3) . Sc. XI. At the supreme moment of 
 the dialogue, when the intensity of Hamlet’s 
 invective is at its fiercest,—the pitiless suc¬ 
 cession of withering phrases has subdued the 
 miserable Queen to helpless unheeded pros¬ 
 tration—“No more, sweet Hamlet”—“A king 
 
 of shreds and patches ”—it is at this moment ^ 
 in Q 2 , that the Ghost enters. But in Q v 
 the intensest moment of the dialogue has 
 passed. 
 
 (4) . Sc. viii. III. ad fin. —111 Q v the 
 second plot for the discovery of Hamlet’s 
 mystery,—the hiding of Polonius—is dis¬ 
 cussed before the Queen Who speaks twice 
 during the scene. In 0 2 , where the scene 
 succeeds Hamlet’s interview with Ophelia, 
 she is absent. Be it remembered that in 
 no point can we more safely trust the re¬ 
 porter than as to the persons who take part 
 in the dialogue of any scene. 
 
 Next take changes in the language to 
 secure similar improvement in dramatic pro¬ 
 priety and effect. 
 
 D 2 
 
52 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 (5) . Cf. II. 15 seq. with I. ii. 50, where 
 Laertes asks permission to return to France. 
 But in the former his presence in Denmark 
 is attributed to the funeral rites of the late 
 king : in the latter to the coronation of the 
 present :—a touch of the courtier which at 
 the same time enhances, as even a cour¬ 
 tier’s deference does, the outward majesty 
 of him who receives it. 
 
 (6) . Sc. ix. 102 omitted in Q 2 , Knight is 
 perhaps right in supposing these in them¬ 
 selves elegant verses to be omitted on the 
 ground that they are in too fine a poetic 
 strain for the somewhat sententious rhetoric 
 in which the play-scene is studiously com¬ 
 posed. 
 
 (7) . Sc. ix. 222. The extraordinary fare¬ 
 well of Hamlet to Rosenkranz whom he has 
 denominated “ spunge,” 
 
 “ Farewell, farewell, God bless you.” 
 
 (8) . Sc. xi. 104, and III. Sc. iv. 194.— 
 In the Hystorie the comparatively cold and 
 argumentative character of this wonderful 
 scene is very marked. Of strong language 
 which apparently is meant to express in¬ 
 dignation, there is indeed abundance : but it 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 53 
 
 is cast in so rhetorical a mould that it hardly 
 affects the reader. The Queen, far from 
 being overwhelmed by Hamlet’s rebuke, is 
 as much rejoiced at his new-found wisdom 
 as ashamed at the sin he had used it to 
 bring home ; and her reply is as calm and 
 as elaborately rhetorical as his attack. 
 
 Something of this tameness appears in 
 the 1st Quarto speech. How different from 
 that utterance of a heart for the moment 
 absolutely crushed, not perhaps with shame 
 but with the oppression of his moral pre¬ 
 eminence :— 
 
 “ Q. Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, 
 
 And breath of life, I have no life to breathe 
 
 What thou hast said to me.” 
 
 I may add a few cases in which, though 
 it is difficult to discern an increased dramatic 
 propriety in the version of Qj, the alteration 
 is still such as can hardly be explained by 
 corruption, eg. :— 
 
 (9). Sc. xviii. V. ii. ad jin .—In Q 2 a stage 
 is to be prepared in the market-place, where 
 the bodies are to be laid, and where Horatio 
 will fulfil Hamlet’s dying request to “ tell my 
 story.” 
 
 The omission in Qj of the request to 
 
54 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 take the bodies to the stage, coupled with 
 v. 126 :— 
 
 “ Beare Hamlet like a souldier to his grave” 
 
 where grave is replaced in Q, by stage,. 
 make a change of intention in this matter 
 probable. 
 
 (10) . Sc. xvi. 19 seq. V. i. 40 seq. In 
 Q 1 the Clown’s riddle and the solution of it 
 are in a slightly different form. He asks in 
 the former “who builds strongest of a Mason, 
 a Shipwright, or a CarpenterIn the 
 latter, who builds stronger than any of them. 
 In the former, accordingly, the first answer 
 is unknown to the latter. 
 
 “Why a mason, for he builds all of stone, and will 
 endure long.” 
 
 And the second is modified :— 
 
 “ A carpenter, for he builds gallows,” 
 
 becomes “ the gallowes-maker ”—who must 
 in this case by the conditions of the question 
 be different from the carpenter. 
 
 (11) . Sc. v. 7 seq., II. Sc. i. 20 seq. If 
 we compare Polonius’ list of offences of 
 which his servant may accuse Laertes with¬ 
 out dishonour, it is noticeable that in O x he 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 55 
 
 includes (1. io) one which is not only omitted 
 in Q 2 , but pointedly and emphatically ex¬ 
 cluded by the lines found only in that 
 copy :— 
 
 “ You must not put another scandal on him 
 That he is open to incontinency.” 
 
 (12). ix. 144, III. ii. 305 seq .—the scene 
 with Guildenstern and Rosencrantz differs. 
 
 (1.) Both G. and R. are included in the 
 sarcastic reference to a poor player in the 
 recorder. 
 
 (2.) An attempt to discover the ground 
 of his distemperature (ix. 146—8), is mixed 
 up with the summons to his mother. Yet 
 probably genuine : cf. 185. 
 
 We turn next to the cases in which there is 
 in 0 2 an apparent attempt to improve the 
 structural qualities of the work : to give it 
 more of the proportion and continuity, the 
 adequacy of causation and completeness, 
 without redundance, of all the parts, which 
 may be called the classical properties of 
 artistic structure. Of the touches designed 
 to give artistic continuity to the transition 
 the evidence is unfortunately equivocal: since 
 to destroy this continuance would be the 
 most obvious effect of corruption. I merely 
 
 v. 
 
 Structure, 
 
56 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 mention a few possible cases without laying 
 much stress upon them, eg .: 
 
 xiii. 45, IV. v. 79.—In Q, the stage 
 direction is “A noise within. Enter Laertes.” 
 
 Laertes. Stay there until I come 
 
 O thou vilde king, give me my father. 
 
 In Qo, on the other hand, instead of this 
 almost instantaneous invasion of the furious 
 rebel, some twenty lines occur between the 
 first hearing of the noise and the final “ O 
 thou vile king.” We are prepared for the 
 shock in a variety of ways. The King calls 
 for his Switzers. A gentleman hurries in 
 with a narrative of rebellion. There is a 
 louder noise, the doors are broken. Then 
 Laertes enters : his Danes press after him. 
 He bids them withdraw, they protest ; he 
 entreats, they obey. And then, at length, 
 he rushes to defy the divinity which doth 
 hedge a king. 
 
 Again, III. i. 45, 5 5, Polonius’ naive 
 rebuke of his own hypocrisy followed by the 
 King’s “ How smart a lash that speech doth 
 give my conscience,” is not improbably an 
 addition intended to foreshadow III. iii. 36 
 seq. where the king is found at prayer ; a 
 mood of which the unbroken dignity of his 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 57 
 
 bearing has hitherto betrayed no suggestion; 
 and this gains additional weight by pre¬ 
 ceding the play-scene. It is the utterance 
 of a conscience not yet stimulated by the 
 knowledge that its guilt is discovered. 
 
 Less doubtful than the cases of amplifi¬ 
 cation where Qj is curt or jejune, are the 
 prunings of its occasional redundances. 
 
 Sometimes it is the undue repetition of 
 comic effects : e.g. 
 
 I. v. 16 seq. II. i. 50, seq .—In Q x Corambis 
 twice breaks the thread of his discourse. 
 “What was I about to say ?”.... you say 
 right. He closeth with him thus. This will he 
 say, let me see what will he say ? Marry 
 this, &c. 
 
 (2) . It is possible that the change in the 
 Clown’s jest, of which I have spoken above, 
 is due to a desire to confine more narrowly 
 the exuberance of low comedy witticism. 
 
 So perhaps the omission of the Jests in 
 ix—33. seq .: as rather de trop. 
 
 (3) . Sc. vi. III. i.—There occurs three 
 times in Q v in almost identical language 
 the same wish. Ofelia : O heavens secure 
 him! (175) Help him good God! (181) 
 Pray God restore him? (190). In Q 2 the 
 
5 * 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 VI. 
 
 Poetical 
 
 qualities. 
 
 first is omitted. Likewise Qj repeats seven 
 times in the identical form “To a nunnery 
 goe!” Q 2 with variety in each case repeats 
 it four times. 
 
 Again, we find changes in the arrange¬ 
 ment of scenes. A new scene (XIV.) is 
 introduced which in order of time imme¬ 
 diately succeeds IV. Sc. vi. 
 
 In the latter Horatio receives a letter 
 from the sailors : in the former he com¬ 
 municates the contents to the Oueen. No 
 account is given of the plot by which 
 Hamlet escaped, in further detail than in 
 the letter which Horatio reads in 0 2 , IV. Sc. 
 vi. It is this scene then which XIV. re¬ 
 places, and not the elaborate account of V. 
 Sc. I. 1—70. It replaces it however with alto¬ 
 gether changed circumstances such as cannot 
 possibly be attributed to a printer’s hack. 
 
 Finally consider the changes which are 
 rather poetical than dramatic. There are 
 numerous verses in which, though omitted 
 or altered in Q 2 , are of a beauty beyond the 
 capacity of a printer’s hack, and which connect 
 the context by a perfectly natural link, yet 
 such as no one of rude taste would think of 
 supplying if he did not find it. Here and 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 59 
 
 there Q 2 omits a line of a somewhat too 
 daring fancy or high poetic colouring:— 
 
 And fixt his eyes so stedfast on my face 
 
 As if they had vowed, this is their latest object. V. 45. 
 
 The jewell that adorn’d his features most 
 
 Is filch’d and stolen away : his wit’s bereft him. V. 40. 
 
 —parts away 
 
 Silent as in the midtime of the night. V. 49. 
 
 A front wherein all virtues are set down 
 
 That might adorn a king and gild his crown. X. 30.. 
 
 which recalls a well known sonnet of Shaks- 
 pere. 
 
 XV. 55 (Revenge it is must yield this heart relief) 2 ii. 
 
 For woe begets woe and grief hangs on grief. 
 
 The following is of a bolder type, not un¬ 
 like the early vein of Shakspere’s fancy. 
 
 Laertes. -awhile lie strive 
 
 To bury quiet within a tomb of wrath 
 Which once unhearsed, all the world shall hear 
 Laertes had a father he held dear. 
 
 In other cases a line corresponds in posi¬ 
 tion and connexion but is totally changed in 
 sense. 
 
 Come on Ofelia : such men often prove 
 Great in their words but little in their love 
 
 Him have 1 lost 1 must of course forego : 
 
 These but the ornaments and suits of woe. 
 
 ii. 38. 
 
 for 
 
 “ I have that within which passeth show.” 
 
6o 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 So : x. 30 — 
 
 My words fly up, my sins remain below, 
 
 No king on earth is safe if God’s his foe. 
 
 and 
 
 This madness may prove 
 
 Tho ’ wild a while yet more true to thy love. V. 66. 
 
 Further, there are cases in which the 
 
 same meaning is otherwise expressed : 
 
 usually of course more finely : but where 
 
 the reading of is not of a kind easily 
 
 supplied by any other than a poet : E.g :— 
 
 Why, she would hang on him as if increase 
 Of appetite had grown with what it 
 
 look’d on (Qj) 
 fed on (Q 2 ) I. ii. 
 
 I will speak daggers, those sharp words being spent 
 To do her wrong my soul shall ne’er consent. 
 
 Cy. III. iii. 
 
 I’ll make your eyes looke downe into your heart 
 And see how horrid there and black it shews. 
 
 xi. 25, 6. 
 
 for 
 
 You go not till I set you up a glass 
 Where you may see the inmost part of you. 
 
 III. iv. 20. 
 
 Sometimes we find a line in O x even finer 
 
 than its representative in Q 2 ; eg. 
 
 Doth give his heart, his appetite at full 
 
 And little recks how that his honour dies. iii. 20. 
 
 for 
 
 And recks not his own rede. I. iii. 50. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 61 
 
 Finally, various single expressions appear 
 to show a change of the same nature : the 
 substitution of phrases of great refinement 
 for phrases more or less inferior, yet not at all 
 likely to have been corrupted out of them : 
 
 forced grannt 
 
 Q, 
 
 Q 2 
 
 slow leave 
 
 (my lord, he hath wrung from me my slow leave) (ii.) 
 
 neither X“, Pagan, nor (F) . . . nor man. III. ii. 
 Turk, 
 
 where Qq have ‘ ‘ nor Norman.” 
 
 nay then, I see how the nay then, I have my eye on 
 wind sits you. II. ii. 
 
 These but the ornaments and 
 suits of woe. 
 
 . . . trappings and the suits 
 of woe. II. ii. 
 
 where trappings suggests more distinctly 
 
 the mere externality 
 insisting. 
 
 This is a benefit and not 
 revenge. 
 
 Godly ballet 
 partners of my 
 watch. 
 
 As you may bridle it, it will 
 not disparage him a jot. 
 
 Sc. iv. 
 
 on which Hamlet is 
 
 F. This is hire and salary , 
 not revenge. 
 
 where Qq have “base and 
 silly.” 
 
 pious chanson. II. ii. 
 
 rivals . . I.i. 
 
 As you may season it in the 
 charge, &c. II. i. 
 
 a hundred, two hundred twenty, forty, fifty, a liun- 
 pounds. vii. 81. dred ducats. II. ii. 353 - 
 
 idle. ecstacy. 
 
 Cf. vii. 29, II. ii. 191, and xi. 95, 6, III. iv. 139. 
 
62 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 In the former passage Q., omits the clause 
 containing idle : in the latter idle is twice 
 replaced by ecstacy. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EQUIVOCAL EVIDENCE. 
 
 We have now reviewed at length the changes 
 which can with great probability be referred 
 on the one hand to the unintelligent handling 
 of a reporter, on the other to an original 
 work, whose performance he witnessed. We 
 have seen sufficient ground for asserting, on 
 the one hand, against the school of Mommsen, 
 that this original was not identical with 
 Hamlet as we have it, but differed from it, 
 nowhere indeed profoundly, but in very 
 numerous slight yet distinct traits. We 
 have found it necessary, however, in attempt¬ 
 ing to establish this, to leave almost wholly 
 out of account the evidence on which Knight 
 chiefly relies for the same purpose,—viz., the 
 numerous elaborations of the reflective pas¬ 
 sages : for the evidence here is equivocal ; 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 63 
 
 it is just here that the ignorance of the 
 reporter would betray itself, if anywhere, by 
 corruptions and lacunae : just here that the 
 picture, blurred, is least distinguished from 
 the sketch, not filled in. This and the other 
 features which for similar reasons are not 
 easily interpretable, I now proceed to collect. 
 
 In the first place, such of the apparent 
 additions in Q, as have not been already in¬ 
 cluded, as probably authentic, in Chapter III. 
 And first, of prosaic or weak lines : Eg 
 
 vii. 216. “ He would (i.e., the player) 
 
 Confound the ignorant and make mute the 
 wise, 
 
 Indeed his passion would be general .” 
 
 xi. 129. (Hamlet sent to England) 
 
 “ Haply the air and climate of the country 
 May please him better than his native home.” 
 
 10 r. “In time it may be you will lothe him quite d 
 
 And others. Some which might otherwise 
 be included in this category by their poetical 
 deficiencies, are rendered probably authentic, 
 in . substance, by their pointed consonancy 
 with other passages not thus objectionable. 
 
 Secondly, variations. I have before 
 noticed various common expressions in O, 
 which correspond to more refined ones in 
 
 .Additions. 
 
 2. Varia¬ 
 tions. 
 
64 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Q 2 ; both (chap. II.) those apparently due 
 to the reporter, and (chap. III.) those pro¬ 
 bably authentic. Some are less clear, e.g. 
 
 For to (in fin.) usu. to. 
 
 “ For to adorn a king and gild his crown.” xi. 33. 
 
 So, go on (II. ii.) So, proceed you 0 2 . 
 
 And Sponge, you shall 
 
 be dry again, you shall, (om. Q 2 ). 
 
 This same. (Rare in Q 2 : occurs in * 
 iv. 83 ; v. 2 ; vi. 103 
 
 The clown shall make them 
 laugh that are tickled in 
 the lungs. 
 
 we boarded them on the way 
 
 a beast devoid of reason 
 
 They prove but sheep and 
 calves that deale with them 
 or put their trust in them. 
 
 You have grown higher than 
 you were. 
 
 lady, at your orizons &c. 
 
 xi. 42, &c.) 
 
 whose lungs are tickled in 
 the sere. Q 2 
 
 coted them . . Q 2 . II. ii. 
 
 that wants discourse ^reason. 
 
 Q 2 . I. ii. 
 
 that seek assurance in that. 
 
 V. i. 109. 
 
 nearer to heaven than you 
 were. II. ii. 
 
 nymph &c. III. i. 
 
 Again, there are various examples of 
 phrases curt or concise in 0.„ full or redun¬ 
 dant in Q v upon which, similarly, two views 
 are plausible— 
 
 E 'g' Qi Q 2 
 
 This business is very well This business is well ended, 
 despatched, vi. 57. ' 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 65 
 
 Qi 
 
 R. Our duty to your honour. 
 
 H. 0 your loves, your loves, 
 as mine to you. 
 
 I thought to adorne thy 
 
 bridal bed fair maid, 
 
 And not to folloiv thee unto 
 
 thy grave. xvi. 140. 
 
 If aught of woe or wonder 
 you’d behold 
 
 Then look upon this tragic 
 spectacle. xviii. 160, 1. 
 
 (I’ll find it) though it were hid 
 As deep as the centre of the 
 earth. vi. 100. 
 
 q 2 
 
 Yo2ir loves as mine to you. 
 
 I. iii. 
 
 I thought thy bride bed to 
 have decked sweet maid, 
 
 And not to have strewn thy 
 grave. 
 
 Then cease your search. 
 
 Though it were hid indeed 
 
 Within the centre. II. iL 
 
 Longer passages, again, there are, in which, 
 with equal plausibility, Knight appeals to the 
 master-hand which alone could transform 
 this bold phrase into that felicitous one, 
 Mommsen to the bungling which obviously 
 reduced the felicity to baldness. 
 
 Eg. vi. 9-16, with II. ii. 26-38 ; and 
 
 manv others. 
 
 ✓ 
 
 Again, there are a few passages in which 
 the alteration is not in the words or phrases 
 themselves but in the arrangement. Here, 
 also, some cases are decidedly corrupt: of 
 transformations unquestionably authentic I 
 have found none. But there is one case so 
 extraordinary, for the literalness with which 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 its parts are retained, but in an utterly 
 changed order which is not however entirely 
 absurd, that it merits a somewhat fuller 
 discussion. 
 
 Discussion of close examination makes it almost 
 
 ■Sc. n. 55-75. 
 
 certain that the order in this speech is cor¬ 
 rupted and not authentic. From 138 to 
 the end in Q 2 two principal themes, his 
 mother’s marriage, and its haste, entirely 
 engross the consciousness of Hamlet ; and as 
 he pours out the unrestrained utterance of 
 this bitter mood, they intertwine and alternate, 
 and each recurs at the suggestion of the 
 other, and is enforced and reinforced with an 
 eloquence in which the monotone of passion 
 and of thought is enriched with Protean 
 variety of expression. But all this is not 
 couched in a crowd of disconnected sen¬ 
 tences : iterative unprogressive thought is 
 borne up by one complex and stately period, 
 in which there is a single opening, a middle 
 and a close ; an ordered whole, in which 
 each part bears the stamp of its position in 
 the series. The abrupt transitions,—broken 
 phrases, of a mind at white heat—are but 
 like momentary anomalies which interrupt, 
 but do not dissolve, the regularity of law ; 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 6 / 
 
 they are parentheses, not periods. “Heaven 
 and earth,” he begins : “ Must I remember 
 how she would hang on him : and yet, 
 within a month,—‘Frailty thy name is 
 woman,’—ere her funeral shoes were old,— 
 she, even she,—O God, a beast would have 
 mourned longer—married my uncle—my 
 father’s brother, but no more like him than 
 I to Hercules ;—yes within a month, while 
 her eyes were yet sore with weeping—she 
 married.” 
 
 Turn now to Q x . This underiying syn¬ 
 tactical unity which comprehends the appa¬ 
 rently random and impulsive course of 
 thought, is there nowhere found. There is, 
 indeed, no absurdity in the rather loose con¬ 
 nection of the sentences ; for the very im¬ 
 petuosity of speech might justify much appa¬ 
 rently arbitrary and lawless transition. Here 
 and there a nice criticism may detect a 
 slightly inappropriate conjunction, as when 
 “ Frailty, thy name is woman ” is made to 
 follow the reflexion, not, as in Q 2 , upon the 
 facility with which the Queen transferred 
 her affections, but on the indecent haste with 
 which she had married. 
 
 But the collection of detached sentences 
 
 E 2 
 
68 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 2-Omissions. 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 of Q v wholly lacks the grand style of Q 2 : 
 they have not that syntactical unit}/, that 
 mutual relation of parts, that progressive 
 structure. They are fragments of rich poetry, 
 capable of combination in a whole as im¬ 
 posing as the parts ; but which, as the case 
 stands, have been put together in obedience 
 to a spirit somewhat cold and prosaic, which 
 destroys their capabilities of eloquent com¬ 
 bination. 
 
 Finally, the omissions in. general—except 
 those already specified,—are in general equi¬ 
 vocal in their bearing. 
 
 I proceed to offer a few critical suggestions 
 for dealing with this difficult region of facts, 
 in their order. 
 
 First, of the additions found in Q v 
 
 (i.) Many, if not most of the weak or 
 prosaic lines are so closely connected with 
 the context or so indispensable to the action, 
 that they can only be regarded as inter¬ 
 polations on the assumption that something 
 of similar tenor has fallen out. 
 
 (2.) Others stand in a connexion which, 
 while perfectly natural, is such that no rude 
 taste would feel their absence or seek to 
 supply it. In both these cases it seems 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 69 
 
 probable that the verses represent, in metri¬ 
 cal form, the substance of a more potently 
 contrived original. 
 
 (3.) The assumption of a revising poet is 
 scarcely tenable. Errors are mingled with 
 fidelities in a way which scarcely permits 
 these to be other than fortuitous.* 
 
 (4.) In regard to the additions in general, 
 the fact that they show about the same pro¬ 
 portion of certain corruptions ie.g. prosodical) 
 as the parts common to Oj and O 0 , makes it 
 almost certain that they are for the most 
 part genuine. 
 
 Secondly, of the -variations. 
 
 It is possible that some conclusions may 
 hereafter be drawn from the style of report¬ 
 ing. If one hand may be assumed to have 
 
 # A fragment of evidence for the concurrence of a 
 revising poet I here adduce: it appears to me to be 
 out-weighed by the above consideration. Sc. vi. 
 121-4. 
 
 And borne before an everlasting judge 
 From whence no passenger ever return’d, 
 
 The undiscover’d country, at whose sight 
 The happy smile and the accursed damned. 
 
 Flere there is an obvious inversion, “at whose sight 
 &c.” plainly referring to the Judge. Yet the lines are 
 metrical, and hence possibly “adjusted —perhaps the 
 mutilation of the last line arose thus. • 
 
70 HAMLET : 
 
 reported throughout, it will be difficult not to 
 allow that most of the variations collected in 
 the present chapter are authentic. On the 
 other hand, to suppose Q 2 to have been the 
 original of requires the recognition in the 
 latter of two styles of reporting; the one 
 producing a more or less unskilful collocation 
 of fragments ; the other a resume or para¬ 
 phrase of the substance. These are func¬ 
 tions of a different stamp. The result of 
 the latter, when both are performed by 
 bunglers, has sometimes a rude prosaic 
 vigour of its own; while the former resembles 
 the effete fragments of a once noble vitality. 
 The ruined temple still wears traces of its 
 pristine colours: hard by is the mart, bustling 
 and commonplace. It would appear then 
 necessary for those who hold Q„ to be the 
 original of Q v to recognise two hands in the 
 production of the latter. 
 
 Finally, of the additions. 
 
 It may be laid down generally, that the 
 longer an omitted passage is, the more likely 
 it is not to have existed in the original of 
 Q p or at least not to have been included in 
 the performance.* 
 
 * As Grant White suggests. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 7 I 
 
 The decision of authenticity is least pos¬ 
 sible in the case of philosophical passages : 
 yet even here the literal reporter would be 
 likely to be in no way baffled by want of 
 comprehension : what he heard, that he 
 would, to the utmost of his speed, verbally 
 reoort. No doubt the same does not hold 
 of the paraphrasing reporter : what he failed 
 to understand would clearly baffle him. 
 
 There are however passages to which 
 this would not apply. Not only philoso¬ 
 phical but long picturesque and popular 
 passages are omitted with apparent indiffer¬ 
 ence. Eg .— 
 
 1. The whole story of Lamond, in IV. vii. 
 
 2. The portents before Caesar’s death, I. i. 
 —perhaps not acted, as superfluous. 
 
 3. The account of Priam’s death, II. ii. 
 460—82 (an episode especially striking, well-. 
 Inown and popular). 
 
 4. Hamlet’s narrative of his escape,—the 
 \ery passage in which the Hamlet of Shaks- 
 jere approaches nearest to the Hamlet of 
 popular tradition. 
 
 And others. 
 
 I here conclude the discussion of the first 
 question, that of the authenticity of O i; and 
 
72 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 pass in the concluding chapter, first to dis¬ 
 cuss Shakspere’s share in it, and secondly to 
 gather up the results of that discussion as it 
 affects the present one. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE HAND OF SHAKSPERE. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have now discussed at length the traces 
 of an original play different from the two 
 Quartos, which remain after certain corrup¬ 
 tions have been eliminated. We have 
 hitherto not asked whether that original 
 play was' itself by one hand, and that ShakJ- 
 pere’s ; or, if not, what is the nature of the 
 combination. Before giving our final opinioi 
 upon the play it is necessary to turn to this 
 question, d he evidence is partly external, 
 and partly internal. The former consists 
 (i.) Of a variety of allusions to an ol 
 Hamlet, which some have supposed to be 
 early work of Shakspere, and others an el- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 73 
 
 tirely different and doubtless much inferior 
 drama. 
 
 (2.) Of supposed allusions (Sc. vii. and 
 A. II. Sc. ii.) to the contemporary fortunes 
 of the London players. 
 
 (3.) Of the entry of July 26, 1602 in the 
 Stationers’ Register, and the Title-pages of 
 the two quartos. 
 
 The first are too familiar to need reciting 
 at length. They are, briefly ;— 
 
 1. Nash’s allusion, 1589, (perhaps 1587* 
 Delius ) to “ whole Hamlets—I should say 
 handfuls of tragical speeches.” 
 
 2. The entry in Henslowe’s diary, 1594. 
 
 3. Lodge’s allusion, 1596; where it is 
 said of the devil that he “ looks as pale as 
 the vizard of the ghost who cried so miser¬ 
 ably . . . c Revenge.’ ” 
 
 4. Dekker : Satiromastix 1602 : “ Tucca : 
 my name’s Hamlet, Revenge.” 
 
 5. Elze , who refers all these to an early 
 play of Shakspere’s, gives two suggestions on 
 the subject : the one derived from the date 
 of Lyly’s Euphues (1580), satirised in the 
 scene with Osric ; the other from the death 
 of his son Hamnet, in 1585. For both 
 reasons, if they can be called such, he 
 
74 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 V 
 
 would assign the first Oj to about 1585.— 
 The whole of this evidence appears to me 
 inconclusive. 
 
 The second is not more decisive. Knight 
 labours hard to make it probable that the 
 words of the Queen “Noveltie carries it away” 
 &c/ r refer to the period before the prohibi¬ 
 tion of the Children of Pauls in 1590. The 
 “ innovation on the other hand, of CL refers 
 to their revival after the withdrawal of the 
 ban in 1600 ; and the “ inhibition ’ is the act 
 of the same year by which the Privy Council 
 limited the theatres in London to two. 
 Knight supposes that Shakspere connected 
 these acts as cause and effect; as if the in¬ 
 hibition of the players was meant to counter¬ 
 balance the toleration of the childreh. That 
 “ innovation” refers to the “ children” is made 
 almost certain by a passage in the folio ;t a 
 passage which like many others was probably 
 not acted, and so escaped Q 3 . But that it 
 refers to a different circumstance in the his- 
 
 * —Noueltie carries it away, 
 
 For the principall publike audience that 
 Came to them, are turned to private playes, 
 And to the humour of children. 
 
 + “ There is, Sir, an eyry of children little eyasses,” 
 &c. A. II. Sc. ii. 330. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 75 
 
 tory of the boy players is by no means 
 clear. 
 
 “ Noveltie carries it away “ inhibition is 
 by reason of the late innovation.” Is there 
 in these expressions any more than a refer¬ 
 ence to the same fact, couched in different 
 phraseology ; and does the phraseology differ 
 otherwise than in the degree of that refine¬ 
 ment and selectness in which the two 
 Quartos so often differ, and which moreover 
 is especially appropriate on the lips of the 
 courtier Roseneranz ? To use “ innovation” 
 for “ novelty,” and “ inhibition” for any inter¬ 
 ference with the course whether by direct 
 interdict of city authorities, or the indirect 
 imperative of an empty house was quite after 
 the manner of Elisabethan affectation. 
 
 Messrs Clark and Wright also take “ in¬ 
 hibition ” in a loose sense, and further differ 
 from Knight in understanding “ innovation" 
 not of the Act of 1600, by which the chil¬ 
 dren of Pauls were re-licensed, but of that of 
 January 1604, which licensed the children 
 of the Queen’s Revels. The date of 0 2 
 Hamlet would then be determined within a 
 few months. How they understood the 
 allusions in Q 1( they do not say. 
 
7 6 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Here also then, not merely is there no 
 proof of an early sketch by Shakspere, of 
 Hamlet, but it is not quite certain that 
 the alteration in Q„ is not merely a literary 
 one. The consideration of the title-pages 
 and the Stationers’ Register entry helps us 
 more. 
 
 Assuming that, as I have tried to shew, 
 the original of Qj was not precisely that of 
 Q 2 , it becomes almost certain that the entry 
 refers to the former and not to the latter. 
 
 Had the original of Q 2 been, in July 1602, 
 “ lately acted ” by “ Lord Chamberlayn his 
 servantes the publisher would certainly 
 have reported the current not the abandoned 
 version. But only the new play would be 
 described as “ lately acted.” There are, 
 therefore, some grounds for assigning the 
 original of Q x to the beginning of 1602. In 
 regard to the title pages, it is necessary 
 to dwell a moment on the much discussed 
 words of the title of 0 2 ; which describe it 
 as “ newly imprinted and enlarged to about 
 as much again as it was according to the 
 true and perfect copy.” These words con¬ 
 tain something to suggest each of the con¬ 
 tending theories of O. : each school has 
 
 o ^1 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 77 
 
 tended to dwell too exclusively upon the 
 words which favour it. Knight has dwelt 
 most upon the words “ enlarged to almost as 
 much again as it was while Grant White 
 declares that the real import of the sentence 
 lies in the last clause, and that the implied 
 corruptions and omissions are quite con¬ 
 sistent with the first clause, which refers 
 to a change not in the acted but in the 
 printed play. There can be no doubt that the 
 sentence as a whole has chiefly in view the 
 corrruptions and omissions which everywhere 
 mark O r It is perhaps not necessary how¬ 
 ever to press with great rigour the words 
 of a publisher interested in depreciating the 
 fidelity of the piratic copy : and in any case 
 they do not exclude the supposition that the 
 poet made many alterations in preparing for 
 the press this true and perfect copy. For 
 these alterations, if made at all, as internal 
 evidence persuades, were certainly for the 
 most part those of a refined poetic criticism 
 such as very few of the spectators or even 
 readers can have appreciated. Subtle changes 
 were introduced into the characters and 
 circumstances : here and there a scene 
 was moved or erased. These were not 
 
78 
 
 'HAMLET : 
 
 changes of much importance to the mass of 
 spectators. What they cared for was the 
 broad lines of character and action, and these 
 are unquestionably the same in both versions. 
 
 Turn now to the internal evidence. It is 
 impossible to question that the general de¬ 
 velopment of the plot, almost the whole of 
 Act I. and numerous lines and phrases 
 throughout, belong to Shakspere, and to 
 the mature Shakspere. There is much (2), 
 which though hardly the work of his ripened 
 genius is such as he might fairly leave in¬ 
 tact in a hasty revision : a little of it 
 possibly his own early work, most the work 
 apparently of some minor but respectable 
 poet. . Some, (3), is of a distinctly lower 
 kind, which it is difficult to suppose that 
 Shakspere can have allowed even to pass. 
 It is to be understood that I speak now only 
 of such parts as are probably authentic. 
 
 To the second class belong, I consider, 
 most of the changes in character, the slight 
 violations of dramatic propriety, and the cases 
 in which the later edition shows a change to 
 us apparently indifferent but doubtless of 
 moment to the poet. The inferior dignity of 
 Hamlet, of the King, the less criminal posi- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 79 
 
 tion of the Oueen, the occasional traces or 
 suggestions of the older Hamlet which dis¬ 
 appear in Q„,—these and the like are not of 
 a kind impossible for Shakspere to have 
 tolerated in making an umarbeitung of another 
 man’s work. They are not gross breaches 
 of dramatic art, but the slight imperfections 
 which only the subtler insight of a second 
 revision may have detected. The relics of 
 the old Hamlet which have been pointed out 
 in detail are not specks of alien metal mixed 
 with the pure ore ; for the Hamlet of Q„ 
 himself retains not a few features borrowed 
 thence. Not merely wild and whirling are 
 his bitter words to Ophelia,—“ I am very 
 proud ambitious revengefuland his adven¬ 
 tures in the fourth act and the doubtful 
 treachery by which he cuts them short, are 
 almost certainly in their essence drawn from 
 the early tragedy, now lost. 
 
 The Hamlet tradition, if we may put 
 together the testimony of the Hystorie and 
 of what is known of the old play, coincided 
 in at least the following points with the 
 complete Shaksperean play,— 
 i. The ghost of Hamlet’s father appears, 
 with the command to Revenge ! 
 
8o 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 2. Hamlet assumes madness in conse¬ 
 
 quence. There was, if we may judge 
 from the Hystorie , and from probability, 
 —for tradition usually avoids , such 
 subtleties,—no real madness in addition. 
 
 3. The King seeks to discover the purport 
 
 of his antic disposition : in various ways 
 before alluded to : especially 
 
 4. through a lady, Shakspere’s Ophelia,— 
 
 and then 
 
 5. through a “ subtle courtier,”—-who meets 
 
 his death in consequence. 
 
 6. Hamlet is in consequence sent from 
 
 Denmark to England ; the manner of his 
 escape perhaps differs, but at any rate 
 
 7. he kills the King. 
 
 In the tradition he succeeds him on the 
 throne of Denmark. 
 
 Considering then these resemblances there 
 is nothing extraordinary in the retention of a 
 few traces more or less which are not incon¬ 
 sistent with the new elements, save, if at all, 
 in a way which only the subtlest insight 
 could discern. So far then, I think we may 
 accept the view of Messrs. Clark and Wright 
 (in the Clarendon Press Edition) that the 
 represents the play in a transition state. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 81 
 
 It is less easy however to concur in this 
 view when we look from the dramatical con¬ 
 ception and conduct of the play to its poet¬ 
 ical qualities. I do not dwell on peculiar 
 scansions, such as Shakspere rarely if ever 
 adopted— e.g .:— 
 
 Business a trisyllable : vi. 57. 
 
 “ This business is very well despatched.” 
 
 (Cf O, ; “this business is well ended”). 
 
 Ophelia a quadrisyllable : iii. v. (-ia, -io 
 nearly always one syllable : cf. Abbott) : 
 e.g.— 
 
 No, fear it not my dear Ophelia—nor 
 on peculiar words : e.g., idle twice for ecstacy 
 
 in Q, 
 
 It does not appear that Shakspere uses 
 idle quite in the sense of madness. ( Cf'. Qj: 
 Cor. When I was very young, I was very 
 idle, and suffered much exstasie in love). He 
 uses it in three senses with insensible grada¬ 
 tions :— 
 
 1 . = inactive. (2.) vacant and so vain, use¬ 
 less. (3.) foolish. “ Green and idle for gills 
 of nine Winter’s Tale. 
 
 Venies (Q 0 “passes"), swoltery, sallied (“ this 
 too much griev’d and sallied flesh’) do not 
 
HAMLET: 
 
 82 
 
 not occur. I do not, I say, dwell, upon 
 these facts (which it is still necessary for 
 completeness to record) ; for every play of 
 Shakspere presents at least several hundred 
 words used by him nowhere else. 
 
 But what is to be said of the not rare 
 weak and prosaic verses which at the same 
 time their context forbids us to suppose 
 interpolated ? It appears necessary in this 
 case to choose between several improbabilities: 
 either that Shakspere admitted such lines, 
 or that a reporter • who elsewhere shewed 
 such extraordinary ignorance of verse was 
 still capable of giving a metrical paraphrase 
 of words he only vaguely remembered : or, 
 if with Mommsen we assume a revising poet, 
 that the latter can have passed over these 
 strange blunders. The third supposition 
 appears to me untenable. The blunders do 
 not even occur in wide separation from the 
 verses to which I refer : they are mixed up 
 with them in closest connexion : it is im¬ 
 possible not to conclude that if these pas¬ 
 sages are not original they are the work of 
 one who, like the “ warm clowne” of 
 “ cannot do well unless by chance, as the 
 blind man catcheth a hare.” And this 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 83 
 
 appears to me the more probable hypo¬ 
 thesis. 
 
 This view of the relation of O, to Shak- 
 spere is most akin to that of Messrs. Clark 
 and Wright. It differs from the theories of 
 Knight and Mr. Furnivall, both of whom 
 contend that Shakspere is the sole author of 
 the original from which was reported : 
 the former holding it to be an early sketch, 
 the latter, who is on the whole more alive to 
 the corruptions, believing it to date from a 
 time little earlier than the year named in its 
 title-page. But both views appear to me to 
 err by being, as Bacon might say, not subtle 
 enough for the facts. The maturity of some 
 parts appears to me fatal to Knight : the 
 weakness of others, which yet can hardly be 
 unauthentic, makes it difficult wholly to sur¬ 
 render to Mr. Furnivall. A theory more 
 complex is required. No doubt Mr. Fur¬ 
 nivall is far nearer the truth than Knight. 
 The unshaksperean work in the original of 
 Oj is probably far less in amount than that 
 which comes from him. On the other hand, 
 against Knight, the character of the most 
 undoubtedly Shaksperean work will not allow 
 us to assign it to any period of Shakspere’s 
 
8 4 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 youth. No doubt lines occur which have 
 the rich fancy of that period of his life : 
 
 Eg. “ The jewel that adorned his feature most 
 
 Is filched and stolen away : his wits bereft him.” 
 
 Occasionally we meet with the rhetorical in¬ 
 flation of “ Titus Andronicus,” 
 
 “To bury grief within a tomb of wrath,” etc. 
 ind his favourite plays on words : 
 
 “ See here the face to outface Mars himself.” 
 and in xi. 3 3 :— 
 
 “ A front wherein all virtues are set down 
 
 That might adorn a king and gild his crown.” 
 
 the last clause has a touch of the real Shak- 
 sperean flavour. But did Shakspere in 1589, 
 or earlier, write a work in its conception so 
 mature, so profound, so restrained, so free from 
 the over luxuriance and the caprice of Roman¬ 
 ticism ? Did he, before he had yet delivered 
 himself of the impetuous passion of Romeo 
 and Juliet , or yielded to the piquant vagaries 
 of the Midsummer Night's Dream , or amused 
 himself with drawing the vain labours of too 
 elaborate love, or drawn out with a free and 
 bold hand, the brilliant tapestry-pieces of 
 Plantagenet history,—did he, ten years or 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 85 
 
 more before he drew Jaques and Brutus, 
 conceive the profounder melancholy, the 
 subtler indolence of Hamlet ? Or, to take 
 single phrases, had he then the peculiar vein 
 seen in lines like these, of Qj:— 
 
 “ I That, conscience makes cowards of us all.” 
 
 “ O that this too much grieved and sallied flesh 
 
 Would melt to nothing.” 
 
 “ About some act 
 
 That hath no relish of salvation in’t.” 
 
 “ Use every man after his deserts and who will 
 escape whipping.” 
 
 and many more. 
 
 This investigation appears to lead then 
 to the view with a statement of which I 
 began this essay, and which I conclude it 
 by re-stating in another form : 
 
 1. The original of O t was written, not 
 long before it was performed and entered 
 in the Sta. Reg., by Shakspere upon the 
 basis of another work, probably the older 
 play upon the subject which almost certainly 
 existed. 
 
 2. A rough report of this play was pirati- 
 cally published, with omissions, variations, 
 and careless, but not deliberate, additions. 
 
 3. The actors now desiring to publish the 
 
86 
 
 HAMLET. 
 
 true and perfect copy, Shakspere first made a 
 thorough revision of the text he had partly 
 revised before : and made (probably) con¬ 
 siderable additions, as well as some omis¬ 
 sions and changes : of which the omissions 
 are the best, and the additions the least well 
 established. 
 
 THE END. 
 
HARNESS PRIZE-ESSAYS, 
 
 1880. 
 
 The First Quarto Edition of Hamlet , 
 
 1603. 
 
 ESSAY II. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. WIDGERY, BA., 
 
 SCHOLAR OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
AN ESSAY 
 
 ON THE 
 
 FIRST QUARTO EDITION OF HAMLET. 
 
 
 WHILST searching in a closet at Barton in 1823 
 Sir Henry Bunbury was lucky enough to find 
 “ a small quarto, barbarously cropped, and very 
 ill-bound,” containing twelve Shakespearean 
 plays ; among them one of Hamlet, unknown 
 to the older commentators and bearing the 
 date 1603. The Duke of Devonshire obtained 
 possession of this quarto in 1825, and the 
 delight of having a unique copy of Hamlet 
 remained undisturbed till 1856: on the 20th 
 of September the Athenceum put the Shake¬ 
 spearean world into a flutter of excitement by 
 announcing the discovery of a second. This 
 copy came from Nottinghamshire: it was carried 
 to Dublin and brought by a bookseller of that 
 city to London : after passing through Mr. 
 
90 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Boone’s hands it was purchased by Mr. Halli- 
 well for ^"120 and has now found its final 
 resting-place in a small red box in the British 
 Museum. For once the fates were propitious : 
 the Duke of Devonshire’s copy wants the last 
 page, the British Museum copy lacks the title 
 page, each thereby supplying the other’s defi¬ 
 ciency. 
 
 The Dublin bookseller, who made £70 of 
 what cost him one shilling, and who, in a 
 “ careful reprint ” of the “ last leaf,” committed 
 nineteen errors in twenty-five lines, felt aggrieved 
 at the treatment he received in London : but 
 he comforted himself with the reflection that 
 his name would be coupled with the dis¬ 
 covery of “the gem ” as long as “ Hamlet shall 
 exist.” 
 
 If in the shadowy realms of departed spirits, 
 the ghost of Shakespeare could invite to a 
 feast all his critics, editors, annotators ; all his 
 amenders, defenders, vindicators ; all his pub¬ 
 lishers, printers, piraters, to what a motley 
 throng would he be host ! And who, among 
 men shall imagine the expression on his face 
 as his bright hazel eyes glance up and down 
 the rows ? 
 
 The critics are, as might be expected, still 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 91 
 
 divided in opinion as to what the play of 
 Hamlet, given in these two precious relics, 
 really represents. In the preface to his edition 
 of 1832 Caldecott starts the theory that this 
 first quarto exhibits “ in that which was after¬ 
 wards wrought into a splendid drama, the first 
 conception and comparatively feeble expression 
 of a great mind.” This view was shrewdly 
 and vigorously advocated by Knight, and it has,, 
 in the main, been followed by Delius, Elze, 
 Staunton, Gervinus and Swinburne: another 
 theory, first stated by Collier, is that the first 
 quarto is only a surreptitious and mutilated copy 
 of the second, published in 1604; Tycho Momm¬ 
 sen, Grant White and the Cambridge editors 
 are his chief supporters. The latter, in their 
 Clarendon Press edition, come to the conclusion 
 that the quarto under consideration preserves 
 an old English play on Hamlet after it had 
 been retouched by Shakespeare to a certain 
 extent but before his alterations were com¬ 
 pleted. In a subject beset with so many diffi¬ 
 culties and where such eminent scholars are at 
 variance, qualifying statements must perforce 
 be numerous ; but since their frequent occur¬ 
 rence gives an uncomfortable feeling of in¬ 
 security, the reader is requested, once for all, to 
 
92 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 insert such phrases as “ I rather fancy,” “ I am 
 inclined to believe,” &c. &c. as freely and as 
 promiscuously as the stops in a lady’s letter. 
 
 The following works will be examined sepa¬ 
 rately and collectively for the sake of the light 
 they throw directly or collaterally on the subject 
 of this essay :— 
 
 The Saga of Hamlet, printed in a popular 
 Swedish miscellany in 1847, an d translated in 
 the October number of the Gentleman!s Maga¬ 
 zine for the same year: the “ Hystorie of 
 Hamblet,” reprinted in the Shakespeare Library 
 from Capell’s unique copy preserved at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge ; and the reprint of “ Der 
 bestrafte Brudermord oder Prinz Hamlet aus 
 Dannemark” (Fratricide Punished, or Prince 
 Hamlet of Denmark), in Mr. Cohn’s valuable 
 book on “ Shakespeare in Germany.” These 
 will, for brevity, be mentioned respectively as 
 the Saga, Hystorie, and Fratricide. The sym¬ 
 bols Qj, Q 2 , Fj will be employed to denote 
 the play of Hamlet as it occurs in the quarto 
 editions of 1603, 1604, and the first folio of 
 1623. 
 
 The indispensable reprint by Mr. Timmins 
 of the Devonshire “ Hamlets” and that by Mr. 
 Booth of the first folio are my authorities for 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 93 
 
 the text. The new variorum edition by Mr. 
 H. H. Furness is my chief source of informa¬ 
 tion : obligations are acknowledged and exact 
 references given in the Appendix. 
 
 In the Saga we first meet with the simple 
 tale of Hamlet. Saxo Grammaticus (of whom 
 Erasmus speaks very highly) was singularly 
 familiar with the old songs and sagas : he 
 probably knew this Swedish one, and incor¬ 
 porated it with considerable additions in the 
 third and fourth books of his Latin History of 
 Denmark, written about 1180, and published 
 at Paris in 1564. Belleforest, with some slight 
 excisions and additions, gave a French trans¬ 
 lation of the story in his “ Histoires Tragiques’’ 
 about 1 564. The Saga is probably the earliest: 
 we hear nothing of the “ concubinage” or the 
 vicious temptation of Hamlet by a woman : 
 the thfee plebeian vulgarities by which he finds 
 out that the Queen of England is “ of base 
 parentage” are given, but in the Hystorie the 
 author, who is generally in a great hurry to 
 moralize, mentions but does not enumerate 
 them. 
 
 The date of Capell’s unique copy of the 
 black letter Hystorie of Hamblet is 1608, the 
 same year in which George Wilkins published 
 
94 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 The Painfull Adventures of Pericles Prince of 
 Tyre. Mr. Collier has conclusively shown 
 that this book was founded on Shakespeare’s 
 play and brought out in consequence of its 
 great success. I believe, after Herr Elze, 
 that the Hystorie is in a like case. “ It is,” as 
 he well says, “ readily conceivable that a poet 
 should select from Belleforest the story of 
 Hamlet’s feigned insanity and of his revenge, 
 and cast it in a dramatic or poetic mould, but 
 it is not so conceivable that a mediocre trans¬ 
 lator should pick out this single story, unless 
 he were led to do so by the popularity of the 
 poetic version.” 
 
 The second attempt to entrap Hamlet in his 
 “ pollitick madness” the Saga tells thus :—“ It 
 was determined that Fengo [Hamlet’s uncle] 
 should feign a journey for some important 
 business”—are we going to have a story from 
 the Arabian Nights ?—“ and that during his 
 supposed absence Hamlet should be conducted 
 into his mother’s chamber, where a concealed 
 
 person should listen to their conversation. 
 
 He who gave the counsel offered himself to be 
 the listener .... [and] went into the queen’s 
 apartment and concealed himself under the 
 straiv. But Hamlet hopped about on the straw 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 95 
 
 as if out of his senses ; crowed shrilly like a 
 cock; beat the air with his arms like the 
 flapping of wings ; and rushed up and down 
 the hall. He soon remarked also that some¬ 
 thing moved beneath the straw , and pierced 
 the unlucky courtier through with his sword.” 
 In Saxo the spy hides himself under the 
 stramentum (straw) changed by Belleforest into 
 loudier or lodier (quilt)—-a word by the way 
 not to be met with in Tarver or Littre although 
 the Dictionnaire de l’Academie (1814) gives it. 
 In the Fratricide as in Shakespeare the Queen 
 is cognisant of the courtier’s hiding : in the 
 former Hamlet after upbraiding his mother says, 
 u But hush ! are all the doors shut fast ?” The 
 Queen replies .“Why do you ask ?” The cour¬ 
 tier coughs behind the tapestry (hinter der Tapete) 
 and Hamlet stabs him. 
 
 In the first quarto the dialogue runs 
 
 Cor\ambis\ Madame, I heare yong Hamlet comming, 
 
 Fie shrowde my self behinde the Arras. exit Cor. 
 
 Queene Do so my Lord. 
 
 Ham. Mother, mother, O are you here ? 
 
 How fst with you mother ? 
 
 Queene How i’st with you ? 
 
 Ham. Fie tell you, but first weele make all safe. 
 
9 6 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 Queene What wilt thou doe ? thou wilt not murder me : 
 
 Helpe hoe. 
 
 Cor. Helpe for the Queene. 
 
 Ham. I a Rat, dead for a Duckat. 
 
 (Note the agreement of and the Fratri¬ 
 cide : Hamlet has no suspicion in Q 2 ). The 
 ITystorie, following the Saga substantially in 
 the cock crowing, &c„, says that Hamlet struck 
 “ vpon the hangings of the chamber, whereby 
 feeling something stirring vnder them, he cried 
 a rat, a rat and presently drawing his sworde 
 thrust it into the hangings.” In this chapter 
 only the word “ arras” occurs : we meet with 
 “ hangings” and “tapestry” again. Hamlet and 
 the Hystorie in these two instances alone have 
 the same phraseology ; and it is more reason¬ 
 able to suppose that the poor translator in 
 deviating from his original borrowed from 
 Shakespeare than that he invented two such 
 striking improvements. We have Ham^let 
 thirty-nine times, nearly all in the beginning, 
 Hamlet fifty times, chiefly towards the end of 
 the Hystorie : other changes are limited to an 
 e as Geruth (7), Geruthe (4). We may con¬ 
 clude then that the translation from Belleforest 
 was due to some play on Hamlet and that in 
 subsequent editions the above changes were 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 97 
 
 foisted in, just as Wilkins improved Twine’s 
 Patterne of painefull Aduentures by the aid of 
 Pericles. There was probably one edition of 
 the Hystorie in existence by 1590. 
 
 With the aid of the German Fratricide and 
 the various allusions to Flamlet that occur in 
 contemporary English literature, an attempt 
 will be made to establish the existence of an 
 early play, or Urhamlet, as the Germans might 
 call it, having the same plot as Shakespeare’s 
 drama and bearing perhaps the title “ The 
 Revenge of Flamlet Prince of Denmark.” For 
 convenience of reference and in consequence of 
 several parallel passages from his other works, 
 Malone’s conjecture that Thomas Kyd was the 
 author of the Urhamlet will be adopted. We 
 learn from Heywood’s Apology for Actors that 
 Kyd wrote the Spanish Tragedy or Hieronimo 
 is mad again : to him also have been ascribed 
 the first part of Jeronimo and the play of Soly- 
 man and Perseda. Shakespearean criticism often 
 wears, it is to be feared, a Fluellen-like com¬ 
 plexion, “ There is a river in Macedon ; and 
 / 
 
 there is also moreover a river at Monmouth 
 but alas ! in the plentiful lack of positive infor¬ 
 mation critics and readers must find what cold 
 comfort they can in the faintest resemblances. 
 
 G 
 
98 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 In five of ten allusions to Hamlet between 
 1 589 and 1618 the phrase “ Hamlet, revenge !” 
 occurs ; in three his madness is alluded to. 
 The drama in any modern edition made up 
 from the quartos and folios would take at least 
 six hours to act ; yet the word “ revenge” occurs 
 only twelve times : in six instances it refers to 
 Laertes. The Fratricide is full of “ revenge,” “ I 
 swear revenge,” “ I will revenge myself on the 
 murderer,” “ my completed revenge,” &c. &c. 
 Hieronimo in one of his soliloquies cries, 
 
 “ Behoves thee then, Hieronimo, to be reveng’d. 
 
 The plot is laid of dire revenge; 
 
 On then, Hieronimo, pursue revenge : 
 
 For nothing wants, but acting of revenge.” 
 
 Revenge is one of the Dramatis Personae in 
 the Spanish Tragedy, and sits down with 
 Andrea’s ghost “ to see the mystery and serve 
 for chorus in this tragedy,” but finding it rather 
 tedious he falls asleep ! On Kyd therefore 
 rather than on Shakespeare we may father 
 “ Hamlet revenge !” 
 
 In the second edition of Dodsley’s Old Plays, 
 several scenes are printed in italics in the 
 Spanish Tragedy ; Mr. Hawkins is of opinion 
 that they were foisted in by the players as they 
 are omitted in the second edition of the drama. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 99 
 
 In one of them Hieronimo in his “ overflowing - 
 
 o 
 
 griefs and talking distractions” says, 
 
 “ Well, heaven is heaven still ! 
 
 And there is Nemesis, and furies 
 
 And things call'd whips 
 
 And they sometimes do meet with murderers 
 
 here assuredly we have the reference, pointed 
 out by Mr. Halliwell, in Armin’s Nest of 
 Ninnies, 1608: “ ther are, as Hamlet saies, 
 things cald whips , in store.” 
 
 Kyd very likely used the material of these 
 scenes in the Urhamlet, and cut them out of the 
 Spanish Tragedy just as Shakespeare removed 
 some of Horatio’s lines to King Lear and the 
 description of the “fierce events’’ that heralded 
 the fall of Julius Caesar, to that play. We 
 know from Philip Henslowe’s diary that the 
 Lord Chamberlain’s and the Lord Admiral’s 
 Players occupied conjointly the theatre at 
 Newington Butts, from the third of June 1594 . 
 to the eighteenth of July 1596. Shakespeare, 
 as far as we are aware, never belonged to any 
 company but the “ Lord chamberlen’s men.’’ 
 
 The only entry about Hamlet within the 
 above period runs 
 
 9 of June 1594, Rd. at Hamlet viijs. 
 
 Malone justly remarks, “ It cannot be supposed 
 
 G 2 
 
100 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 that [Shakespeare’s] play should have been acted 
 but once in the time of this account, and that 
 Henslowe should have drawn from such a 
 piece but the sum of eight shillings, when his 
 share in several other plays came to three and 
 sometimes four pounds. It is clear that not one 
 of our author’s plays was played at Newington 
 Butts ; if one had been performed, we should 
 certainly have found more.” This entry too is 
 without the abbreviation ne \w\ usually prefixed 
 by Henslowe to a new piece. 
 
 To mention Hamlet is to mention Nash’s 
 epistle : “ lie turne backe to my first text, of 
 studies of delight, and talke a little in friend¬ 
 ship with a few of our triviall translators. It 
 is a common practice now a daies amongst a 
 sort of shifting companions, that runne' through 
 every art and thrive by none to leave the 
 trade of Noverint \Universi per presentes &c. 
 our Know all men\ whereto they were borne, 
 and busie themselves with the indevours of art, 
 that could scarcely latinize their neck verse if 
 they should have neede ; yet English Seneca 
 read by candle-light yeeldes many good sen¬ 
 tences, as Blould is a begger, and so foorth : 
 afid if you intreate him faire in a frostie morn¬ 
 ing, he will affoord you whole Hamlets, I should 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 IOI 
 
 say Handfulls of tragical speaches.” As Nash 
 says only “whole Hamlets,” we may infer that 
 the play had just come out, and that “ Hamlet 
 revenge ! ” had not yet become a cant phrase. 
 
 Kyd translated the Cornelia of the French 
 writer Gamier, and from his dedication in the 
 edition of 1594 to the Countess of Sussex, it 
 appears that he was a poor man : he promises 
 Portia as his “ next Summer’s better travel 
 nothing is known of this work, and it has been 
 conjectured that he was dead by 1596. His 
 play being the property of the Lord Chamber¬ 
 lain’s men, Shakespeare would have a right to 
 make what use he pleased of it. Kyd deserves 
 honourable remembrance, as an introducer of 
 Italian culture to his countrymen : Meres 
 couples him with Tasso for a translation by 
 him of a piece ascribed to that author, in 
 1588. Nash thought no doubt that a sneer 
 at a “ triviall ” translator from French and 
 Italian, would be grateful “To the Gentlemen 
 Students of both Universities,” proud of their 
 Latin and Greek, and disposed to look un¬ 
 favourably on what they considered an inno¬ 
 vation. In the opening of the Fratricide, the 
 second sentinel laughs at the other’s fear of 
 the ghost and gets the retort “ Ay, but just let 
 
102 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 him grab thee behind, and thou’lt pretty soon 
 learn to pray Miserere Damine Is this the 
 neck-verse used to obtain benefit of clergy ? 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, in a note to the Lay of the 
 last Minstrel says, that the neck-verse was the 
 first of the 51st Psalm, “Miserere mei Deus 
 secundum bonitatem tuam &c.,” but gives no 
 authority, nor can I “ after much diligent 
 inquirie,” find one: Lt.-Col. Cunningham, in 
 his edition of Marlowe, states that this Psalm 
 was the one generally selected. 
 
 Holinshed in his Description of England, 
 says “ Theeues that are saued by their books 
 and cleargie .... I doo not read that this- 
 custome of sauing by the booke is vsed anie 
 where else except in England, neither doo I 
 find (after much diligent inquirie) what Saxon 
 prince ordeined that law : ” this scrap of Latin 
 was then probably in the English Urhamlet 
 and if we consider “ Dominie,” a slip for “ mei 
 Deus ” just as we shall find Marus Russig for 
 Amerinus Roscius, we give additional point to 
 Nash’s paragraph. Both Kyd and Gamier 
 modelled themselves on Seneca, whereas 
 Shakespeare borrowed nothing from him: Titus. 
 Andronicus in the first Act quotes two lines 
 from his Hippolitus, his name occurs in Ham- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 103 
 
 let, and that is all we hear of him in the first 
 folio. 
 
 If the indiscriminate language of abuse can 
 be taken literally, the words “whereto they were 
 borne ” are fatal to the theory that Nash is 
 here girding at Shakespeare: we should re¬ 
 quire “ bred’’ at the least. This allusion to the 
 trade of Noverint, coupled with Shakespeare’s 
 intimate and accurate knowledge of law terms, 
 has led some critics to believe that he “ was 
 employed in the office of some country at¬ 
 torney.” In precisely the same way we may 
 show that Shakespeare was a king, a nurse, a 
 statesman, doctor, sailor, &c., nay, if this mode 
 of proof may, without offence, be pushed to its 
 logical limit, we cannot refuse to believe that 
 he was a member of Doll Tearsheet’s sister¬ 
 hood. Goethe and Mirabeau possessed a 
 wonderful power of making any friend or 
 chance-met acquaintance, yield up the very 
 essence of the knowledge by which he gained 
 his livelihood, and in so richly endowed a 
 nature as Shakespeare’s we need have but 
 little scruple in finding room for a like faculty. 
 We see, then, that this Epistle will refer to 
 Kyd far better than it will to Shakespeare. 
 
 One can fully appreciate Mr. C. A. Brown’s 
 
104 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 desire to vindicate for Shakespeare the honour 
 of such a splendid dramatic innovation as the 
 introduction of a ghost to the stage : but the 
 long-winded opening of the Spanish Tragedy 
 by the shade of Andrea cannot fail to suggest 
 Polydorus in the Hecuba of Euripides and to 
 betray the source to which Kyd was indebted. 
 The player’s declamation may be due to the 
 same drama as well as the parallel reading 
 wg ypa(j)cvg t aTroaraOug iSov fxz 
 with Ophelia’s description of Hamlet’s taking 
 her by the wrist and falling to such perusal of 
 her face “ as he would draw it.” 
 
 The German Fratricide—of equal if not 
 greater value than the points already adduced 
 in support of the existence of an English 
 Urhamlet—merits a minute and detailed ex¬ 
 amination. 
 
 On June 24, 1626, a Tragcedia von Hamlet 
 einen printzen in Dennemarck was acted at the 
 German Court by the English comedians : this 
 apparently is the first authentic mention of the 
 Fratricide ; Mr. Cohn thinks it was “ brought 
 over to Germany by the English players as 
 early as 1603” : the text unfortunately cannot 
 be traced back further than 1710, and it has 
 experienced “ many alterations and dilutions.” 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 105 
 
 The stamp of the old English stage is so 
 strongly marked in the prologue with which 
 the Fratricide opens that Mr. William Bern- 
 hardy is “tempted to assume that Hamlet 
 must have appeared there in an earlier form 
 than O” : Mr. Cohn endorses this opinion, and 
 adds, that in the old German theatre the intro¬ 
 ductory words were spoken by one person 
 alone, whereas in the Spanish Tragedy, Antonio 
 and Mellida, Wily beguiled, &c., two or more 
 act as prologue and take part in the remainder 
 of the piece. 
 
 The original of the prologue might very 
 well have been written by Kyd at his best: 
 the dialogue between Night, Alecto, Tisiphone 
 and Megsera is not much more than an ampli¬ 
 fication of the lines 
 
 “ But night, the coverer of accursed crimes 
 With pitchy silence hush’d these traytors harms” 
 
 from the first part of Hieronimo. The prologue 
 is far superior in composition to the rest of the 
 play. As in Q, the piece opens with two 
 sentinels: the first two scenes are brisk and 
 lifelike : Shakespeare has borrowed from them 
 two hints only, the coldness of the night and 
 the sound of the King’s merriment, these are 
 with more art carried further into Op indeed, 
 
io 6 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 the art of the Fratricide is of the crudest; the 
 threads of the action are taken up separately 
 and laid down separately side by side : they 
 are not yet woven into the cloth of gold that 
 we call Hamlet. Whilst the watch are de¬ 
 liberating on the ghost’s appearance, Hamlet 
 comes on the stage like the villain in a 
 melodrama with a “ Hush, hush !” On seeing 
 the ghost he turns and says to the soldiers 
 in the coolest and most business-like manner, 
 “ The Ghost beckons me. Gentlemen, stand 
 aside a little: Horatio do not go too far. 
 
 I will follow the ghost and see what he 
 wants.” Surely this preceded Q v for no 
 man, however dull-souled, could have trans¬ 
 formed “ Angels and ministers of grace defend 
 us, &c.,” into this. The ghost after opening 
 “his jaws several times,” gives Hamlet a cir¬ 
 cumstantial account of his murder, agreeing 
 exactly with save only that the “ incestuous 
 wretch” is “ my crown-hankering brother.” 
 Belleforest in an Argument prefixed to his 
 translation of Saxo, inveighs against “ the 
 abhominable vice of desire to raigne :” indeed 
 he seems almost to have selected the story of 
 Hamlet as a telling example of the vengeance 
 that waits on those who “ spill the blood of 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 10 / 
 
 their neerest kinsmen and friends, to attaine 
 to the honour of being great and in authoritie:” 
 this lesson is again enforced by him in the 
 Hystorie, and to the task of driving this moral 
 home the author of the Fratricide addresses 
 himself: Horatio ends the play with the words 
 
 “So is it when a King with craft seeks for the throne, 
 And treach’rously succeeds in making it his own, 
 
 He nothing gains himself but jeers and mockery 
 For as the labour is so follows too the pay.” 
 
 The “ incestuous adulterie” of the Hystorie so 
 painfully prominent in the Hamlet is in the 
 Fratricide very lightly touched : we may there¬ 
 fore assume that the Urhamlet is due directly 
 to Belleforest rather than to Saxo. 
 
 In the Induction to “ A Warning for faire 
 women,” written, according to Mr. Cohn, a little 
 before 1590, Comedy in her abuse of Tra 
 gedy says : 
 
 “ How some damn'd tyrant to obtain a crown 
 Stabs, hangs, impoisons, smothers, cutteth throats ; 
 Then, too, a filthy whining ghost, 
 
 Lapt in some foul sheet , or a leather pilch, 
 
 Comes screaming like a pig half stick’d, 
 
 And cries, Vindicta ! — Revenge , Revenge /” 
 
 The temptation to refer this to the Urhamlet 
 is too strong to be resisted. In the fratricide 
 when the King tells Hamlet that he has deter¬ 
 mined to send him to England, he replies, “just 
 
io8 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 send me off to Portugal, that I may never 
 come back again : that’s the best plan.’’ Dr. 
 Latham very ingeniously finds, in this, an 
 allusion to the unfortunate expedition to 
 Portugal in 1589, in which 11,000 soldiers 
 perished out of 21,000, and of 1,100 gentlemen 
 who accompanied it, only 350 returned to 
 their native country. Such a reference too was 
 likely to be made by Kyd, whose subject in 
 the first part of Hieronimo was the war 
 between Spain and Portugal. Coupling these 
 allusions with that of Nash we have the year 
 1589 as the date of the composition of the 
 Urhamlet. 
 
 Returning to the ghost we find him finish¬ 
 ing the account of his murder with the words, 
 “ Thus was I bereft of my kingdom, my wife, 
 and my life by this tyrantin we have 
 
 “ Of Crowne, of Queene, of life, of dignitie 
 At once depriued.” 
 
 “ of dignitie,” is plainly superfluous, being in¬ 
 cluded in the “ Crowne ” ; without it the line 
 scans : in Q 2 and F 1 the order is slightly 
 changed, they both read, 
 
 “ Of life, of Crowne, of Oueene at once dispatcht.” 
 Hamlet discovers no perturbation of soul at the 
 ghost’s disclosure, but swears that he will not 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 IO9 
 
 rest till he has revenged himself on the fratri¬ 
 cide : Horatio and Francisco come on the stage, 
 Hamlet binds them to secrecy, the ghost cries 
 “We swear” from within, and between them 
 “We swear” is baldly repeated nine times. 
 Hamlet bids them leave him and very clumsily 
 calls Horatio back : after asking, “ Is the other 
 away ?” he tells his friend of his father’s murder, 
 almost verbatim after the ghost. He deter¬ 
 mines to put on a “simulirte Tollheit ” (feigned 
 insanity) hoping thereby, as he afterwards 
 explains, “ to get an opportunity of avenging 
 my father’s death : you know, however, my 
 father is at all times surrounded by many 
 guards, for which reason perchance I may mis¬ 
 carry.” The other characters in the play talk 
 a good deal of Hamlet’s insanity (Tollheit) 
 and frenzy (Raserei), but we get no taste of 
 it, as in the cock-crowing of the Saga. A 
 curious characteristic of the Fratricide crops up 
 here : Hamlet calls both the dead and the 
 present king, “ father” ; “ my father—he who is 
 now my father —he has murdered him in Q l 
 Hamlet addresses the King as “ father ” jive 
 times, in Q 2 and F x not once ; there are also 
 several changes of address from the King to 
 the Oueen in Cfi. The last scene of the first 
 
I 10 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 act is evidently the germ of the second act in 
 Qj : Hamlet promises his mother not to go 
 back to Wittenberg : Leonhardo, the brother of 
 Ophelia, has already set out for France ; her 
 father is called Corambus, and outdoes him¬ 
 self in his reply to the king’s question whether 
 Leonhardo had left with his consent [Consens] : 
 
 ■—“ Ay, with over-consent, with middle-con- 
 sent, and with under-consent. Oh, your 
 majesty, he got from me an extraordinary, 
 lordly, useful, gorgeous consent.” At the 
 opening of the second act Corambus, comes to 
 the King and Queen bursting with the news 
 that Hamlet is as mad as the Greek madman 
 (Alexander the Great ?) : close on his heels 
 runs Ophelia, complaining that Prince Hamlet 
 “ plagues ” her : Corambus at once hits on the 
 theory that love has driven him mad, and 
 proposes to watch with the King the effect of 
 Ophelia’s returning a “ jewel ” : this plan as in 
 Q 1 is at once carried into effect. Hamlet tells 
 Ophelia a wonderful story about a cavalier in 
 Anion [connected with the river Anio ?] which 
 looks as if Kyd had taken it from some 
 Italian tale. The unlucky cavalier falls in love 
 with a woman as beautiful “ as the goddess 
 Venus but on the bridal night she took out 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I I I 
 
 an eye, her front teeth made of ivory, and 
 washed off a lot of paint. Hamlet ends with 
 the advice “ go to a nunnery !” The King, after 
 dismissing Corambus, thinks Hamlet’s madness 
 dissembled, and determines “ to put him out of 
 the way altogether.” 
 
 The sixth scene introduces us to Hamlet, 
 Horatio and Corambus, running thus 
 
 Cor .—New news, gracious lord ! the comedians are 
 come. 
 
 Ham .—When Marus Russig was an actor at Rome, what 
 a good time there was. 
 
 Cor. —Ha! ha! ha! Your Highness is always teasing 
 me. 
 
 Ham .—O Jeptha, Jeptha ! what a fair daughter hast 
 thou ! 
 
 Cor .—At all times your Highness desires that my 
 daughter be brought in [to the conversation]. 
 
 Ham. —Well, old man, let the master of the actors come 
 in. 
 
 Cor .—It shall be so. [Exit. 
 
 Ham .—These actors come in the nick of time, for through 
 them will I test whether the ghost informs me truly 
 or not. I have before this seen a tragedy where one 
 brother murders the other in the garden : this shall 
 they act. If the King changes colour he has done 
 what the ghost told me. 
 
 Dr. Latham conjectures that the blunder 
 Marus Russig” arose from a confusion between 
 Roscius the actor and Sextus Roscius Amerinus 
 
I I 2 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 who was not an actor. “ Now this is a blunder,” 
 the Doctor continues, “ that requires as much 
 scholarship to commit as to avoid, being one 
 that a learned man might make from inadver¬ 
 tency, whereas an unlearned one could not make 
 it at all. It was certainly not made by Shake¬ 
 speare. This we know from his text, where 
 Roscius stands alone. It could scarcely have 
 been made by the supposed adapters who came 
 after him.” Now Kyd certainly had enough 
 scholarship to make this blunder as he had 
 enough to adapt the lines of Juvenal, 
 
 Pants he [the great man] beneath the summer’s common 
 heat ? 
 
 Lo ! they [the Greeks] are bath’d in sympathetic sweat, 
 
 into one of the best bits in the Fratricide. 
 
 Ham.— Signora [sic} Phantasmo, ’tis horribly cold. 
 Phan.— Ay, ay, ’tis horribly cold— [ His teeth chatter. 
 
 Ham. —Now it is no more so cold. 
 
 Phan. —Ay, ay, it is just the happy medium. 
 
 Ham. —But now there’s a great heat. [ Wipes his face. 
 Phan. —O what a horrible heat! 
 
 [Also wipes away the sweat. 
 
 This is nearer the Juvenal than Qj or Q„, and 
 these two points are against the theory of some 
 critics that there never was any Hamlet in the 
 English language except Shakespeare’s. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I 13 
 
 When the master of the actors arrives, Ham¬ 
 let lectures him almost entirely on externals: 
 one, he says, has fine clothes but a black shirt, 
 another boots without spurs, or they wear hats 
 covered inside and out with feathers : the King 
 ogles the lady too much or jets up and down 
 the stage with proud peacock-struttings and 
 braggadocio airs. Not a word is said about 
 the clowns. Hamlet asks Charles the “ master” 
 if he remembers acting at Wittenberg some¬ 
 thing about a King Pir, Pir—Pyr something. 
 I think the German adapter has here cut out a 
 taste of the actor’s quality, for apparently the 
 play of “ King Pyrrus” is the one in which a 
 fratricide happens. After dismissing Charles, 
 Hamlet tells Horatio a circumstantial story of 
 a woman who murdered her husband at Stras- 
 burg, by piercing his heart with an awl. Nine 
 years afterwards, sitting at a play of like import 
 her conscience was so sharply touched that she 
 confessed her crime, “ received the holy unction 
 from the priest and in true contrition gave her 
 body to the executioner.” This was a favourite 
 tale in Shakespeare’s time, and is related of 
 various towns. Playgoers would use it as a 
 strong argument against the Puritans. It is 
 to be remarked that in all of them the hidden 
 
 H 
 
HAMLET: 
 
 114 - 
 
 gllilt unkennels itself and the malefactor is 
 brought to legal punishment. 
 
 We now come to the player scene, which 
 also shows signs of excisions : before the dumb 
 show enters, the King inquires of Hamlet 
 “ What sort of a piece is it ? There is, I hope, 
 nothing objectionable or discourteous.” Hamlet 
 replies, “ It is a good piece ; we, who have a 
 good conscience, are not touched by it.” The 
 dumb show is substantially the same as in 
 Shakespeare : the King is hit at once, before 
 the players speak ; he calls for lights and 
 leaves with the retinue : Hamlet mockingly 
 repeats his “ Torches here ! the piece does not 
 please us,” tells the actors they shall be well 
 paid although they did not finish : Charles pru¬ 
 dently asks for a “ passport ”: Corambus comes 
 back, Hamlet bids him look after the players 
 for “ if they are treated well in one place, they 
 don’t know how to praise it enough at another 
 . . . . they publish abroad the justice and praise¬ 
 worthy government of princes, they punish vices 
 and exalt virtues and show how tyranny gets 
 punished.” The four scenes that are concerned 
 with the players follow one after the other, and 
 surely it is more reasonable to suppose that 
 Shakespeare worked up the material here into 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 11 5 
 
 the second scenes of the first and second acts 
 of Qj than that the German adapter was in¬ 
 debted to Qj and fashioned out of two scenes 
 from different acts, four consecutive scenes in 
 the same act. 
 
 The beginning of the third act approaches 
 very close to the first quarto : there is nothing 
 in either corresponding to that scene in Q 2 , 
 with its grim irony, where we see the King, 
 before his prayers, ordering Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern to get ready to carry the com¬ 
 mission that is to marshal Hamlet to his death. 
 We discover the King praying: his nephew 
 enters with a drawn sword and indulges in his 
 devilish soliloquy that Garrick always omitted 
 in acting. 
 
 Although no hint had been dropped before¬ 
 hand of such a contrivance, we now meet with 
 the Oueen and Corambus in her chamber : he 
 hides behind the tapestry ; Hamlet enters, bids 
 his mother look on the pictures of her two hus¬ 
 bands hanging in the gallery and cries “ Shame ! 
 You had the burial and nuptials on the same 
 day.” Corambus is killed ; the ghost appears 
 with lightning but says nothing ; the Oueen is 
 unable to see him. Hamlet gets angry and 
 breaks away from her with the rebuke “ you 
 
 H 2 
 
HAMLET: 
 
 I I 6 
 
 are no longer worthy to look on his form. Fie,, 
 shame on you ! Not another word will I speak 
 to you.” 
 
 At this point where Q t and Q, only, follow¬ 
 ing the Hystorie, gives us the scene in which 
 the Queen promises Hamlet to be a confederate 
 in any stratagem he may devise, the Fratricide 
 tantalizingly enough fails us. The audience 
 [audienz] with the Queen is sought by Hamlet 
 through Horatio, denoting perhaps an intention 
 on her son’s part of forming a plot with her : 
 after his angry departure she comforts herself 
 with the reflection that “ Had not the pope 
 allowed this marriage it would never have taken 
 place.” Here assuredly is the hand of the 
 German adapter, perhaps one of the two “ mas¬ 
 ters among our company [who] are devoted to 
 the Roman Catholic religion,” when the Eng¬ 
 lish comedians were at Prague on the 15 th of 
 December, 1651: to him also must be ascribed 
 the next two wholly irrelevant scenes in which 
 the peasant Jens tries to bribe the Court fool 
 Phantasmo with the offer of a “ good cheese” 
 to help him in getting off his taxes. We may 
 reasonably suppose then that there was some¬ 
 thing in the Urhamlet corresponding to Q r 
 The King with great simplicity laments the 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 ii 7 
 
 death of Corambus, but excuses Hamlet as the 
 deed was done unwittingly: fearing however 
 that the nobility may revenge his death, the 
 King determines to send Hamlet to England, 
 “ as this crown is friendly to our own and you 
 can cool yourself down somewhat for a time 
 as the air is healthier there and may promote 
 your recovery, better than here : we will give 
 you some of our attendants, who shall accom¬ 
 pany you the “ attendants ” bear the same 
 relation to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as 
 the “ woman” of the Hystorie does to Ophelia. 
 In Oj the King says 
 
 “ we have sent by Rossencrafi and Gilderstone 
 Our letters to our deare brother of England, 
 
 For Hamlets welfare and his happinesse : 
 
 Happly the aire and climate of the Country 
 May please him better than his native home 
 
 in the corresponding portion of Q 2 the King is 
 far too much concerned about his own safety 
 to care for Hamlet’s health, but after the inter¬ 
 view between him and Ophelia the King alleges 
 to Corambus, as a reason for his hasty sending 
 of his nephew to England, the hope that 
 “ Haply the seas, and countries different, with 
 variable objects, shall expell This something 
 setled matter in his hart,” and to this scene 
 
118 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 between the King and Corambus there is 
 nothing to correspond in Q r 
 
 The King secretly makes arrangements with 
 the two “attendants” for killing Hamlet while 
 he and Horatio are standing by ! The ludicrous 
 attempt to carry out this commission occupies 
 the first scene of the fourth act : the two 
 attendants are suddenly transformed into two 
 “ ruffians,” or “ speaking ruffians,” as the list of 
 dramatis persona touchingly has it. Hamlet 
 afterwards gives this account of the affair to 
 Horatio :—“ It chanced one day that we had 
 contrary [contrairen] winds, and we anchored 
 at an island not far from Dover. I, and my 
 two attendants, left the ship to breathe the 
 fresh air a little. Then came these accursed 
 rascals and would take my life : . . . I begged 
 them that, before my end, I might make a 
 prayer, and that when I cried ‘ Shoot!’ they 
 were to fire on me. But when I cried, I fell 
 to the earth, and they shot one another.” 
 Hamlet searches the two ruffians, and finds a 
 letter on one of them “ directed to an arch¬ 
 murderer in England,” who is to blow out the 
 light of his life. It will be noticed that the 
 Fratricide agrees with O, in making Hamlet 
 tell Horatio of his escape : in Q x we hear of it 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I 19 
 
 through Horatio in that scene with the Queen 
 peculiar to Qy but the Fratricide and Qj agree 
 in Hamlet’s “Being crossed by the contention 
 of the windes” and in not affording a satisfactory 
 explanation of Hamlet’s return, differing therein 
 from Q 2 : in the Fratricide, Hamlet fearing 
 that the captain may also be a rogue, orders 
 the sailors back to Denmark, and gets there 
 from an island by the post (die Post) ! In the 
 Spanish Tragedy the Viceroy of Spain crosses 
 “ the raging seas” to get to Portugal. Another 
 discrepancy has remained in Q 2 : the Ghost is 
 visible to the sentries but not to the Queen : 
 in the first part of Jeronimo the shade of 
 Andrea in Charon’s boat is seen only by 
 Horatio. Lorenzo tells him “ It is your love 
 that shapes this apparition.” 
 
 After his father’s death Leonhardus, breathing 
 revenge, comes back from France just before 
 the news of Hamlet’s return arrives at Court: the 
 passages in the Fratricide and Qj in which the 
 King urges Leonhardus to treacherously avenge 
 his father’s death have so many points in 
 common that it will be worth while to compare 
 them at some length :— 
 
 King .—We will arrange a match between thee and him, 
 thus : you shall fence with rapiers and the one who 
 
I 20 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 makes the first three hits shall win a white Neapolitan 
 horse. But in the middle of this combat you must 
 let your rapier fall, and instead of it you must have at 
 hand a sharp-pointed sword, made exactly like the 
 rapier, but the point of it thou must anoint with strong 
 poison : now as soon as thou shalt wound his body 
 therewith, he must then surely die. 
 
 Leonh. — .... the prince is an accomplished 
 
 master of fencing and could indeed turn this back on 
 me. 
 
 King— .... the Prince as an assassin of your 
 father deserves such a death. But we have no 
 justice on him, because his mother backs him up, 
 and the subjects love him much. 
 
 Leonh— .... should this leak out it would 
 surely cost me my life. 
 
 King. — Do not doubt. In case you should fail, we have 
 just hit on another trick. We’ll have an eastern 
 diamond pounded fine, and when he gets hot, they 
 shall bring it to him in a beaker full of wine> 
 sweetened with sugar. Thus shall he drink his 
 death to our health. 
 
 now let us listen to Oj 
 
 King .I’le lay a wager, 
 
 . . . . that in twelve venies 
 
 You gaine not three of him : now this being granted, 
 When you are hot in midst of all your play, 
 
 Among the foyles shall a keene rapier lie, 
 
 Steeped in a mixture of deadly poyson, 
 
 That if it drawes but the least dramme of blood, 
 
 In any part of him, he cannot liue : 
 
 This being done will free you from suspition 
 And not the deerest friend that Hamlet lov’de 
 Will euer have Leartes in suspect. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 12 I 
 
 Lear. My lord, I like it well : 
 
 But say lord Hamlet should refuse this match. 
 
 King. Fie warrant you, .... 
 
 And lest that all should misse, 
 
 I’le haue a potion that shall ready stand, 
 
 In all his heate when that he calles for drinke, 
 Shall be his period and our happmesse. 
 
 how wonderfully this is improved in 0 2 . 
 Through the praises of Lamond the King fools 
 the vanity of Laertes to the top of its bent; 
 he skilfully asks “was your father dear to you,” 
 insinuates “ murder,” and that “revenge should 
 have no bounds,” again he stirs his vanity 
 before the treacherous suggestion comes, and 
 who but Shakespeare would let us know from 
 the lips of the King, that Hamlet was “ most 
 generous and free from all contriving ?” So 
 plump does Laertes fall into the trap that 
 now it is he who proposes to anoint the unbated 
 sword with poisoned unction. 
 
 The form of the wager also is taken from the 
 King’s mouth, put into that of Osric, and made 
 unintelligible in the passage. We miss in O x the 
 King’s reasons for not going to a public count. 
 
 After their compact, Ophelia comes in with 
 flowers, and Leonhardus sees her apparently for 
 the first time : it was an obvious improvement 
 
122 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 m Q 1 to make her insanity an additional and 
 prior incentive to her brother’s treachery. ' 
 Kyd was as firm a believer in presentiment 
 as Shakespeare : before the fencing scene 
 Hamlet’s nose drops blood and he faints in 
 Horatio’s arms. There is in the Fratricide a 
 strange flavour of piety, caught perhaps from 
 the Hystorie, that ill accords with such a bloody 
 story, and I feel morally sure that if the German 
 adapter had had before him, he would not 
 have missed the beautiful reference to the “ pre¬ 
 destinate providence in the fall of a sparrow.” 
 
 Just before the fencing begins, the Queen 
 brings the sad intelligence that “ Ophelia 
 ascended a high hill and threw herself down and 
 killed herself. ’ In the Spanish Tragedy 
 Hieronimo tells us that the Bashaw, who, at 
 the instigation of Solyman murdered the 
 husband of Perseda, 
 
 “ mov’d with remorse of his misdeeds 
 Ivan to a mountain top and hung [sic] himself.” 
 
 Hamlets last words “I am growing very faint; 
 my limbs grow weak ; my legs will no longer 
 stand , my voice fails ; I feel the poison in all 
 my limbs” are very near those of Q 
 
 “ O my heart sinks Horatio , 
 
 Mme eyes haue lost their sight, my tongue his use.” 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 123 
 
 In Q„ we have only 
 
 “ The potent poison quite o’ercrows my spirit 
 but Q x has nothing corresponding to Hamlet’s 
 request to Horatio to take the crown to Nor¬ 
 way to his cousin Duke Fortempras \sic\ that 
 the kingdom may not fall into other hands. 
 
 Frequently in old English tragedies, as the 
 play is reaching its climax, the hero breaks into 
 Latin : there seem to be faint traces of this in 
 the Fratricide, for we have “ Du Tyranny:” 
 “dassich Leonhardzwz erstochen “ in keinem 
 SecuD der welt “ cito” and “ Regent.’’ 
 
 The conclusion of the Fratricide is bloody 
 enough in all conscience : the Queen drinks of 
 the poisoned cup and dies : the King is killed : 
 Leonhardus dies : Phantasmo, who confesses to 
 bringing the poisoned sword is stabbed by 
 Hamlet : the hero dies leaving Horatio alone 
 on the stage to say his verse against ambition. 
 
 A very noticeable point in the Fratricide is 
 the employment of a considerable number of 
 strange words : as these also (on the whole) 
 prove an English origin, a few examples will 
 suffice. In the closet scene, Hamlet says 
 to his mother “ in jener Gallerie hangt das 
 Conterfait Eures ersten Ehegcmals” (in yonder 
 gallery hangs the counterfeit of your first 
 
124 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 husband): “ conterfait” does not occur in 
 Hilpert (1857) or in the Latin-German 
 dictionary of Dasypodius Catholicus (1653) : 
 Minsheu’s Guide into the Tongues (1625) has 
 “ Counterfeit or fained Fr. Contrefaict” without 
 any German equivalent : Cotgrave (1632) 
 gives “ counterfeit ” as an English translation 
 for “ Pourtraict” : “contrefaict” according to him 
 always carries the idea of “adulterate, forged.” 
 
 Hamlet’s ship was detained by a “ contrai- 
 ren Wind:” Cotgrave has “A contrarie wind, 
 Contre-vent ou vent contraire:” Minsheu’s equi¬ 
 valent is “ widerstrebig :” Hilpert and Dasy¬ 
 podius omit the word. Under “Refrigerate to 
 coole:” Minsheu gives “Fr. Raffraischir, refroidir, 
 Gr. erfrischen” : “ refrigiren” is therefore like 
 the other two formed on English words. 
 
 The only likeness in phraseology between 
 the Fratricide and the Hystorie is the frequent 
 use of the term “ tyrant” applied to the King. 
 The word has almost vanished from Q 1 : “ The 
 taste of hunger, or a tirant’s raigne,” is the 
 sole occurrence, a relic, I fancy, from the 
 context, of the Urhamlet. This may be taken 
 as a slight proof that no considerable portions 
 of the early play are left in Q v 
 
 We miss in the Fratricide the compact 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 125 
 
 between Hamlet’s father and the elder Fortin- 
 bras—probably an excision, as “ Fortempras” 
 is mentioned at the end and actors always cut 
 him out—-the marked drinking habits of the King, 
 the graveyard scene, and the complot between 
 Hamlet and the Queen. To sum up, I believe 
 that the Fratricide partially preserves an Eng¬ 
 lish Urhamlet, founded on the troisieme Histoire 
 of Belleforest : that the excisions were con¬ 
 siderable (eight of the scenes average only 
 seven lines a piece) and that they were partly 
 filled up by matter giving the history of the 
 English players who were at Strasburg in 1654, 
 to which date the first form of the text may be 
 ascribed: and that the German adapter was 
 under no obligations to Shakespeare. The 
 Fratricide is perfectly innocent of poetry, and 
 although the occasional good verses of a Kyd 
 might vanish in a translation, I cannot con¬ 
 ceive that Shakespeare’s should do so as com¬ 
 pletely. The theory that Kyd was the author 
 of the Urhamlet receives a slight confirmation 
 from the fact that a Tragcedia von Hieronymo 
 Marschall in Spanien was played once, and a 
 Comcedia vom Ivonig in Spanien und den 
 Vice Roy in Portugall twice, at the same time 
 that we first hear of the Fratricide. 
 
126 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 The statement on the title-page of the 
 second quarto that the play has been “ en¬ 
 larged to almost as much again as it was,” is 
 substantially correct, and in it Tycho Mommsen 
 finds a reason for disbelieving that is an 
 early sketch. “ It seems improbable,” he says, 
 “ that a juvenile writer should have at first 
 conceived and written his dramas in a shorter 
 form. We might rather have expected the 
 contrary, of which we have some instances in 
 Schiller’s Don Carlos and Goethe’s Goetz von 
 BerlichingenC True of the examples given, 
 but however came the learned professor to 
 forget Faust? Faust conceived in 1772 just 
 as Goethe was ending his student life : despite 
 of all Schiller's entreaties the edition of 1790 
 was only “ the fragment of a fragmentnot 
 until 1808 did the world get the first part as 
 we now possess it, and the second part was 
 never finished. In a letter to William Hum¬ 
 boldt, which reads as if it were a literary will, 
 Goethe five days before his death writes—“ It 
 is now sixty years ago that the conception of 
 Faust came to me in my full youth (en pleine 
 jeunesse), perfectly clear and distinct, all the 
 scenes unrolling themselves before my eyes in 
 their order of succession ; from that day the 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 127 
 
 plan never left me, and living with this idea, I 
 took it up in detail and composed by turns the 
 portions of it which, at the moment, interested 
 me most, in such a fashion that when the 
 interest flagged gaps were left as in the second 
 part. The difficulty was to get by force of 
 will what is, in truth, obtained only by a spon¬ 
 taneous act of Nature. But it would indeed be 
 a pity if the whole of a long existence spent in 
 activity and reflexion did not assist the success 
 of such an operation.” This testimony of 
 Goethe’s as to the mode in which genius 
 works, that the idea is conceived at once, that 
 the parts are filled up variously and according 
 to the poet’s acquired power of workmanship, 
 gives peculiar significance to the fact pointed 
 out by Knight that “ all the action of the 
 amended ‘ Hamlet ’ is to be found in the first 
 sketch.” 
 
 There are a few modifications to the sub¬ 
 stantial truth of this statement, the chief being 
 the shifting of the scene with Ophelia from the 
 middle of II. ii. in Q ; to III. i. in the later 
 form. It has been already pointed out that 
 Qj follows the Fratricide here, and the stage 
 direction “Enter Corambis and Ofelia”—occur¬ 
 ring early in the scene—is decisive as to 
 
128 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Hamlet’s soliloquy being in its right place. 
 The King afterwards in Q 2 speaks to the Queen 
 as if she had not already heard Polonius pro¬ 
 pose the plan of using Ophelia as a decoy 
 duck : we are also in the amended copy spared 
 the pain of imagining that she hears her father’s 
 untruthful talk with the King and Queen or 
 stands meekly and mutely by while her love 
 letter is made a stalking-horse to bring down 
 the cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. Hamlet’s gibe 
 too at Polonius that he is a “ fishmonger,” a 
 maker of opportunities, is more telling just 
 after the designed meeting. 
 
 Another reason for the change may perhaps 
 be found in the fact that the attempts to pluck 
 out the heart of Hamlet’s mystery observe a 
 kind of gradation : Polonius is first sent empty- 
 handed away: his two schoolfellows are turned 
 inside out, and then his sweetheart is loaded 
 with obloquy : after another trial by the two 
 courtiers (who in each case act as preface to 
 the women’s attempts) his mother, last and 
 worst of all, is used as a tool against him. In 
 Q x there is a certain awkwardness in both 
 Hamlet and Ophelia having books in their 
 hands. Hamlet meditatively thinks aloud, “To 
 be or not to be, I there’s the point” with his 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 129 
 
 finger on the page of his author, Cardanus’ 
 Comfort perhaps, which treats of life and death, 
 and the great beyond. If it be not too subtle, 
 we may find in the change, “To be or not to 
 be, that is the question ,” a proof that Hamlet 
 has in Q„ been deprived of his book and that 
 he is not brought in “ reading” twice in the 
 same play. One is a little curious to know 
 what the King and Polonius thought of the 
 soliloquy: my Lord Chamberlain, to whom a 
 “ fishmonger” had been held up as a pattern 
 of honesty, must have winced at the sharp 
 question “Ha, ha! are you honest?” “Honest” 
 means' chaste or virtuous and it also means 
 candid, straightforward, true in word and deed; 
 Hamlet does but repeat in another form his 
 question to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, 
 
 “ Were you not sent for ? Is it your own 
 inclining ? Is it a free visitation ?” The 
 Hamlet of the second quarto but not of the 
 first has a trick of heaping meanings on a word 
 till it strains almost to cracking under the 
 burden. 
 
 I do not think that Hamlet suspects any¬ 
 body besides Polonius of eavesdropping: had 
 he fancied that the King was bearing him 
 company he would hardly have said “ all that 
 
 I 
 
130 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 are married but one shall live.” The King knew 
 very well what this meant, and in Q 2 , provi¬ 
 dent of his own safety, quickly determines to 
 send Hamlet off to England : in the Fratricide 
 and Q 1( it is the death of Corambis that sets 
 him packing. By carrying on the soliloquy, 
 too, the shock of the loss of Hamlet’s love is 
 brought nearer to the death of Polonius and 
 increases the probability of Ophelia’s insanity. 
 Thy lover, sweet Ophelia, kills alas ! thy 
 father. In all the Danish Court was there no 
 other woman’s faithful breast for thee to flee 
 to in thy trouble, for thee to disburthen all thy 
 sorrows freely on, save only that fickle Queen’s 
 who would not see thee in thy utter need ? 
 When the pitiless blind storm uproots the 
 forest kings the clinging trusting ivy is fore¬ 
 ordained to death, and the emblem of marriage 
 grows dark with the shadow of the grave. 
 
 In Op towards the end of the play scene the 
 dialogue runs 
 
 Ham .'. . how cheerefully my mo¬ 
 
 ther lookes, my father died within these two houres. 
 Of el. Nay, ’tis twice two months, my Lord. 
 
 Ham. Two months, nay then let the diuell weare blacke, 
 For i’le have a sute of Sables : lesus, two months 
 dead, 
 
 And not forgotten yet ? nay then there’s some 
 Likelyhood, a gentlemans death may outliue memorie, 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 1 3 1 
 
 But by my faith hee must build churches then, 
 
 Or els hee must follow the old Epitithe, 
 
 With hoh, with ho, the hobi-horse is forgot. 
 
 Of el. Your tests are keene my Lord. 
 
 But all this while “ one Lucianus nephew to the 
 King” has been waiting to begin his speech, and 
 all the Court must have overheard the talk : ac¬ 
 cordingly in 0 2 these “ jests” are placed before 
 the dumb show whilst the spectators are settling 
 into their places, and what occupied twenty 
 lines now takes only nine, leaving evidences of 
 the excision, for to Hamlet’s insult, “ I could 
 interpret between you and your love If I could 
 see the puppets dallying,” Ophelia replies, 
 “ You are keene my lord, you are keene 
 Hamlet is “ very pleasant” as in Oj rather than 
 “ keene/’ 
 
 In the first quarto after Hamlet has trium¬ 
 phantly baffled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 
 by praying them to “ play upon this pipe,” he 
 continues— 
 
 “ besides, to be demanded by a spunge. 
 
 Ros. How a spunge my Lord ? 
 
 Ham. I sir, a sponge, that sokes up the kings 
 
 Countenance, fauors, and rewardes, . . . 
 
 . . . the King . 
 
 .doth keep you as an Ape doth nuttes 
 
 In the corner of his law,. ” 
 
 The Oueen meanwhile is in her chamber ex- 
 
132 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 peering Hamlet, and, after thanking Q x for the 
 underlined reading, we may remark that, for 
 this reason, perhaps, twelve lines were carried 
 forward in the second quarto to the second 
 scene of the fourth act, a scene that has no 
 counterpart in Q r 
 
 Corresponding to the fifth scene of the fourth 
 act as the play now stands we have a slightly 
 talky dialogue between the King and Oue,en : 
 the Queen tells the King that Ofelia is bereft 
 of her wits, and the King tells the Queen 
 that Laertes is come from France : but now 
 we need not be told that Ophelia is insane, 
 and now the King’s account of the “ rebellion” 
 is broken off by the rebellion itself, with Laertes 
 at its head. 
 
 In the first quarto Ofelia enters “ playing 
 on a lute, and her hair down,” sole privilege 
 of the bride at her wedding : before their 
 majesties she sings chiefly about her father, 
 soon after when her brother is on the stage he 
 has his soul sickened by hearing her immodesty. 
 The change in Q 2 is slight, but the improve¬ 
 ment is truly wonderful. There we learn that 
 Ophelia, woman-like, sought sympathy, but in 
 vain, from the only other woman in the Danish 
 Court: before the Queen and Horatio (who we 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 133 
 
 hope and believe has looked after her as much 
 as he could during Hamlet’s absence) she sings 
 one verse about her love and one about her 
 father, but when the King enters, the immodest 
 song, so touching in its unconscious pathos, 
 telling us as nothing else could tell us the utter 
 wreck of her wits, falls from her lips and deals 
 a sharp home thrust at him, who, in the words 
 of the Hystorie, “ durst venture to couple him- 
 selfe in marriage with her, whom hee vsed as 
 his Concubine during good Horuendiles life.” 
 Before Laertes she sings only of her father, 
 and thus unwittingly fans his revenge and helps 
 to drive him into the King’s deadly toils. 
 
 Luckily marks are left which prove the trans¬ 
 ference of the Valentine song : it is introduced 
 in Q x with the line “ Nay Love, I pray you 
 make no words of this now,” in consequence of 
 Laertes’ burst “ Thoughts and afflictions, tor¬ 
 ments worse than hell—” : the song carried in 
 Q 2 this line with it but the alteration “ Pray 
 lets have no words of this” does not come very 
 appropriately after the King’s quiet aside, “ Con¬ 
 ceit vpon her Father.” 
 
 These are the chief recastings, and it is 
 highly improbable that they were made by any 
 one but Shakespeare, or that he was dealing 
 
134 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 with another man’s work: the improvements 
 effected would lead us to assign a considerable 
 interval between the composition of the first 
 quarto and its revision, and as they lead up to 
 the end of the fourth act while the fifth is un¬ 
 doubtedly Shakespeare’s, it must be admitted 
 that his hand has gone over the whole of the 
 Urhamlet. If these recastings are due to the 
 shifting of the pirater’s shorthand notes we can 
 only come to the conclusion that pirating like 
 madness hath sometimes the queerest frame of 
 sense in it. 
 
 In one instance, and one instance only, has 
 labour been shirked—namely, in that of reckon¬ 
 ing up the number of end-stopt and run-on 
 verses, the number of rhymes, the number 
 of double endings, &c. &c. To go through 
 Shakespeare with a five-foot rule is to serve his 
 verses no better than that famous robber Poly- 
 pemon Procrustes did the travellers, who were 
 luckless enough to fall into his hands :—“ My 
 bed gentlemen is five feet long : you podgy 
 people must be pulled out, you lanky Alex¬ 
 andrine fellows must lose at least a foot, I 
 always have suffered from alexandrinophobia.” 
 
 That the changes in Shakespeare’s use of 
 metre are of the highest value in determining to 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 135 
 
 what periods the various plays belong, must be 
 as patent to every man whose soul is moved by 
 concord of sweet sounds as any the most ob¬ 
 vious thing to sense, but that these changes 
 can be calculated by numerical computation, 
 without a special examination as to whether 
 there be not some particular reason for varia¬ 
 tion in each and every case, I for my part, 
 with all due deference to those who have taken 
 the severe labour of casting the numbers up, 
 cannot for a moment believe. It is a case 
 where a page of opinions from some master of 
 melody like Tennyson or Swinburne would be 
 worth all possible tabulated numerical results. 
 The veriest devotee of numeration as applied to 
 metre cannot hope to settle the exact order of 
 the plays : indeed only a letter from Shakes¬ 
 peare himself could do that. Our modern 
 would-be Ali Babas will sooner plane a shaving 
 from the northern pole or pluck a strand from 
 the burning line, than overhear the magic 
 “ Open, Sesame” that shall disclose the hidden 
 treasures, however umbrageous be the number- 
 leaves wherein they ensconce themselves. 
 
 A delicate ear will estimate, accurately 
 enough, the relative value of the metrical test 
 without the aid of figures, in assigning the 
 
136 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 plays to their respective periods and in roughly 
 estimating their order within those periods : fur¬ 
 ther than this I do not think we can go, without a 
 fresh and considerable addition to our external 
 evidence, nor indeed would the gain be very great 
 if we could. The enduring music of Shakes¬ 
 peare’s verse is due to the organic connection 
 between thought and expression : the words 
 that clothe his ideas may be far more aptly 
 likened to the skin than to a garment put on 
 or off at pleasure, and to examine one without 
 the other is to misunderstand both. In Julius 
 Caesar the balance is perfect: in Hamlet we 
 begin to see traces of that proleptic transfusion 
 of metaphors so marked in the later plays. 
 
 The presence of rhyme is of course due to 
 the necessity of keeping the player scene dis¬ 
 tinct from the rest of the tragedy. In the 
 philosophical portions, in the various pieces of 
 advice, formed as they are on mature deliberation, 
 there is a tendency to load the line, and we have 
 in consequence double endings and run-on verses: 
 when interruption comes from the outside, the 
 line is naturally deficient. If we can be cold¬ 
 blooded enough to stop in the midst of the closet 
 scene and use our fingers we shall find that the line 
 
 Is very cunning in. 
 
 “ Ecstasy ?” 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 137 
 
 lacks a syllable, the time being taken up by 
 a pause of incredulous surprise, and in conse¬ 
 quence of this slight stoppage the next line but 
 one has two grace notes 
 
 And makes | as health [ ful mus | ic | ; it is | not 
 mad J ness | 
 
 As in this, so also I believe in all other in¬ 
 stances, a reason can be assigned for the devia¬ 
 tion of the line from the usual ten-syllabled 
 standard, and it seems to me that a mere list 
 of deficient or superfluous syllables in Hamlet 
 would be practically valueless. 
 
 The attempt to apply these metrical con¬ 
 siderations to Q x was balked by the state of the 
 text: the wretched printer apparently did not 
 know the difference between verse and prose, 
 the blank lines are frequently broken in the 
 middle, and there are obvious lacunae : these 
 impediments rendered a continuous sense of 
 the music impossible, and accordingly the whole 
 of Oj was written out, gross blunders in spelling 
 and the divisions of the lines were corrected, 
 the second quarto and the first folio were 
 sparingly used to fill up gaps. The direct 
 object aimed at in making the transcription 
 failed, but other and important results cropped 
 up. The chance of pirated lines from Q 2 , of 
 
138 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 lines imperfectly set down from memory, of 
 possible remnants from the Urhamlet—very few 
 indeed as I believe—permitted only a vague 
 and uncertain feeling that the versification 
 belonged to an early year of the middle period, 
 say 1595-8. 
 
 The character of the task suddenly altered 
 at the end of the second act: in the rest of 
 the play the necessary corrections were made 
 almost as fast as the pen could run along 
 paper. The speech of Voltemar in Act II. 
 Sc. ii. is suspiciously correct: he may also have 
 taken the part of the player king, and in him 
 I believe we have the thief who made a copy 
 by stealth of Shakespeare’s early play, in the 
 general bustle and confusion that took place at 
 James’ accession, when my Lord Chamberlain’s 
 men became the King’s players. The title-page 
 of the first bears the same fantastic vignette as 
 the second : two small chubby naked boys hold 
 up what looks as if it would like to be a water- 
 lily, in which a fish is marvellously inserted ; 
 the boys are sitting astride two cornucopiae 
 bearing the initials N. L., standing for Nicholas 
 L ing. 
 
 This quarto was printed for him and John 
 Trundell, but the printer’s name does not 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 139 
 
 appear : Q 2 was printed by I[ames] R[oberts] 
 for N. L. alone. The title-page states that 
 “ The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet ” by William 
 Shakespeare is given “ As it hath beene diuerse 
 times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the 
 Cittie of London : as also in the two Vniuersi- 
 ties of Cambridge and Oxford, and else where.” 
 This strikes one as a truthful statement. The 
 Clarendon editors happily conjecture that the 
 play was acted at the two universities in “ some 
 entertainment in honour of the King’s accession, 
 and it may have been selected as being con¬ 
 nected with the native country of his Queen.” 
 The King’s accession, the elevation of Shake¬ 
 speare’s company to “ his Highnesse seruants/’ 
 the subject, the fact that the steadily popular 
 poet was again at work on it, would render 
 the play a lucrative publication and make 
 his theatre very desirous of preventing its pub¬ 
 lication before they had reaped the benefit 
 of Hamlet’s popularity. The “true and perfect 
 Coppie” then being carefully guarded, I believe 
 that Ling got the player who took the part of 
 Voltemar to get a hurried transcript of Shake¬ 
 speare’s older play : that he sent piraters into 
 the theatre to take shorthand notes of the first 
 two acts in order to give this stolen transcript 
 
140 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 a more colourable likeness to the play then 
 running, so that any body who picked up the 
 book on the stalls and began to read it might 
 imagine he had Shakespeare’s drama. The 
 well-known entry of Robertes in 1602 is under 
 “ the handes of master Pasfeild and master 
 waterson Robertes would be the man chiefly 
 concerned in a pirated edition, and I think that 
 Ling got him to play Messrs. Pasfeild and 
 Waterson some shabby trick, and that Robertes 
 fearing the results would not put his name to the 
 title although he printed the quarto. For this 
 reason too perhaps the title was changed from 
 “ the Revenge of Hamlett, Prince [of] Denmarke” 
 — “ as yt was latelie Acted’"’ and not therefore as 
 it was formerly acted—to “The Tragicall 
 Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke.” 
 
 The supposition that a whole play was 
 pirated by means of shorthand notes is fre¬ 
 quently met with in Shakespearean criticism of 
 the present day, but I am not quite sure that 
 stenography was capable of such a feat. The 
 “ Characterie” of Dr. Timothy Bright published 
 in 1588 is the first English attempt at short¬ 
 hand : two years after appeared Mr. Peter 
 Bale’s “Writing School-Master,” “the first part 
 of which entitled ‘ Brachygraphy ’ contains rules 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 141 
 
 to write as fast as a man can speak with pro¬ 
 priety and distinction.” In 1618 Willis wrote 
 a book on Stenography, but the methods of all 
 three are “arbitrary and mysterious” : nor have 
 I found complaints of such a mode of pilfering 
 in the dedication or preface to any old play. 
 In the 1590 edition of Ferrex and Porrex, 
 written in 1561, the printer tells the reader 
 that the play was “ never intended by the 
 Authors to be published, yet one W[illiam] 
 Griffith] getting a copie thereof at some yong 
 man’s hand that lacked a little money and much 
 discretion .... put it forth exceedingly cor¬ 
 rupted : even as if ... . he should have . . . 
 berayed and disfigured her, and then thrust 
 her out of dores dishonested/’ This method 
 is certainly more direct and cheaper than 
 taking shorthand notes, for the screw could be 
 put on an actor who had stolen a copy by 
 threatening to expose him with an anonymous 
 letter and get him turned out of his company. 
 The sudden drop in the number of quartos 
 published after the great quarto year of 1600 
 can be satisfactorily explained on the hypothesis 
 that the copies were more carefully guarded : 
 shorthand piratings would have been inde¬ 
 pendent of such precautions. 
 
142 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 As an example by way of proof of his 
 statement that Q l is only a mutilated copy of 
 Q 2 , obtained chiefly from shorthand notes taken 
 in the theatre, Mr. Collier brings forward the 
 lines, 
 
 iC As I do liue, my honord lord, ’tis true, 
 
 And wee did think it right done , 
 
 In our dutie to let you know it.” 
 
 the second line in the amended copy runs, 
 
 “ And we did think it writ downe in our dutie.” 
 
 “ In the shorthand taught when I was a boy,” 
 continues Mr. Collier, “ ‘writ down ’ would be 
 rt dn, and those very letters might be read 
 either ‘ writ down ’ or ‘ right done.’ ” But this 
 and analogous mistakes, if mistakes they are, 
 can be quite as satisfactorily explained in the 
 words of a practical printer :—“ Every com¬ 
 positor when at work reads over a few words 
 of his copy and retains them in his mind, until 
 his fingers have picked up the various types 
 belonging to them. While the memory is thus 
 repeating to itself a phrase, it is by no means 
 unnatural, nor in practice is it uncommon, for 
 some word or words to become supplanted in 
 the mind by others which are similar in sound.” 
 The margin for mistakes due to this cause, to 
 the absence of revision of proof sheets, to the 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 M3 
 
 great haste with which pirated plays were 
 brought out—shown in the first quarto of 
 Romeo and Juliet by the presence of two sets 
 of type—will be quite large enough to carry a 
 very considerable percentage of the “mutilations” 
 in Oj. When the “ greedy printers” could turn, 
 as William Clarke in his Polimanteia. (1595) 
 tells us they did turn the Paradise of daynty 
 Devises into “ a packet of balde rimes,” and 
 made them so “prostituted that they are con¬ 
 temned ” we need not stint our belief in their 
 malformative powers in bringing out a play. 
 
 Without knowing any modern system of 
 shorthand I tried with the aid of a naturally 
 swift hand, trained by three years' note-taking 
 at Cambridge, to pirate the play of Macbeth 
 from the pit of our theatre: it would have 
 indeed taken a Shakespearean Owen to have 
 discovered the “ disjecta membra poetae” in my 
 fragment. I found that the first words of fresh 
 characters and stage directions were most ac¬ 
 curately obtained. 
 
 A discussion of the names that appear 
 will yield some excellent results. Hamlet is 
 the only one common to the Saga, Hystorie 
 and Fratricide. The names Corambis, O/elia, 
 Lmrtes, Montano, Albertus, Voltemar become 
 
144 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 in the second quarto Polonius, O/^elia, Laertes, 
 Reynaldo, Gonzago and Voltemand respectively: 
 these changes are too numerous to be fortuitous. 
 
 Thebrother of Ophelia occurs in the Fratricide 
 as Leonhardus, Leonhardo and Leonhardum : 
 if we drop three letters from the first form we 
 have Leardus from which to L<?«rtes is not far : 
 now, although he is mentioned twenty-one 
 times in the dialogue of his name is invari¬ 
 ably Leartes : the euphonious change to 
 Laertes is slight, but one that the ear could 
 not fail to catch. The only other place in 
 Shakespeare where the Greek Laertes occurs 
 is in the first act of Titus Andronicus, and 
 therefore in all probability not written by our 
 poet. This derivation, if correct, proves con¬ 
 clusively the existence of an English Urhamlet, 
 and puts a considerable interval between the 
 composition of and Q 2 . 
 
 In the Spanish Tragedy, Horatio is the great 
 friend of Andrea, “ My other soul, my bosom 
 friend, O, my Andrea slain : ” Kyd is given to 
 repeating himself, and so we find Horatio in 
 the Urhamlet playing the role of friend to 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Mr. C. Elliot Browne points out that in the 
 first quarto edition of Jacopo Sannazaro’s 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 145 
 
 Arcadia—the parent of Sir Philip Sidney’s— 
 O/elia and Montano are introduced together 
 in the ninth eclogue. Corambis [ = corymbus?] 
 looks like a pastoral name: he occurs as 
 Corambus in the Fratricide. This effectually 
 disposes of Mommsen’s strained fancy that 
 Corambis and Montano are pieced out of Cor. 
 and Mon. shorthand abbreviations for Courtier 
 and Man of Polonius: besides the names occur 
 in the dialogue four and three times respec¬ 
 tively. 
 
 Kyd, one of the “ triviall translators,” would 
 be sure to know Sannazaro, and as he was not 
 above “conveying” whole verses bodily, Nash 
 might with some justice class him with those 
 who “feed on nought but the crumbs that fall 
 from the translator’s trencher.” 
 
 Montano is met with in Othello : Corambus 
 was in all probability transferred by Shake¬ 
 speare himself to All’s Well (1601—2) when he 
 was revising Hamlet: Polonius, the Polonian or 
 Pole, is a far more appropriate name for a 
 hunter after the “trail of policy” than Corambis. 
 
 Claudius does not occur anywhere in the 
 dialogue of Hamlet nor in the stage directions 
 of O, : we first meet with the name in Q 
 Act I. Sc. ii. where the opening speech is given to 
 
 K 
 
146 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Claud, returning afterwards to King : it was 
 probably suggested on revision by Hamlet’s 
 wish that the heart of Nero might never enter 
 his soft bosom. Agrippina, Nero’s mother, had, 
 after the death of Domitius, married her uncle 
 Claudius : Christian of Denmark, who died in 
 1589 (the probable date of the Urhamlet), was 
 called the Nero of the North. 
 
 The list of “ Persons ” in the Fratricide calls 
 the King and Queen, Erico and Sigrie, but I 
 do not know on what authority : they are 
 never mentioned by these names in the play. 
 Gertred (Qj), Gertrad ( 0 2 ), Geruthe (FJ comes 
 from the Geruth of the Hystorie. 
 
 Francisco and Osric are unknown by name 
 to Op they are “ Centinel 2” and “a Bragart 
 gentleman the former in the Fratricide is 
 more like Marcellus than a common sentinel: we 
 do not come across Marcellus in the German 
 play. Osric is given by Holinshed : he repre¬ 
 sents the character-name Phantasmo, suggested 
 perhaps, by the “ babler ” of the Plystorie. 
 
 Several textual points of interest will now 
 be discussed, and an attempt made to show 
 that the various alterations, as well as the re¬ 
 castings already considered, may with far greater 
 likelihood be ascribed to the hand of Shake- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 147 
 
 speare than to the shorthand pirater or gap¬ 
 stopping literary hack. The first quarto rightly 
 agrees with the first folio in assigning “ What 
 hath this thing appear’d againe to night” to 
 Marcellus and not to Horatio as in Q 2 : in 
 the mouth of the latter there would have to be 
 an uncharacteristic sarcastic drawl on “ what” 
 and “ thing” : “ thing” is not necessarily con¬ 
 temptuous : Miranda might call Ferdinand “a 
 thing divine :” Lucio holds Isabella “ as a thing 
 ensky’d and sainted ;” the line is appropriate to 
 the eager credulous Marcellus desirous of proving 
 his story to the half-believing Horatio, and “this 
 thing” begins the scale—“ this dreaded sight,” 
 “ this apparition”—by which the ghost is men¬ 
 tioned. 
 
 The two quartos agree in reading 
 
 “ when in an angry parle 
 He smot the sleaded pollax on the yce.” 
 
 Most editors, following Malone, have considered 
 that “ pollax” is a corruption for Polacks - ; in 
 Qj Polacke occurs twice in the speech of Vol- 
 temar already mentioned, and not again. When 
 we find Skinner in his Etymologicon Angli- 
 canum (1671) writing 
 
 “ Poleax velq. d. Contus Securi munitus . . velq. d. 
 
 Polonica Securis, quia Polonis usitatissima est . . 
 
 K 2 
 
148 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 we may forgive a printer for confusing pollax 
 and Polacke. The singular seems preferable : 
 an army in sleds must be a very rare phe¬ 
 nomenon : “ smite” is not often used by Shake¬ 
 speare in the biblical sense: in the various 
 examples I have been able to find, a “ parle” 
 never had more than ten people present. The 
 frozen river was probably selected as neutral 
 ground (to indulge in an Irishism) just as 
 Napoleon and the Emperor of Russia met on a 
 raft at Tilsit. I fancy I remember an account 
 in the papers of Cavagnari’s knocking down 
 “ like a bullock” one of three Afridi chiefs who 
 “ in an angry parle” began to threaten him. 
 
 The first quarto reading 
 
 “ yong Fortenbrasse, 
 
 Of inapproued mettle hot and full, 
 
 Hath. 
 
 Sharkt vp a sight of lawlesse Resolutes.” 
 
 seems better than the “ vnimprooued’'’ and 
 “ list” of 0 2 and F 1 : Horatio has been brought 
 to the platform to “ approoue” his companions’ 
 eyes : he might justly and generously speak of 
 a possibly future enemy’s mettle as “ unproved,” 
 like Prince Hal’s was before he met Harry 
 Hotspur. Fortinbras was too young to have a 
 mettle “ guided by experience” or “ unim- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 149 
 
 peached Schmidt gives “ Unimproved not yet 
 used for advantage, unemployed.” “ Sight,” as 
 in a “ sight of money,” although a vulgarism 
 now is decidedly preferable to “ list.” 
 
 The first quarto and the first folio omit the 
 speech of Bernardo with its thoroughly Shake¬ 
 spearean art of letting us see the different and 
 characteristic views taken of the same event by 
 the chief actors in it, and the magnificent 
 description of the portents “ a little ere the 
 mightiest Iulius fell” with its unluckily corrupt 
 passage “ As starres, &c. the second quarto 
 is responsible for most of the textual difficulties 
 in Hamlet. The Clarendon editors cite North’s 
 Plutarch as a probable source, but a splendid 
 burst of poetry towards the end of Marlowe’s 
 translation of the first book of Lucan (1600) is 
 a far more likely one :— 
 
 “ The flattering sky glittered in often flames 
 And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven 
 Now spear-like long, now like a spreading torch. 
 
 .Phoebe, having filled 
 
 Her meeting horns to match her brother’s light, 
 
 Strook with the earth’s sudden shadow, waxed pale 
 
 Souls quiet and appeased sighed from their graves ; 
 Clashing of arms was heard, in untrod woods 
 ■Shrill voices schright ; and ghosts encounter men.” 
 
150 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Two other lines, although without parallel in 
 Shakespeare, I cannot refrain from quoting 
 
 “ The earth went off her hinges, and the Alps 
 Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps.” 
 
 In the beginning of the second scene the 
 two “ Ambassadors” of Qj suddenly become 
 gent[lemen], as afterwards the King and Queen 
 of the Dumb show are transformed into the Duke 
 and Duchess of the play within the play : this 
 is no proof of carelessness or mutilation, as in 
 Q 2 Claud[ius] becomes the King : the Priest at 
 Ophelia’s burial is changed to a Doct\j>r\, and in 
 the Hystorie the Dukes grow into Princes and 
 then into Kings, their wives into Queens. 
 
 When the King asks Leartes about “ some 
 sute ” he has, the latter in a truthful but 
 uncourtierlike way that must have pained his 
 father’s heart, replies— 
 
 “ My gratious Lord, your fauorable licence, 
 
 Now that the funerall rites are all performed, 
 
 I may haue leaue to go againe to France ,” 
 
 but this is the reason of Horatio’s presence at 
 Elsenour, so in Q 2 we find Laertes saying— 
 
 “ My dread Lord, 
 
 Your leaue and fauor to returne to Fraunce, 
 
 From whence, though willingly I came to Denmarke, 
 To show my dutie in your Coronation,” &c. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 151 
 
 With the antithesis that is a mark of 
 Shakespeare’s early work, the King after allow¬ 
 ing Leartes to go to France intreats Hamlet 
 not to go to Wittenberg : Hamlet replies to 
 him directly; and it is, as Knight says, as 
 hard to believe that the haste of shorthand 
 transformed 
 
 “ But I haue that within which passes show” 
 
 into 
 
 “ Him haue I lost I must of force forgoe,” 
 as that it should miss the first words of Hamlet, 
 “ A little more than kin, and lesse than kind,” 
 
 or his petulant rejoinder to the Queen, 
 
 “ Seemes Madam, nay it is, I know not seemes,” 
 
 as well as the transference to her of the desire 
 that he go not back to Wittenberg. The 
 bitterness of impotency against a hated object 
 is apt to vent itself in ambiguous sarcastic 
 phrases, the tongue is the only weapon left. 
 Hamlet in the second quarto is studiously 
 polite to his mother, and answers Claudius as 
 little as he can. The changes also from “ a 
 beast devoyd of reason ” to “ a beast that 
 wants discourse of reason:” from “as if 
 of appetite had grown by what it 
 
 increase 
 
152 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 looked on,” to “ by what it fed on,” may far 
 more reasonably be assigned to Shakespeare 
 than the opposite changes to the pirater. 
 
 The scene between Hamlet, Horatio and 
 Marcellus displays the fewest discrepancies 
 between the quartos. The most curious word 
 in Qj occurs in it: “Ha, ha, the King my 
 father ke you,” the second quarto has only the 
 four middle words ; one would naturally think 
 “ ke” a misprint for “ say,” but Halliwell gives 
 “ Ka (i) Quoth. Suffolk. Ka, the cloyster- 
 master. Mar-Prelates Epitome.” 
 
 Leartes opens the third scene with the 
 words : 
 
 “ My necessaries are inbarkt, I must aboord, 
 
 But ere I part, marke what I say to thee : 
 
 I see Prince Hamlet makes a shew of loue 
 Beware Ofelia, do not trust his vowes, 
 
 Perhaps he loues you now, and now his tongue, 
 Speakes from his heart, but yet take heed my sister, 
 The Chariest maid is prodigall enough, 
 
 If she vnmaske hir beautie to the Moone, 
 
 Vertue it selfe scapes not calumnious thoughts, 
 Belieu’t Ofelia , therefore keepe a loofe 
 Lest that he trip thy honor and thy fame.” 
 
 Even omitting the philosophical portion, “ For 
 nature crescent &c.” put, it must be confessed 
 without strict dramatic propriety, into Laertes’ 
 mouth—all the leading characters in 0.,, except 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 153 
 
 Horatib and Ophelia are inoculated with Ham¬ 
 let’s habit of philosophizing—it is very unlikely 
 that Qj is a mutilation of O,. In the line 
 “ I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of loue,” 
 Leartes speaks as if for the first time of his love 
 affair, and we are conscious of taking up a new 
 thread : but the second quarto, with improved 
 dramatic skill, gives a feeling of continuity 
 with its “ For Hamlet, and the trifling of his 
 fauor &c.” —making us aware that the “ trifling” 
 has been going on for some time, and that the 
 brother has been advising his sister on it 
 already. The plain-spokenness of “ therefore 
 keep a loofe Lest that he trip thy honor and 
 thy fame” is also toned down. In the midst of 
 his “few precepts” printed, as maxims usually 
 are, in old books within inverted commas, 
 Corambis with a slightly apologetic explanatory 
 wave of the hand interpolates— 
 
 “ And they of France of the chiefe rancke and station 
 Are of a most select and generall chiefe in that 
 
 the second quarto reads— 
 
 “ And they in Fraunce of the best rank and station 
 Or of a most select and generous, chiefe in that; ” 
 
 adopted by the first folio with the alteration 
 of “chiefe” to “cheff.” As “ of a ” occurs in 
 
154 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 the quartos and folios we must seek the error 
 in the two “ chiefes” printed almost under one 
 another. Giving the soft pronunciation to ch 
 in the folio reading—as we must in the second 
 quarto to “ c/iapes of griefe”—we have a word 
 in Holinshed “ as for our steele, it is not so good 
 for edge tooles as that of Colaine, and yet the 
 one is often sold for the other, and like tale 
 used in both, that is to saie, thirtie gads to the 
 sJiejfe , and twelve sheffes to the burden.” Some 
 old arithmetic book might give us the table : 
 a sheffe or sheaf is a capital measure-word for 
 a bundle of steel rods. We are thus brought 
 to Staunton’s emendation of “ sheaf” in the 
 sense of a set or clique in fashionable society : 
 in support of his reading he quotes from Ben 
 Jonson — “Ay, and with assurance That it 
 is found in noblemen and gentlemen of the 
 best sheaf',' and “ I am so haunted at the court 
 and at my lodging with your refined choice 
 spirits, that it makes me clean of another garb, 
 another sheaf!' The adjectives “ select” and 
 “generous” are peculiarly appropriate to a 
 sheaf of corn : and I cannot quite see how it is 
 possible to be “ most select and generous” in 
 apparel. 
 
 Rushton has pointed out the probable origin 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 155 
 
 of the maxims of Corambis in the advice of 
 Euphues to Philautus ; the Cambridge editors 
 think that the “courage” of both quartos is an 
 eye-error for “ comradebut it is quite as 
 likely, as Ingelby says in support of Staunton’s 
 emendation, to be a euphuistic term for a 
 “ gallant.” 
 
 In the next scene the lines “ This heauy 
 
 headed reueale.to his own scandal” 
 
 occur-in 0 2 only : Elze is inclined to think them 
 spurious, but by the attempt to follow the in¬ 
 volution of the grammar, by the eagerness of 
 Hamlet to expound a deep psychological truth, 
 the mind is started and engaged, and the 
 appearance of the ghost again takes us by 
 surprise, affording another example of the 
 exquisite skill with which Shakespeare has 
 managed his visitant from the other world. 
 
 In the description of his murder the ghost 
 • tells the German Hamlet “da kommt mein 
 Kronsiichtiger Bruder zu mir, und hatte einen 
 subtilen saft von Ebeno genannt bey sich ; dieses 
 Oel ocTer Saft hat dieses Wirkung u.s.w.” (then 
 came my crown-hankering brother to me, with 
 a subtle juice of so-called Ebeno ; this oil or 
 juice has this effect &c.) : from the trouble taken 
 to explain the word “Ebeno” it is evidently 
 
156 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 foreign, and its undoubted first source is 
 Batman’s English translation of BartholomcEns 
 de ProprietatUnis Rebus (1582), in which the 
 article on ebony is headed “ Of Ebeno cap. 52.” 
 The “Hebona” of the quartos, and the “Hebenon” 
 of the folios, come, I think, from the Jew of 
 Malta rather than from the Urhamlet. Barabas 
 prays that “ The juice of Hebon and Cocytus 
 breath, And all the poisons of the Stygian pool” 
 may vomit their venom in the mess of porridge 
 concocted for the nunnery that Abigail has 
 entered : in the Faerie Oueene we read 
 
 “ A gentle youth, his dearely loved Squire 
 His speare of heben wood behind him bare ; ” 
 
 in Gower’s Confessio Amantis the couch of the 
 god of sleep is made of “ Hebenus that steeple 
 tree,” and Minscheu gives “ an Ewe or Yew- 
 tree, Low Dutch I ben- boom, Ger. I ben forte a, 
 Gr. ’lttthu,, laedere, nocere. Narbonae enim tarn- 
 praesentis est veneni ut si qui dormiant sub ea, 
 aut in ejus umbra, laedantur et saepenumero 
 moriantur. Dioscorides.” 
 
 If the line 
 
 “ With juice of cursed hebon in a vial” 
 be read over a few times the tongue slips into 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 15 7 
 
 “ hebenon in” : and it seems preferable to sup¬ 
 pose that the Yew is here intended rather than 
 that Shakespeare, to get a poison, indulged 
 in a metathesis of a word he does not else¬ 
 where use. 
 
 When Ofelia comes to tell Corambis of 
 Hamlet’s madness, she says “ Hee found mee 
 walking in the gallery all alone:” we afterwards 
 learn that “ The Prince’s walke is here in the 
 galery it may be a relic from the Urhamlet; 
 Alcario dressed in Andrea’s clothes is placed 
 in Belimperia’s “ private gallery.” “ This is the 
 gallery where she most frequents.” Now Q t is 
 quite consistent with itself in the several occur¬ 
 rences of this word, which has vanished from 
 the second quarto : it is difficult to obtain a 
 mental picture of the Palace in the amended 
 copy, whereas in Q 1 we have simply the gallery 
 with a study opening into it, the Queen’s bed¬ 
 room, a room of State, and “ the outward 
 pallace.” A slight point like this is as damag¬ 
 ing to the shorthand mutilation theory as 
 the larger changes, for the reporter is not 
 likely in his haste to put “gallery” for 
 “lobby” or “closet” either in the theatre 01- 
 in his longhand transcription. Another con¬ 
 sistency in Qj and inconsistency in Q 2 is to 
 
i 5 8 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 be found in the orders of Polonius to his 
 daughter. 
 
 Qi . Q 2 
 
 Ofelia receiue none of his I would not in plaine tearmes 
 letters from this time foorth 
 
 Haue you so slander any mo¬ 
 ment leasure 
 
 As to give words or talke with 
 the Lord Hamlet 
 
 I did repell his letters, deny but as you did command 
 
 his gifts I did repell his letters, and 
 
 denied His accesse to me. 
 
 Therefore I did command her and then I prescripts gaue 
 
 refuse his letters her 
 
 Deny his tokens, and to absent That she should locke herself 
 herselfe from [his] resort 
 
 Admit no messengers, receiue 
 no tokens. 
 
 If Ophelia’s door was “locked,” and “accesse” 
 denied to Hamlet, it is a little difficult to see 
 how he could visit her in her “closet.” By 
 the increased harshness with which Ofelia is 
 treated our sympathies are the more enlisted 
 on her side. 
 
 The complete hash made of the soliloquy 
 “To be or not to be,” &c., can be satisfactorily 
 explained on the hypothesis that a hurried 
 transcript was made of the early play, and that 
 Ling sent piraters into the theatre to take 
 jottings of the first two acts of the amended piece 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 159 
 
 to give a more colourable likeness to his stolen 
 copy: when they came to the soliloquy in Oj they 
 would remember that it had occurred in the play, 
 but finding nothing in their notes to correspond 
 they strove to piece it out from memory. 
 
 In the Fratricide the players come to court 
 “ ambitious of the honour of acting at his 
 Majesty’s wedding this was probably an 
 advertising hint of the English players. In 
 the first quarto the tragedians travel because 
 “ the principall publike audience that came to 
 them are turned to priuate plays, and to the 
 humour of children.” It is in the second quarto 
 that we first hear of their “ inhibition” coming 
 “ by means of the late innouasion.” 
 
 The suggestion of the Clarendon editors 
 “ that the ‘ innovation ’ referred to was the 
 license which had been given on 30 Jan., 
 1603—4 to the children of the Queen’s Revels 
 to play at the Blackfriars Theatre and other 
 convenient places” may receive support from a 
 passage in Father Hubburd’s Tales (qto, 1604): 
 —“ He embraced one young gentleman, and 
 gave him many riotous instructions how to carry 
 himself .... he must venture .... to the 
 Bankside where he must sit out the breaking 
 up of a comedy ... or rather, if humours so 
 
l6o HAMLET: 
 
 serve him, to call in at the Blackfriars, where 
 he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a 
 man.” The phrase a “ nest of boys” was 
 probably suggested by “ an aerie of children, 
 little eyases,” although the passage is found 
 only in the first folio. Topical allusions are 
 frequently added to plays : if Shakespeare in¬ 
 dulged in one here we may be sure the occasion 
 sorely needed it. Apparently there was an 
 interdict on the children of St. Paul’s from 
 1589 to 1600: if this led to their employ¬ 
 ment in “priuate plays” the composition of the 
 first quarto will lie between those years. 
 
 Hamlet in Q l naturally enough first asks 
 who the players were: “He that plays the 
 King shall have tribute of me &c.” comes just 
 before their entrance in Q x : but this in is 
 made Hamlet’s first ejaculation ; the idea of 
 using the players strikes him at once, and he 
 has to hide his excitement under a heap of 
 words before he enquires, “ What players are 
 they ?” In Q 2 Polonius enters at the words “ I 
 am but mad North-North-west; when the wind is 
 southerly, I knowe a Hauke from a handsaw 
 it is not likely that this change and addition 
 were made by any one but Shakespeare. 
 
 We have already seen that there was some- 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 161 
 
 thing about King Pyrrhus in the Fratricide. 
 In 1594 the tragedy of Dido, Queen of Car¬ 
 thage, by Marlowe and Nash, was published, 
 and there can be no doubt that the long 
 description by /Eneas of the fall of Troy in it 
 was the source of the declamation in Hamlet. 
 One would like to believe that by his imitation 
 Shakespeare was paying a generous tribute to 
 the memory of mighty Marlowe : “ an excellent 
 play, set downe with as great viodestie as 
 cunning,” describes the even restrained tone of 
 the tragedy, likely enough to be “ cauiary to 
 the million certainly those playgoers who, 
 attracted by the subject, went in the hope of 
 getting “ sallets” in the lines must have been 
 grievously disappointed. Corambis discloses 
 his scheme of hiding behind the arras to the 
 King and Queen : in Q„ the former only knows 
 of it, and this dramatically is enough. Polonius 
 and the Queen come on the stage as if they 
 were continuing a conversation about his plan, 
 and we are thus seduced into believing that 
 the Queen was aware of it as soon as we : this 
 is of course a mark of Shakespeare’s improved 
 workmanship. 
 
 At the end of Hamlet’s advice to the players 
 there is a passage of eleven lines for which 0, 
 
 L 
 
162 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 \ 
 
 alone is responsible, and as it is the worst piece 
 in it will be as well to see it in full :— 
 
 “ And then you haue some agen, that keepes one sute 
 Of leasts , as a man is knowne by one sute of 
 Apparell , and Gentlemen quotes his ieasts downe 
 In their tables, before they come to the play, as thus : 
 Cannot you stay till I eate my porrige ? and, you owe me 
 A quarters wages : and, my coate wants a cullison : 
 And, your beere is sowre : and, blabbering with his lips, 
 And thus keeping in his cinkapase of ieasts , 
 
 When, God knows, the warme Clowne cannot make a 
 iest 
 
 Vnlesse by chance , as the blinde man catcheth a hare 
 Maisters tell him of it.” 
 
 It is as easy to scout the idea that this was 
 ever written by Shakespeare as it is difficult to 
 deny that the italicised portions are in his man¬ 
 ner. The would-be jests are vulgar enough 
 but not more so than Hamlet when he soon 
 after poses as “ your onlie jig-maker.” Further 
 on Osric smells like a “ muske-cod he is told 
 that he is “ spiced.” These three vulgarities 
 must stand or fall together as relics of the Ur- 
 hamlet. Perhaps after Tarleton’s death many, 
 were desirous of being thought inheritors of his 
 drum, and their vulgar clownery needed a direct 
 rebuff: that Shakespeare could use language less 
 strong in Q 2 may be taken as a proof that his 
 efforts to improve the stage were not unavailing. 
 The holders of the theory that Qj was an 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 163 
 
 early sketch may safely enbulwark themselves 
 behind the opening speech of the Duke in the 
 player scene— 
 
 “ Full fortie yeares are past, their date is gone, 
 
 Since happy time ioyn’d both our hearts as one : 
 
 And now the blood that fill’d my youthful veines, 
 Runnes weakely in their pipes, and all the straines 
 Of musicke, which whilome pleasde mine eare, 
 
 Is now a burthen that Age cannot beare : 
 
 And therefore sweete Nature must pay his due, 
 
 To heauen must I, and leaue the earth with you.” 
 
 Placing in the seventh line “ must” before 
 u sweete nature” we have a piece of musical 
 verse beyond the power of a literary hack and 
 beyond the power of Kyd. Physicians as a 
 rule call in a friend to prescribe for their own 
 families, but Shakespeare treated the children 
 of his brain with unfaltering rigour : as it was 
 necessary to draw a sharp line of demarcation 
 between the play and the play within the play, 
 we have now Phoebus and Neptune, Tellus and 
 Hymen, “ And thirtie dozen Moones with bor¬ 
 rowed sheene that the one passage was taken 
 from shorthand notes of the other is a sheer 
 impossibility. 
 
 The first quarto does not give the twenty- 
 three lines “ Purpose is but the slaue to 
 memorie .... Our wills and fates do so con¬ 
 trary runne,” - and the pirater is to be congratu- 
 
 I. 2 
 
164 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 lated on mistaking “ demises” for “ deuises” 
 thereby making his notes strictly logical. In 
 the Fratricide the King is “ displeased” with 
 the play, in he “ will to bed,” in Q 2 no reason 
 at all ; he is hit so hard that he rises involun¬ 
 tarily “ vpon the talke of poysning,” to face his 
 adversary : “ Giue me some light,” verily the 
 King needs “ light” of another pattern. 
 
 On the re-entrance of the courtiers in Q x 
 Hamlet suddenly asks Rossencraft to “ play 
 vpon this pipe,” but we do not see where the 
 pipe comes from : in the first folio Hamlet calls 
 for the Recorders, but the stage direction gives 
 u enter one with a Recorder,” this change as 
 Dyce points out we must attribute to the 
 * company,” who were obliged to be economical 
 both of persons and proprieties : perhaps when 
 Q j was written they had to be still more 
 economical, and Hamlet carried the pipe with 
 him : there is nothing about “ Recorders” in Oj: 
 the questions too are divided between Rossen¬ 
 craft and Gilderstone, whereas in Q„ Hamlet 
 fastens on the latter only. 
 
 At the end of this scene Hamlet in the first 
 quarto says— 
 
 “ I will speake daggers, those sharpe wordes being spent, 
 To doe her wrong my soule shall ne’re consent,” 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 165 
 
 in Q 2 we read 
 
 “ I will speak daggers to her, but vse none ” 
 
 the italicised words are inexplicable : a pirater 
 
 would not miss them, and it seems as hard to 
 
 believe that Shakespeare was carried away by 
 
 the antithesis between “ speak” and “ use” as 
 
 that Hamlet contemplated matricide. At the 
 
 end of the closet scene in Oj the dialogue runs— 
 
 Ham. O mother, if euer you did my deare father loue, 
 Forbeare the adulterous bed to night, 
 
 And win your selfe by little as you may, 
 
 In time it may be you will loathe him quite : 
 
 And mother, but assist mee in reuenge 
 And in his death your infamy shall die. 
 
 Qiceene. Hamlet , I vow by that maiesty, 
 
 That knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts 
 I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, 
 
 What stratagem soe’re thou shalt cleuise. 
 
 Ham. It is enough, mother good night : 
 
 Come sir, I’le prouide for you a graue, 
 
 Who was in life a foolish prating knaue. 
 
 Perhaps in revising his work Shakespeare 
 felt that the Queen’s character was not im¬ 
 proved by her joining in a conspiracy against her 
 husband, and that such a weak sentimental 
 woman as he has made her, would not succeed 
 in keeping her secret from the astute King. 
 The scene between Hamlet and his mother is 
 by far the best incident in the Hystorie, and I 
 
166 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 think that Shakespeare here was closely follow¬ 
 ing the Urhamlet. In the Spanish Tragedy 
 Hieronimo and Belimperia conspire together 
 thus: — 
 
 “ Hie r. . 
 
 And here I vow, so you but give consent, 
 
 And will conceal my resolution, 
 
 I will ere long determine of their deaths, 
 
 That causeless thus have murdered my son. 
 
 Bel . — Hieronimo I will consent, conceal, 
 
 And aught that may effect for thine avail 
 Join with thee to revenge Horatio’s death. 
 
 Hier — On, then ; whatsoever I devise 
 
 Let me intreat you, grace my practices.” 
 
 In Q 2 Hamlet strangely enough knows that 
 he “ must to England the supposition of Miles 
 that he overheard the conference between the 
 King and the courtiers on the way to his 
 mother is untenable: had he been eaves¬ 
 dropping— an unlikely thing — he would also 
 have learnt that Polonius was going to hide 
 behind the arras : besides the stage direction, 
 makes him enter after the King “ Retires and 
 kneels:” Polonius knew of the King’s deter-* 
 mination at the end of Act III. Sc. i. ; 
 he may have told somebody of it as a 
 great State secret, and then perhaps it leaked 
 out to Horatio. It is curious, to say the least of 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 167 
 
 it, on the mutilation theory that not a breath 
 of England has got into Q r 
 
 Neglecting the inept division of the play at 
 the fourth act, it was found, in making the 
 transcript of Q 1 that the portion of it corre¬ 
 sponding to the first three scenes of Act. IV, fell 
 naturally into a fifth scene to Act. III. In 
 the beginning of it the Queen says 
 
 “ Whenas he came, I first bespake him faire, 
 
 But then he throwes and tosses me about, 
 
 As one forgetting that I was his mother: 
 
 At last I call’d for help : and as I cried, Corambis 
 Call’d . . . ” 
 
 this is, like so many other things, toned down in 
 Q 2 , both from its inherent improbability and 
 from the unlikelihood of the King’s believing it: 
 Shakespeare may have had this before him 
 when he makes the King in Q 2 say, “His 
 libertie is full of threates to all, To you your¬ 
 self, to us, to eueryone . . . Corambis did 
 call, and the Queen is more truthful in Q t than 
 in Q 2 where she merely says “ Behind the 
 Arras hearing something stirre &c.” 
 
 Towards the end of this single scene we have, 
 
 “ Ham .farewel mother. 
 
 King. Your loving father, Hamlet. 
 
 Ham. My mother I say : you married my mother, 
 
168 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 My mother is your wife, man and wife is one flesh, 
 And so (my mother) farewel: for England hoe. 
 
 [Exeunt all but the Kmg. 
 
 King. Gertred leaue me. 
 
 All of this—representing the “ Man und Weib ist 
 ja ein Leib ” of the Fratricide—is in Q 2 except 
 the last line. Hamlet is brought in “guarded” 
 (surely the “ mutilater” would never have 
 omitted such an exciting episode as this), and 
 apparently the Queen is not on the scene! 
 The folio stage direction to the third scene is 
 “ Enter King,” Q 2 “Enter King and two or three.” 
 At the beginning of what ought to be the fourth 
 act, but is the fourth scene in it, we have in Qj 
 
 Enter Fortenbrasse, Drumme, and Souldiers. 
 
 Fort. Captaine, from vs goe greete 
 The king of Denmarke : 
 
 Tell him that Fortenbrasse nephew to old Norway 
 Craues a free passe and conduct ouer his land, 
 According to the Articles agreed on : 
 
 You know our Randevous, goe march away. 
 
 [Exeunt all. 
 
 “ Now, will anyone,” says Grant White in 
 support of his theory that Oj is got by sheer 
 mutilation from Q a , “ believe that Shakespeare 
 bi ought Fortinbras at the head of an army 
 upon the stage merely to speak these half- 
 dozen lines of commonplace ? Plainly the only 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 169 
 
 object was to give Hamlet the opportunity 
 
 .[to] confess in whisper to himself the 
 
 subtle modes and hidden causes of his vacillation. 
 Considering the motive of the Play [if “ vacilla¬ 
 tion ” is the motive of the play], the introduction 
 of Fortinbras and his army without the sub¬ 
 sequent dialogue and soliloquy is a moral 
 impossibility which overrides all other argu¬ 
 ments. Yet this one is not unsupported. . For 
 the speech of Fortinbras in the first version 
 itself furnishes evidence that it was written out 
 for the press by a person who had heard the 
 dialogue which it introduces . The latter part 
 of the line—‘Tell him that Fortinbras, nephew 
 to old Norway,’—has no counterpart in the 
 genuine speech; but we detect in it an 
 unmistakable reminiscence of the following 
 passage of the subsequent dialogue which 
 is found in O 0 : ‘ Ham. Who commands 
 
 them, sir ? Cap. The nephew to old Norway , 
 Fortenbrasse.’ It is to be noted, too, that the 
 absence of this dialogue and soliloquy from Oj 
 is no proof whatever that they were not 
 written when the copy for that edition was 
 prepared ; and this for the all-sufficient reason 
 that they are also wanting in the Folio itself, 
 which was printed twenty years afterwards. It 
 
170 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 seems almost certain that these passages were 
 omitted in the representation and struck out of 
 the stage copy from which the folio was 
 
 printed.” That the dialogue should be 
 
 written out for the press by a person who had 
 heard it and yet omitted in the representation 
 is a trifle strange ; but even admitting—which 
 is very improbable seeing how unanimously the 
 actors have cut down the part of Fortinbras— 
 that the supreme soliloquy of the play was heard 
 on the stage in 1603, it is as easy and as probable 
 to suppose that Shakespeare himself shifted the 
 “ Nephew to old Norway” in revising the play, 
 as that the pirater heard it in the dialogue of 
 Q 2 . Undoubtedly there was in the early draft 
 something corresponding to Hamlet’s soliloquy : 
 but the supposition that Q 1 like F 1 was obtained 
 from a stage copy will satisfactorily account for its 
 omission : nay, we may see an acknowledgment 
 of the excision in the insertion of the explanatory 
 “ nephew to old Norway.” 
 
 Again, in the scene between Horatio and the 
 Oueen, for which Oj alone is responsible, the 
 quarto is consistent with itself: the Queen is 
 Hamlet’s confederate, and Horatio brings her 
 the first news of his return. Hamlet could not 
 have written to her at court without exciting 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 171 
 
 suspicion : the scene agreeing with the Fratri¬ 
 cide (as already pointed out) in Hamlet’s being 
 crossed “ by the contention of the winds,” and in 
 the necessity of bidding him “ a while Be wary 
 of his presence, lest that he Faile in that he 
 goes about” may possibly be a relic of the 
 Urhamlet. In it Horatio gives an account of 
 the procurement of death for Rosencrantz and 
 Guildenstern ; if it was not sufficient to send 
 them on a fool’s errand to England, I must 
 confess that I would rather hear from Horatio 
 of their death than from Hamlet. There is 
 nothing in the play to convict them of com¬ 
 plicity : they did not scruple to bring Hamlet 
 “ guarded” before the King, and had they 
 known the import of their commission they 
 would never have meekly left him to deliver his 
 soliloquy after the meeting with Fortinbras’ 
 Captain. They are guilty in the Fratricide as 
 well as in the Hystorie, and it seems probable 
 that Shakespeare took for granted in his audience 
 a knowledge of the main outline of his story, 
 carrying with it the courtiers’ share in the 
 King’s murderous intentions. Although it may 
 be “ dangerous when the baser nature comes 
 Betweene the passe and fell incensed points of 
 mighty opposites,” yet that the baser nature 
 
HAMLET: 
 
 I 72 
 
 should die unless guilty of some particular crime 
 is not just. 
 
 Fengo in the Hystorie esteems young Prince 
 Hamlet “ to bee of such a minde, that if he 
 once attained to mans estate, he wold not long 
 delay y e time to reuenge the death of his father 
 from the Fratricide nothing can be gleaned of 
 Hamlet’s age : in Q } and Q 2 (up to Act V.) he 
 appears in “ blown youth,” but as he asks 
 who “ plucks off my beard,” we cannot put 
 him under age. Goethe speaks of himself as 
 being “ en pleine jeunesse ” at twenty-three. 
 Mr. Halliwell has attempted with the aid of Qj 
 to fix Hamlet’s age at twenty : but his proof 
 is dubious. The explicit thirty years of the 
 graveyard corroborated by the fact that 
 Yorick’s “skull has lain in the earth three and 
 twenty years” and that Hamlet is “ fat and 
 scant of breath,” are to me indubitable proof 
 that Shakespeare revised Qj and increased his 
 hero’s age, feeling that his profound philosophy 
 would be more appropriate in the mouth of an 
 older man. It is to be noticed in this scene 
 that all the members in Q x and Q 2 are different, 
 a change not likely to be due to a shorthand 
 writer who would merely slip the figures down. 
 With regard to the obvious discrepancies we 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 173 
 
 must not forget that we are reading a play 
 where Henri Regnault’s ultimate criticism for 
 painting “ does the thing do well in its place ?” 
 applies equally well. 
 
 The impregnation in Hamlet’s mind of his 
 purpose to put the King to death at all 
 hazards after his return to Denmark, is admir¬ 
 ably shown in 0 2 : he thinks in the grave¬ 
 yard of Cain, the first Fratricide, and when the 
 funeral of Ophelia enters, his first words are 
 “ here comes the King!' 
 
 That the reading “Wilt drinke vp vessels" 
 is not a mutilation of “ Woo’t drinke vp Esill,” 
 is shown by a passage from Fletcher’s Wife for 
 a Month. Alphonso burning with the cunningly 
 administered poison of Sorano, cries :— 
 
 “ Drink, drink, a world of drink ! 
 
 HI lie upon my back, and swallow vessels 
 
 Haue rivers made of cooling wine run through me,” &c„ 
 
 In the bragging match between Andrea and 
 Balthazar the latter says, “Tut, love me, man,, 
 when we have drunk hot blood together 
 Hamlet before he goes to his mother “ could 
 drink hot blood,” and surely it is as grand to 
 drink strong pungent vinegar as hot blood : 
 besides Minsheu (1625) gives “ Eisel, or vineger. 
 
1 / 4 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 a Gr. Essig. . . showing that the word was 
 in vogue in Shakespeare’s time. Horatio’s re¬ 
 mark that Osric “ will disclose himselfe without 
 inquirie” suggested “ This Lapwing runnes away 
 with the shell on his head.” 
 
 The King’s last words in the Fratricide are, 
 “ Oh woe ! I receive my evil reward in he 
 says nothing; in Q 2 “ O yet defend me friends I 
 am but hurtin the King cries, “ Looke to 
 the Queene in 0 2 this is put into Osric’s 
 mouth, the King still tries to cloak his villany. 
 “ Shee sounds to see them bleed the King in 
 O, is nearer to the “ good villain” of the Fra¬ 
 tricide than to the King of Q 2 , who dies “ game.” 
 
 Again, in the very last page is consistent 
 with itself in a small point. In the Hystorie, 
 Hamlet, “ not minding to loose any time,” 
 harangues the Danes in the market place : 
 “ Let there a scaffold be rearde vp in the 
 market place,” says Horatio in Qj : “ Beare 
 Hamlet like a souldier to his graue “Take 
 up the bod ie” says Fortinbras in Q, : “ giue 
 order that these bodies High on a stage be 
 placed to the view’,” says Horatio in Q 2 : 
 “ Beare Hamlet like a souldier to the stage 
 “ Take vp the bod ies,” says Fortinbras in Q 2 . 
 These are not the alterations of shorthand. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 175 
 
 An honest and sustained attempt was made to 
 hold the “ mutilation” theory as a barrister 
 might a brief, but the longer it was held the 
 more was it felt that it must completely and 
 irrevocably go. If the holders of it will pardon 
 me for saying so I think it results from read¬ 
 ing Qj too much with the aid of Q. r Whilst 
 making my transcript the theory seemed a 
 certainty during the first two acts, and came up 
 again at intervals with great force through the 
 remainder : but if the Saga, Hystorie, Fratri¬ 
 cide, Qj and Q 2 be read separately and at one 
 sitting, with an interval of a few days between 
 each, to obtain and keep intact the total 
 impression, a delightful and overwhelming feel¬ 
 ing that we are viewing a continuous growth and 
 evolution will be borne in upon us ; and as the 
 Saga is the spiritual father of the Hystorie, so 
 also is the first quarto the spiritual father of 
 the second. 
 
 Sweet and holy is that Persian custom that 
 calls a man’s friends together when he has 
 found in his garden some faultless and perfect 
 bloom, some rose of the valley of Sharon, 
 fulfilled of the sun and the dew of the dawn, 
 whispered to by the choir of heaven and their 
 mistress the moon : around it they sit on their 
 
176 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 squares of carpet and sipping their sherbet 
 thank God the giver of all good gifts with 
 silent joy. Deep in the gloom of the North 
 are the roots of the Saga struck, and deep in 
 the heart of man is the love of the rose they 
 bear, and not for many a day will men cease 
 to call their friends to watch fresh beauties 
 unfolding. 
 
 If then the first quarto be an early sketch, to 
 what year are we to ascribe its composition. 
 Somewhere I believe between 1596 and 1598. 
 
 In “ 1596 August 1 ith Hamnet filius Wil¬ 
 liam Shakspere” died : and we who know of 
 Goethe’s calm face by day, and sobs heard in 
 the night over his son, may form some faint 
 idea of what a far warmer heart than Goethe’s 
 suffered at the loss of his only boy. A melan¬ 
 choly interest clusters round the name of Ham¬ 
 let or Hamnet. By the end of Easter 1597 
 “ William Shakspeare gentleman” is beginning 
 to get spacious in the possession of property by 
 paying £60 to William Underhill for New 
 Place. In 1601 John Shakespeare died, and 
 his son William in 1602 pays ^320 for one 
 hundred and seven acres of land in the parish 
 of old Stratford. Our poet now knows what it 
 is practically to lose a father. This “ great 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I 77 
 
 buyer of Land” may again get curious about 
 vouchers and double vouchers, leases, freeholds 
 and tenements. 
 
 Are we straining Hamlet’s words in the 
 graveyard— 
 
 “ An excellent fellow by the Lord Horatio 
 This seauen yeares haue I noted it : the toe of the 
 pesant, 
 
 Comes so neere the heele of the courtier 
 That hee gawles his kibe,” 
 
 too much in seeing in them an indication of 
 date? In Love’s Labour’s Lost (1588—90) 
 Shakespeare had a good-natured laugh at the 
 “ picked” age : after seven years we shall be 
 somewhere near 1596. 
 
 The great objection to this date is of course 
 the omission of Hamlet from Meres’ list : a 
 minute examination of the “ Comparative Dis¬ 
 course” becomes then imperative. The edition 
 of 1636 states that the “ Goulden Sentences” 
 are “ set for cheefly for the benefitt of young 
 Schollers” : we must not therefore expect a full 
 or critical account of the various authors men- . 
 tioned. Francis Meres was a schoolmaster and 
 clergyman in Lincolnshire, and could hardly be 
 expected to be “ up” in the latest news of the 
 metropolis : from his evident and considerable 
 
i 7 8 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 obligations to Puttenham I thought at first 
 that like the Art of English Poesy, the “ Dis¬ 
 course” may have been written some time 
 before publication. Puttenham however men¬ 
 tions “ Master Edward Dyar for elegie, most 
 sweete, solemne and of high conceit he was 
 knighted in 1596, and as Meres calls him Sir 
 Edward, he must have been engaged on his 
 work after that date. The mention of Shake- 
 peare’s “ sugred sonnets among his priuate 
 friends” gives considerable weight to Meres’ 
 testimony, as he must either have been one of 
 the private friends or intimately acquainted with 
 them. 
 
 Meres enumerates eighty-seven English poets 
 by name and alludes to seven others : eleven 
 only are mentioned more than once : Michael 
 Drayton is his favourite : Shakespeare comes 
 next. 
 
 A remarkably prominent feature, which can 
 only be fully appreciated by reading the “ dis¬ 
 course,” is an affected symmetry in the fifty- 
 •seven paragraphs. Twenty-eight of them are 
 perfectly balanced : “ As Parthenius ' Nicaeus 
 excellently sings the praises of his Arete : so 
 Daniel hath diuinely sonetted the matchlesse 
 beauty of his Delia.” We can almost see the 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 179 
 
 worthy pedagogue waving his ferule after “As” 
 and bringing it down with a rap at “ so,” and 
 that boy of his who could remember a tithe of 
 the names must surely have been the lineal 
 ancestor of Macaulay’s schoolboy. Eighteen 
 Greek authors pair off with eighteen English : 
 twenty-seven Latin writers stand vis-a-vis to 
 twenty-seven English : seven Italian authors 
 keep company with seven English : five Greek 
 authors with five works are set over against 
 five English ditto : four Latin authors with five 
 works are matched with four English ditto. 
 The two famous paragraphs on Shakespeare are 
 considered unbalanced : I am morally per¬ 
 suaded that if there had been more than six 
 comedies we should have had more than six 
 tragedies mentioned. Although it is the height 
 of rashness to confess such an opinion, each 
 fresh re-perusal strengthens the suspicion that 
 Meres’ trick of antithesis ran away with him 
 and led him to invent Love Labour’s Wonne. 
 I do not think that Shakespeare would have 
 used two such antitheical titles as Love’s 
 Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won. The 
 best critics seem agreed that the style, verse 
 and plot of All’s Well belong to one period : 
 the Taming of d Shrew is the groundwork of 
 
 M 2 
 
i8o 
 
 HAMLET I 
 
 the Taming of the Shrew, and it appears pretty 
 certain that the date of Much Ado is i 599— 
 1600. 
 
 The words “ for comedy witnes ” show that 
 Meres did not intend to mention all Shake¬ 
 speare’s works : the examples cited are sufficient 
 “ witnes’ 7 for “ young Schollers” that “ Shake¬ 
 speare among ye English is the most excellent 7 ’ 
 in tragedy and comedy, and the omission of the 
 three parts of Henry VI., of the first draft of 
 Hamlet, of the Taming of the Shrew, may be 
 satisfactorily explained by Meres’ desire not to 
 confuse his pupils, but to give them only those 
 plays to which the name of Shakespeare alone 
 had been prefixed. They might be puzzled by 
 hearing the names of other men associated with 
 Henry VI., of another Hamlet, of the Taming 
 of A Shrew. The artifice of a play within a 
 play may have struck Shakespeare’s fancy about 
 1597, and it is not all improbable that he should 
 use it in a tragedy and in a comedy at the same 
 time. The introduction of Titus Andronicus in 
 Meres’ list, I can account for only on the supposi¬ 
 tion that the early writer was clean forgotten, and 
 that Shakespeare’s name was coupled with it 
 from the known fact of his having touched it up : 
 that he perpetrated the play I do most potently 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 1 8 1 
 
 disbelieve. And as in the quietude of the 
 study we cannot begin to appreciate Shake¬ 
 speare’s plays until we have in the rapture of 
 artistic vision the characters moving and speak¬ 
 ing within the candid chambers of the brain, so 
 we must be very careful not to carry out critical 
 judgments back to his time. No modern reader 
 would adduce Titus Andronicus as a proof of 
 our poet’s genius, but when we remember the 
 extraordinary popularity of the Spanish Tragedy 
 we must not be over-surprised at an Elisabethan 
 who does. English criticism had its birth per¬ 
 haps in William Webbe’s Discourse of English 
 Poets (1585), but it had not donned the toga 
 virilis when James ascended the throne. 
 
 This is the weak point, as far as external 
 evidence is concerned, in my theory : but I find 
 myself unable to frame any solution that is not 
 open to grave objections ; considerable amuse¬ 
 ment has been got by accepting for the time 
 the various theories started and noticing how 
 beautifully the same fact will support each. A 
 skilful barrister could make out an excellent 
 case for every proposed solution except, I 
 should imagine, that marvellous one which 
 assigns the early Hamlet of 1589 to Shake¬ 
 speare and Marlowe in conjunction, the first 
 
182 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 draft to 1601 and the completed sketch to 
 1603. In the face of such a theory as that I 
 can only exclaim with Celia, “ O wonderful, 
 wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and 
 yet again wonderful and after that out of all 
 hooping !” 
 
 It is unfortunate that the aesthetic feeling, 
 which will chiefly influence a man in his appre¬ 
 ciation of a work of art, should be precisely 
 that one which is least communicable. To 
 believe that the first quarto is an early sketch 
 appears to me an overwhelming necessity. 
 The very atmosphere we breathe in reading it 
 feels altogether different from that of the second 
 quarto : the characters are simpler beings, they 
 move to their fates in simpler lines, the threads 
 are simpler and their ends are more easily seen ; 
 they do not yet stretch from eternity to eternity, 
 plainly visible only in the parts near us : we 
 see in it far more distinctly that marked 
 antithesis so sure a sign of Shakespeare’s early 
 work when like a young artist he had to “ block 
 in square.” 
 
 Ofelia tells us at once of the Prince’s mad¬ 
 ness, “ So pitifull to him, fearefull to me like 
 the German Hamlet, the English Hamlet com¬ 
 plains that he has “ His father murdered, ci 7 id 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 183 
 
 a Crowne bereft him ; ” take away the antithesis 
 and you take away at the same time the last 
 vestige of selfishness, a double improvement. 
 Knight has shown that the madness—or rather 
 the talk about the madness—is much more 
 pronounced : as in the Fratricide it rises to 
 a Raserei, a frenzy. The characters in the 
 early quarto are a little given to talking : the 
 subordinate ones do not photograph themselves 
 on the brain with the strength of the amended 
 copy. The numerous shiftings of the same 
 words from the mouth of one actor to that of 
 another where they have more dramatic pro¬ 
 priety : the change of the firm outline of the 
 Queen to a fuller body with a boundary vary¬ 
 ing with her surroundings : the ordinary villain 
 who comes to a resolve in the praying scene 
 transmuted into one who cannot do that even, 
 and quits his grasp only in death, these varia¬ 
 tions are due and due only to a growth of 
 artistic power. Against the inclination of the 
 Clarendon editors to see considerable portions 
 of the Urhamlet in Oj may be placed the testi¬ 
 mony—and upon that testimony we cannot 
 lay too much stress—of the brothers Eduard 
 and Otto Devrient : they affirm, and to their 
 affirmation they add the weight of practical 
 
184 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 experience, that Q } is superior to Q 2 for acting 
 purposes, a result that would not happen if 
 the Fratricide preserves in the main a play of 
 which portions of some size are still left in the 
 first quarto. 
 
 “ Poetry,” cries Goethe—“ poetry is deliver¬ 
 ance !” and when Shakespeare in 1596 had 
 delivered himself from Romeo and Juliet, I 
 believe he needed deliverance from Hamlet, 
 and surely the genius that was going, in after 
 life, to scale the tragic heights and dive into 
 the tragic depths of man would give some 
 early proof of coming might. 
 
 The warm love-languorous air of Verona, 
 where Philomel in some melodious plot singeth 
 of summer in full-throated ease: the cold bright 
 stars that glitter on the battlements of Elsinore, 
 weird-lit with shadow and the moon’s pale 
 beams, where the barren sea beneath moans 
 against the rocks or drags the pebbles down 
 with angry rauk : Hamlet and Romeo that 
 live in meditation or the thoughts of love : the 
 lovers that clasp hands and souls at the meeting 
 of the lips : the lovers that unclasp hands and 
 souls in the parting with their gifts: ripe 
 Juliet, filled with passion pure and vehement, 
 cleaves to her husband and leaves her father 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I8 5 
 
 and her mother: sweet maid Ophelia, that cannot 
 bourgeon and blossom in Danish air, yields to 
 her father’s deception and slips alone to muddy 
 death : Mercutio, instinct with wit and lyric 
 lilt, whose light is quenched : Horatio the pru¬ 
 dent and grave who lives to tell of the sad 
 tragedy—these are births and these are twin 
 births of the self-same soul. 
 
 But above and beyond all. recastings, shiftings, 
 and changes, the alteration in the character of 
 Hamlet stands pre-eminent: the satirist of the 
 first quarto grows and develops into the philo¬ 
 sopher of the second, weighted with the poet’s 
 own ripe experience, with the poet’s own most 
 secret feelings. 
 
 When Wilhelm Meister was written, the first 
 quarto had not been discovered, and if the 
 critics, who, blindly following that marvellous 
 piece of criticism which carries forward so 
 worthily the torch lit by Lessing, find in 
 “ irresolution” the keynote of the character of 
 him who did not set his life at a pin’s fee, had 
 rather studied his psychological genesis in the 
 additional aid afforded by the early draft, we 
 might ere. now have heard the last of the 
 vacillation theory. 
 
 This solution of Hamlet’s mystery strangely 
 
186 
 
 HAMLET: 
 
 overlooks the inherent difficulty and danger of 
 his task. If any reader will make the endeavour, 
 however inadequate it may be, to render him¬ 
 self “ hiibsch objectiv,” and stand in Hamlet’s 
 place at the end of the first act and lay out a 
 plan of action that shall unkennel the King’s 
 guilt, he will, if his experience is at all akin to 
 mine, find himself growing ill long before he 
 can arrive at any definite conclusion as to what 
 he is to do. 
 
 Let us imagine a young man, full of genius, 
 noble by birth, with an almost morbidly ex¬ 
 quisite sense of right so strong that he can 
 hardly believe evil in others although examples 
 gross as earth leap up before his eyes, suddenly 
 called away from the University by the no less 
 sudden and mysterious death of his father : his 
 mother, who has the disposal of the estates, 
 asks her brother-in-law to manage them during 
 her son’s minority, and after two months marries 
 him. One day the frightened gardener comes 
 to the young man with a marvellous story that 
 he has seen a ghost at the bottom of the lawn: 
 they watch together, and the apparition of the 
 murdered man imparts to his son alone the 
 manner of his death and lays upon him the 
 dread injunction of revenge. After swearing 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 18; 
 
 the gardener to secrecy, he goes in his profound 
 agitation to seek solace from his sweetheart, 
 the steward’s daughter, the only friend that’s 
 left to him, and finds her door—locked! What 
 is he to do? Time slips by and he unpregnant 
 of his cause finds that he can “ say nothing 
 let us write “say” big, and say that “say” is 
 not “ do” : then, to his horror, “ whether it be 
 bestial oblivion or some craven scruple of 
 thinking too precisely on the event” a sicken¬ 
 ing fear comes over him that the ghost he has 
 seen may be naught but an hallucination born 
 of his weakness and his melancholy. What is 
 he to do, or what would the holders of the 
 irresolution theory have Hamlet do ? 
 
 Is he directly after the ghost’s disclosure to 
 force his way to the King’s bedroom—kings as 
 a rule have sentries about—kill him by his 
 mother’s side, lecture her, call the Council 
 together, inform them that two of his own 
 intimate friends could vouch for the appearance 
 of his father’s spirit, who had described to him 
 and to him alone the manner of his murder by 
 their present King and demanded revenge ; 
 upon this is he to ascend the throne marry 
 Ophelia and live happy ever afterwards? Should 
 the Council, many of whom would have medal- 
 
188 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 lions of the King, that had cost them a hundred 
 ducats apiece hanging round their necks, dis¬ 
 believe Hamlet’s story and bring him to a trial, 
 he would find some difficulty in getting a 
 subpoena served on the ghost: or, if he could, 
 a ghost giving evidence in an ancient Danish 
 or a modern English court would considerably 
 puzzle the councillors or lawyers as to the 
 value of his evidence. 
 
 Hamlet is matched against no common 
 enemy : smiling specious popular prompt 
 audacious unscrupulous drunken lecherous 
 villain that he is, the exposure of him must be 
 complete and instantaneous : in his case justice 
 must have no limping foot, or he will assuredly 
 trip her. He who contrived and successfully 
 perpetrated such a damnably simple and subtle 
 murder is not to be easily overreached. 
 
 Despite Hamlet’s triumphant and exultant 
 breaking into rhyme, the player scene is more 
 of a success for the King than for him : on 
 Hamlet’s mind and on Horatio’s mind there is 
 no doubt left about the King’s guilt, but that 
 guilt does not “ proclaim” its malefaction : on 
 the King’s mind there is no doubt left that 
 Hamlet holds his secret, and that he shall not 
 hold it long : the suspicion aroused by the little 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I 89 
 
 phrase “ all but one ” is now confirmed, and on 
 the heels of that confirmation treads the de¬ 
 termination that Hamlet’s head shall be struck 
 off “ no leisure bated, no, not to stay the grind¬ 
 ing of the axe.” 
 
 Hamlet would have been removed effectually 
 from the Danish court and from all hope of 
 accomplishing his revenge had he not with 
 prompt ingenuity devised collusion with the 
 “ pirate,” and perhaps also with the captain of 
 his own ship : on the introduction into the 
 second quarto of this episode of the pirate, Mr, 
 Swinburne, in one of those sentences of his 
 which might well serve as a model for our 
 lawyers, so completely does their leaping 
 rhythm render the use of stops superfluous, 
 rightly and conclusively says, “ The compulsory 
 expedition of Hamlet to England his discovery 
 by the way of the plot laid against his life 
 his interception of the King’s letter and his 
 forgery of a substitute for it against the lives of 
 the King’s agents the ensuing adventure of the 
 sea fight, with Hamlet’s daring act of hot¬ 
 headed personal intrepidity his capture and 
 subsequent release on terms giving no less 
 patent proof of his cool-headed and ready- 
 witted courage than the attack had afforded of 
 
HAMLET : 
 
 190 
 
 his physically impulsive and even impetuous 
 hardihood—all this serves no purpose whatever 
 but that of exhibiting the instant and almost 
 unscrupulous resolution of Hamlet’s character in 
 time of practical need.” 
 
 With heart as strong as steel, though by 
 nature as tender as human pity Hamlet uproots 
 his love for Ophelia : with incredulous reluctance 
 he sees at last that she too can lie and spy upon 
 him, but even then he must needs press 
 the prick inwards, he must foment his anger 
 with misrepresentations of himself, with vulgar 
 commonplaces against women before he can 
 bring himself to part with that woman whose 
 chiefest beauty was her utter immunity from 
 them. This complete and irrevocable plucking 
 up of all that was nearest and dearest before 
 the dread commandment came was never the 
 action of an irresolute man : he would have 
 alternated between fits of cruelty and fits of 
 love, he would have gone to the verge of 
 divulging his secret and then sworn her to keep 
 hid what he had never disclosed, he would have 
 sent her away with his left hand, and. clasped 
 her in his human need of sympathy and help 
 to his bosom with his right. 
 
 Hamlet’s parting with Ophelia must ever 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 191 
 
 appear harsh and cruel in acting, but again we 
 must ask, “What could he do ?” When he next 
 meets her he takes refuge against himself in 
 indecency. A nunnery was the only refuge 
 from the black storm that was looming in the 
 heavens. When Samson made sport for the 
 Philistines in the Temple of Dagon what advice 
 other than “ Flee from the wrath to come!” could 
 he give to his brethren or any of the house of 
 his father who haply had given in to the 
 worship of false gods ? 
 
 An irresolute man would have leaned on the 
 sturdy Horatio, he would have found danger 
 where no danger was, he would have made 
 hypothetical cases near his own to sound people’s 
 feelings, to find what allies he could reckon on : 
 he might have clutched at a futile plan of 
 having the grave opened. 
 
 The very abuse that Hamlet pours out so 
 prodigally upon himself, his very questioning 
 whether he be pigeon-livered, whether he can 
 bring his courage to the sticking-point, make 
 against rather than for the theory of vacillation: 
 had his hands been tied and his feet bound by 
 irresolution he would have hardly breathed to 
 himself in half whispers the chief defect in his 
 nature. “ About my brains he cries : at Lin, at 
 
192 
 
 HAMLET I 
 
 Amsterdam, at Strasbourg, common ordinary 
 people have had their murders avenged through 
 players : players have caused murder to speak 
 with most miraculous organ : while I, I Hamlet 
 the genius, I the king of words, I who can 
 baffle all my spies, I who can sweep heaven and 
 earth with my philosophy, I who can look with 
 piercing gaze into that awful question “ Whence, 
 O God, whither ?” that presses with such ob¬ 
 stinate persistence on all thinking men, why I, 
 even I, can say nothing, no not for a king, and 
 that king my father. I cannot bring the 
 damned villain “ to a public count” and prove 
 his guilt: I cannot swing his body on a gibbet 
 and fatten “ all the region kites with this slave’s 
 offal.” 
 
 The issue at stake for Hamlet is so momen¬ 
 tous that the advice to the players is a very 
 serious business with him : he can ill afford to 
 let the King have a chance of recovering himself 
 during the clown’s tomfoolery. The play scene 
 is a failure : The King’s occulted guilt is to 
 force the fence of his teeth and burst from his 
 lips “ in one speech there leapt from the mouth 
 of the murderess at Strasburg the cry, “ Ah, 
 woe ! that hits me : for so did I too murder 
 my innocent husband and she was brought 
 
■I 
 
 FIRST QUARTO. 193 
 
 before the judge , condemned and died : but the 
 King does not proclaim his malefaction. 
 
 The death of Polonius was a blunder : to 
 have killed the King at his prayers would have 
 been a worse blunder, and that the King whom 
 he had just left on his knees could not pos¬ 
 sibly be behind the arras Hamlet forgets, so 
 shaken is his soul, so great was the effort to 
 stay his arm. “ I will bestow him and will 
 answer well the death I gave him to whom ? 
 to what ? will Hamlet answer well the death of 
 Polonius ? Why, to a “ public count,” and to 
 such a count the King should answer also. 
 
 During four acts Hamlet does not apparently 
 make his mind up : the retort that he has a 
 deal of mind to make up is sufficiently obvious 
 but none the less weighty, and even Shake¬ 
 speare would find some difficulty with a hero 
 who finished his drama before the second act. 
 Not only has Hamlet a large mind, but also a 
 large heart to make up : the sheriff may have 
 no doubt of a murderer’s guilt but he would 
 prefer the hangman’s doing the execution. 
 
 But justice cannot catch the slippery villain : 
 revenge then must: my life is dear to me, but 
 when two thousand souls expose all that is 
 mortal and unsure even for an eggshell, my 
 
 N 
 
194 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 life is but a small price to pay for the avenge- 
 ment of a father and a King. “ My thoughts 
 be bloody,” and bloody enough do Rosencrantz 
 and Guildenstern soon find them. 
 
 When Hamlet returns to Denmark the King 
 or he must die at any cost : his mind is made 
 up as an irresolute man’s mind never was made 
 up : drive irresolution into a corner and like a 
 rat it will spring, but irresolution never coined 
 “ the interim is mine” (supreme touch of a 
 supreme artist, how can we sufficiently admire 
 it ?) “It means more mischief than all the 
 monologues ! No threats, no imprecations, no 
 more mention of smiling damned villain ; but 
 solely and briefly, “ It will be short; the interim 
 is mine !” What matters it if the ship rocks to 
 windward and lee, the anchor firmly grips the 
 bottom. “ The interim is mine :” I can bandy 
 jests with the gravedigger, I can beat Osric at 
 his own weapon, I can talk quietly with Horatio, 
 “the interim is mine.” Here, if anywhere, 
 here in Hamlet’s mouth, in Hamlet’s speech, 
 with the one last refuge left him, may we find 
 the keynote of the drama— 
 
 “ Does it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon— 
 
 He that hath killed my king and whored my mother ; 
 
 Popp’d in between the election and my hopes ; 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 195 
 
 Thrown out his angle for my proper life, 
 
 And with such cosenage—is’t not perfect conscience 
 To quit him with this arm ?” 
 
 So tender, pure, and strong is Hamlet’s ■ con¬ 
 science that he cannot act till it it be perfectly 
 satisfied: he is somewhat like a mathematician 
 who in the solution of a difficult problem will 
 not neglect small quantities. The germ of this 
 noble but action-hindering characteristic is to be 
 found in the Hystorie “ The Prince that never 
 vsed lying and who in all his answers that euer 
 he made (during his counterfeit madnesse) 
 neuer strayed from the truth.” 
 
 But neither can Hamlet’s character nor the 
 character of any man that is worth his salt be 
 summed up in a phrase however happy. “The 
 idea of Hamlet is conscious plenitude of intel¬ 
 lect, united with exceeding fineness and fullness 
 of sensibility, and guided by a predominant 
 sentiment of moral rectitude.” There is in him 
 “ a strong conflux of contending forces,” and not 
 only in him but outside of him there is a strong 
 conflux of contending forces : for the resultant 
 of a man’s action in this world is made up of ex¬ 
 ternal and internal forces, and ea.ch set produces 
 its full effect. The play without Hamlet is not 
 more ridiculous than Hamlet without the play 
 
196 
 
 HAMLET : 
 
 Hamlet moves in an alien world and that alien 
 world crushes him : that he falls is true, but 
 that he fails is not true, even his hellish wish 
 that the King’s soul may be caught in some 
 act heavy enough with sin to make his heels 
 kick at heaven is gratified. Hamlet loses his 
 life, but life, as Goethe says, is not the highest 
 of possessions : the Danish court is foul with 
 crime, and his life is the doctor’s fee for lancing 
 the imposthume. On the cheap vulgar ven¬ 
 geance that would be satisfied merely with the 
 King’s death, an incisive and decisive commen¬ 
 tary has been written by Shakespeare himself. 
 For Laertes the nether world need send no 
 messenger to urge revenge : the obscure burial 
 is enough for him. He surely has no tinge of 
 irresolution : but what avails his fiery haste, 
 his Danish following, what fruit does his dedi¬ 
 cation of both the worlds to negligence bear, 
 what aid to him is his naked sword, ready to 
 pave a path to his revenge though all the 
 world oppose him ? These are but lights to 
 light his soul a dusky path to death : these are 
 but snares to entrap him into the subtle King’s 
 pitfall : men shall hear that Laertes “ had a 
 father hee held deere,” ay but what a wounded 
 name shall Laertes leave behind ! 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 197 
 
 Strange indeed is the fascination that leads 
 men to traverse the byways and devious paths 
 of literature, if haply they may throw some 
 light on their beloved poet, and stranger still is 
 it that with such an aim they grow not 
 weary nor travel in pleasanter ways : and who 
 shall blame us if with fond fancy we dream that 
 our wonder, reverence, love can mount up the 
 tideless unresting stream of time, and touch 
 with glad joy the soul of him whose stature 
 grows with the growing years : whose soul is 
 as tender as a moon dawn on a summer night 
 or the opal heavens that usher in the sun ; 
 whose soul is as just in her movements as the 
 ever-law-obeying stars: whose soul is as strong 
 as death or love or the unsubduable spirit of 
 man ? 
 
I9 8 
 
 HAMLET ; 
 
 EXCURSUS ON “THE DRAM OF 
 
 EALE.”* 
 
 -— - 
 
 Attracted to “ the dram of eale ” like a moth 
 to the candle, I arrived independently at the 
 conclusion that the reading should be 
 
 “ the dram of e’il 
 
 Doth all the noble substance often dout 
 To his (= its) own scandal.” 
 
 E’il for evil as deil for devil; dout in the sense 
 of extinguish is a familiar Devonshire word : 
 all the changes could easily be made by a 
 careless compositor’s ear : the “ t” in “ often” 
 being less distinct than in “ oft.” In the only 
 two examples in Fj we have “dout” spelt 
 “ doubt:” in this very play Laertes says— 
 
 “ I have a speech of fire, that faine would blaze, 
 
 But that this folly dotibts it.” 
 
 In Henry V. the bragging Dauphin cries— 
 
 * This excursus was removed from the body of the 
 essay at the suggestion of the examiners. 
 
FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 I 99 
 
 “ Mount them [our steeds] and make incision in their 
 Hides, 
 
 That their hot blood may spin in English eyes 
 
 And doubt them with superfluous courage.” 
 
 Holofernes complains that some racker of 
 orthography speaks “ dout, fine, when he should 
 say doubt/’ Schmidt gives five examples of 
 “ evil” used in the sense of “ bad quality, im¬ 
 perfection, defect.” Orlando asks Rosalind if 
 she can “ remember any of the principal euils” 
 that her religious uncle “ laid to the charge of 
 women.” This word is used elsewhere by 
 Shakespeare as a monosyllable, and that its 
 ancient pronunciation was different from the 
 modern is proved by a line in Sidney’s Arcadia, 
 at the end of the song between Philisides and 
 Eccho : we read 
 
 “ Tell yet againe me the names of those faire formed to 
 doe euills? Deuills. 
 
 the last two words form a spondee, and we 
 can satisfy the scansion and the echo only by 
 pronouncing “ do eels ? Deels.” A remarkable 
 confirmation that eale = evil was afforded by 
 Q 2 , which prints “ decile '’ twice on the same page 
 for “ devil”— 
 
 “ The spirit I haue seene 
 May be a deale , and the deale hath power,” &c. 
 
200 
 
 HAMLET : FIRST QUARTO. 
 
 And in the first part of Hieronimo we have— 
 
 “ What dares not he do that near [=never] hopes to in¬ 
 herit ?” 
 
 The meaning then is, “ The alloy of imperfection 
 overgrows and finally extinguishes the noble 
 substance in a man, and the fact that it does 
 so proves a scandal, a stumblingblock to the 
 general judgement in believing that the substance 
 was really noble after all.” Othello, Corio- 
 lanus, and Antony are marked examples of 
 this psychological truth. When Moses led the 
 Israelites across the Red Sea he rescued a nation 
 from oblivion and changed the world’s history : 
 so too an obscure passage in Shakespeare 
 carries the commentators down the stream of 
 time, and the readers who come after them may 
 be pardoned for sometimes fancying that they 
 have shared the fate of the Egyptians. My only 
 excuse for meddling with a passage that has 
 defied so many critics, is the hope that the fresh 
 points brought forward—fresh as far as I know— 
 may help to clear up this venerable crux. 
 
201 
 
 # 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 P. ioo. Nash’s letter : see School of Shakspere, 
 vol. ii. : account of Green’s quarrel. 
 
 P. ill. Dr. Latham’s conjectures: see the 
 New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, 
 by Horace Howard Furness. Hamlet, 
 vol. ii. p. i 19. 
 
 P. 1 13. For an account of the murders dis¬ 
 covered by means of players, see Cohn’s 
 Shakespeare in Germany (1865) p. cxxii., 
 or the School of Shakspeare, by Richard 
 Simpson, vol. ii. p. 2 1 2 — 
 
 P. 1 1 6. “ Two masters among our company are 
 devoted to the Roman Catholic Religion,” 
 see Cohn, p. cii. 
 
 P. 125. The list of plays acted at the Dresden 
 Court by the English Comedians in 1626 
 is given by Cohn, pp. cxv.-cxvii. 
 
 P. 126. Tycho Mommsen: see Atheruzum, 
 Feb. 7th, 1857. 
 
 For Goethe’s letter, see the Revue des Deux 
 Mondes, ier Novembre, 1879, p. 10. 
 
 o 
 
202 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 To this article I am indebted for the simile 
 between Moses and the commentators. 
 
 P. 127. See Studies of Shakspere, by Charles 
 Knight. London : 1849. Pp. 5 7 —l ^ 7 - 
 P. 140. See Rees’ Cyclopaedia, j. v. Stenography. 
 Ferrex and Porrex : see Dodsley’s Old 
 Plays, vol. i. p. ic> 5 - 
 
 P. 142. “In the words of a practical printer,” 
 &c.: see Athenceum, Jan. 27th, 1872, p. 114. 
 P. 144. Citation from Sannazaro and derivation 
 of Polonius due to C. Elliot Browne : 
 Athenceum , July 29th, 1876. 
 
 P. 1 5 1. “ As Knight says:” Studies of Sh. p. 58. 
 P. 154. Holinshed, bk. iii. ch. xi. : see Furness, 
 vol. i. pp. 69 and 66. 
 
 P. 159. Father Hubburd pointed out, by J. W. 
 
 Hales, Athencemn , Sept. 14th, 1878. 
 
 P. 163. The line And therefore sweete Nature 
 must pay his due does not need alteration. 
 The accent on the second syllable of 
 “ Nature” is an archaic French one. 
 
 P. 164. “as Dyce points out:” see Furness, 
 vol. i. p. 267. 
 
 P. 166. For the Spanish Tragedy and first part 
 of Hieromino see Dodsley’s Old Plays, 
 vol. iii. (2nd ed.) 
 
 “the supposition of Miles,” &c : see Fur¬ 
 ness, vol. i. p. 308. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 203 
 
 P. i 72. “ Mr Halliwell has attempted,” &c. : see 
 Furness, vol. i. p. 391. 
 
 P. 173 - Quotation from Wife for a Month: 
 pointed out by J. Kershaw, in N. and Q., 
 Oct. 5th, 1872. 
 
 P. 177. For a reprint of Meres, see Censura 
 Literaria, vol. ix. 
 
 P. 189. See a Study of Shakespeare, by A. C. 
 Swinburne, 1880, p. 167. 
 
 P. 194. “It means more mischief,” &c., quota¬ 
 tion from Miles: see Furness, vol. i. p. 423. 
 
 P. 195. “The idea of Hamlet,” &c., Hudson : 
 see Furness, vol. ii. p. 171. 
 
 P. 199. Arcadia, ed. 1627, lib. ii. p. 227. 
 
 The chief peculiar words in the Fratricide are 
 —Casus, adhoerenten, alteriren sich = Fr. s’alterer, 
 simuliren, Solennitaten : the colours for half 
 mourning, “ Carmosin, Purpur and Scharlach 
 I tried hard to find out, but unsuccessfully, 
 whether these are English or German : Con- 
 sens, Cavalier, perfect and veritabel, prasen- 
 tiren ; Plomaschen, Ouatrober (? corruptions of 
 Fr. Plumage and Garderobbe) : permittiren, 
 contentiren, action, Theatrum, spendiren, 
 Esclav, harquebusiren : alio Revange ? = al la 
 Vendetta (Ivyd is fond of scraps of Italian), 
 Rapier, Fronte. 
 
2 04 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Furness, vol. ii. p. 120, spanische Pfauen- 
 tritte : the difficulty vanishes if we remember 
 that the Spaniards were noted for pride ; 
 put then spanische = proud. A meaning can 
 be tortured out of Phantasmo’s phrase dass 
 Euch die Klinge verlahme : Phantasmo knows 
 that Hamlet is wounded with the poisoned 
 sword he holds in his hand : by the exercise of 
 stabbing him Phantasmo hopes that “the blade 
 may paralyze”— i.e., the poison on the blade 
 will paralyze sooner than if Hamlet kept still. 
 
 That the author of the Spanish Tragedy 
 wrote the Urhamlet is very probable. The 
 change from a father avenging his son to a son 
 avenging his father was not far: the play 
 within the play is used in both, the hero in 
 both feigns and seems to be really mad, there 
 is the same fear of missing the revenge, in 
 each the young woman dies, and they both 
 end with an almost clear stage. 
 
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